Great Famine

Great Famine (1845–9), caused by the failure, in three seasons out of four, of the potato crop. The harvest of 1845 was one‐third deficient. In 1846 three‐quarters of the crop were lost. Yields were average in 1847, but little had been sown as seed potatoes were scarce. In 1848, yields were only two‐thirds of normal. An alternative measure of the crop loss is demonstrated by the fall in potato acreage. Before the Famine it was 2 million acres, falling to around a quarter of a million acres in 1847.

A fungal disease, Phytophthora infestans, commonly called potato blight, damaged the crops. Its origins are unclear, though bird droppings imported as fertilizer from South America have been suggested as a likely source. The first region of Europe to be affected by blight was Belgium in June 1845. Transmission to Ireland was swift, the first signs appearing in September 1845.

To cope with the loss of a large part of the staple diet of one‐third of the population, relief measures were implemented by private organizations and by government. The Society of Friends was at the forefront, providing food, clothing, cooking equipment, seeds, and money. Their kitchens dispensed soup in towns, cities, and rural districts. Religious houses, churches, and some local gentry were also involved in philanthropic work.

Government's response to the crisis was circumscribed by a range of influences. The prevailing ideology of laissez‐faire held that any tampering with market forces would bankrupt landlords and dislocate trade. There was the belief that the collapse of the potato economy provided an opportunity for agricultural reorganization, through the consolidation of small‐holdings and the removal of surplus population. (For many, indeed, the Famine, in line with the prevalent evangelical theology of the day, was seen as the workings of divine providence, acting to correct the ills within Irish society.) The government was also concerned to make Irish landlords meet the cost of a crisis widely blamed on their greed and negligence, and to ensure that local taxpayers did not evade their share of the burden of financing relief. As the crisis continued, repetition blunted the response of the British public to reports of Irish misery. Severe economic recession in Great Britain itself during 1847 further limited sympathy for Ireland's problems, as did the apparent ingratitude for help given displayed in the return of 36 repeal MPs in the general election of 1847 and the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.

In the first year of famine, 1845–6, Sir Robert Peel's Tory government purchased Indian meal from America for sale from government depots, and inaugurated a programme of public works managed by grand juries and the Board of Works. The Whig government of Lord John Russell, which took office in June 1846, greatly extended the public works schemes, while refusing to interfere either in the internal market in food or in the export of agricultural produce. In February 1847 ideology was at last set aside and kitchens opened throughout the country to supply cooked food directly to the starving without cost or imposition of a ‘work test’. This operation at its peak supplied 3 million meals daily. From September 1847, however, the government wound up the soup kitchens, insisting that further relief should come from the greatly expanded but still wholly inadequate work‐houses run under the poor law.

The severity of the Great Famine is indicated by the widespread incidence of disease. The potato‐eating population had become accustomed to a diet rich in vitamin C and quickly succumbed to scurvy. Symptoms of marasmus and kwashiorkor, although not identified as such, were described in the medical journals. The lack of vitamin A in the famine‐constrained diet was manifest in xerophthalmia—a disease causing blindness—among workhouse children.

Typhus and relapsing fever were the most common diseases afflicting the weakened population. Both were transmitted by the body louse and famine conditions provided an ideal environment for spreading the infection as starving masses congregated in urban centres searching for food. Typhus affected the small blood vessels, especially the brain and skin vessels, which explains frequently described symptoms of delirium and stupor and the distinctive spotted rash. Relapsing fever, as the name implies, was characterized by numerous relapses. It usually invaded its victims through the skin. Popular names included ‘gastric fever’ and ‘yellow fever’, as some patients became jaundiced. Typhus and relapsing fever were no respecters of persons, afflicting rich and poor, old and young, though mortality among the rich was particularly high.

In the absence of official figures we will never know precisely how many died. Neither was there systematic enumeration of emigrants. Estimates of excess mortality range from half a million to just over 1 million; recent research supports the latter figure. The highest levels of mortality occurred in Connacht, and the lowest in Leinster. More died of disease than starvation; the old and the very young were particularly vulnerable.

The pace of evictions increased during the Famine. The ruthlessness of many landlords stemmed from two problems: drastic reduction in rent receipts and rising taxation. Experience varied from district to district. Reliable figures are unavailable before 1849, but in that year the constabulary recorded the eviction of over 90,000 people, increasing to over 100,000 in 1850.

The legacies of the Famine were several. The population declined by one‐fifth between 1845 and 1851, and never regained its pre‐Famine level. The cottier class was decimated, altering the social structure of Irish society. Many thousands escaped hunger by emigrating to Britain, North America, and Australia, accelerating an outward flow already established.

The immediate cause of the Great Famine was blight, but there were underlying forces that had resulted in 3 million people subsisting on the potato. One view would be that the disasters of 1845–9 represented the culmination of a long‐term crisis resulting from rapid population growth against a background of economic decline. More recently some economic historians, pointing to the levelling off in population growth, to the progress of new, agriculturally based manufacturing industries such as brewing, distilling, and flour milling, and to improvements in transport, communications, and banking, have argued that the pre‐Famine economy had not in fact ‘ground to a halt’. In this perspective the failure of the potato should be seen as a massive exogenous blow dealt to an economy that had begun to adjust to changing market conditions. These contrasting perceptions are central to the debate on how far the Famine changed the course of Ireland's development in the 19th century. They also have at least an indirect bearing on the equally disputed question of whether the government of the United Kingdom, notwithstanding prevailing ideology, could have been expected to have done more to alleviate distress in a part of the world's richest nation.

Bibliography

Daly, Mary , The Famine in Ireland (1996)
Kineally, Christine , This Great Calamity: The Great Famine 1845–52 (1994)

E. Margaret Crawford