famine

famine has afflicted societies since the beginning of history. It may be defined as a persistent failure in food supplies over a prolonged period. It is something experienced by society, whereas starvation is something that affects individuals. During famines more people are likely to die of famine‐related diseases than from starvation. The causes are complex. Adverse weather conditions (drought, excessive rain, intense cold) at crucial times, effects of war (scorched earth policies, the provisioning of armies, disruption of trade), pestilence and disease: all these individually or in combination may be to blame.

Famine is generally perceived as the result of a failure of food supplies, typically arising from the Malthusian pressure of population on resources. However some analysts, following the Indian economist Amartya Sen, argue that famine is less commonly caused by an absolute shortage of food than by the lack of ‘entitlements’—that is, the existence of large numbers of persons who do not possess the means either of producing food or of acquiring it through purchase or through transfer payments sanctioned by the state or by custom. Famine thus becomes a product of political and social structures, rather than of neutral economic forces.

In Ireland over a period of six centuries from 1300 to 1900 there were up to 30 episodes of severe famine. Between 1290 and 1400 there were around a dozen, mostly clustering in the decades before and including the Great European Famine of 1315–17. Another dozen or so occurred between 1500 and 1750. After 1750 there were several periods of acute regional shortages, culminating in the Great Famine of 1845–9.

The famines experienced in Ireland over the centuries illustrate their nature both as event and structure. Bad weather in 1294–6 and 1308–10, for example, damaged grain crops, resulting in many deaths. In 1315–17 wet weather produced devastating famine throughout Europe, exacerbated in the Irish case by Edward Bruce's scorched earth policy. Heavy rains destroyed crops in 1330–1 and the price of wheat and oats rose manyfold. A century later in 1433 a severe famine led to ‘the summer of slight acquaintance’. In 1504–5 continual rain and storms ruined crops, and cattle disease decimated livestock. The 17th century was also heralded by bad weather, famine, and disease. The rising of 1641 ravaged crops and precipitated famine. Two famines in the 18th century, 1728–9 and 1740–1, caused great suffering. The famine of 1740 is noteworthy as the first potato crisis; in terms of mortality rates, it may have been greater than the Great Famine of 1845–9. The latter earns the sobriquet because it was the last and best remembered. But for ‘this great calamity’, it is doubtful that Ireland would be regarded as more famine‐prone than other European countries.

Bibliography

Crawford, E. M. (ed.), Famine: The Irish Experience 900–1900 (1989)

E. Margaret Crawford