Great Famine

1845-1849

Poverty, Famine, and Reform

O, Father dear, I oft times heard you talk of Erin's Isle,

Her lofty scene, her valleys green, her mountains rude and wild

They say it is a pretty place where in a prince might dwell,

Oh why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell?

Oh son I loved my native land with energy and pride

'Til a blight came over on my crops, my sheep and cattle died,

The rent and taxes were so high, I could not them redeem,

And that's the cruel reason why I left old Skibbereen

Oh, It's well I do remember that bleak December day,

The landlord and the sheriff came to drive us all away

They set my roof on fire with their demon yellow spleen

And that's another reason why I left old Skibbereen.

Your mother too, God rest her soul, fell on the snowy ground,

She fainted in her anguish seeing the desolation round.

She never rose but passed away from life to mortal dream,

She found a quiet grave, my boy, in dear old Skibbereen.

And you were only two years old and feeble was your frame,

I could not leave you with your friends, you bore your father's name,

I wrapped you in my cóta mór in the dead of night unseen

I heaved a sigh and said goodbye to dear old

Skibbereen

Oh father dear, the day will come when in answer to the call

All Irish men of freedom stern will rally one and all

I'll be the man to lead the band beneath the flag of green

And loud and clear we'll raise the cheer, Revenge for Skibbereen!

Housing

Classification

• Fourth class – mud one room cabin

• Third class – mud, 2-4 rooms, windows

• Second class – good farm house or town house with 5-7 rooms on a small street

• First class – better than above

Cottage 1842

One room cabin Ulster

• Bed outshot - an alcove with a built-in bed • Only furniture - a crude table and a few 'creepies' or small stools• Housed 12

Cottage interior (1846)

Glencolmcille Folk Village

1841 Housing Distribution by Class

• Class 1: 40,080

• Class 2: 264,184

• Class 3: 533,297

• Class 4: 491,278

One Parish Before the Blight

• 2187 Catholics, 443 Protestants• “Ninety families are living in one room to each family

; 160 in two rooms, and 207 in three or more rooms to each family; the average number of persons to a bed is three.”

• Two water pumps; 230 of 413 houses have priviesNorth Ludlow Beamish “Statistical Report on the Physical and Moral Condition of the

Working Classes in the Parish of St. Michael, Blackrock, Near Cork” J. Stat. Soc. London, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Sep., 1844)

St. Michael Parish

• 283 of 653 able bodied males are unemployed; 308 of 680 able bodied females are unemployed. 326 Catholic females and 190 Catholic males attend school

• “The food of the poorest labourer consists of potatoes and milk, or potatoes and salt-fish, the cost of which is about … 4s. 8d. per week for a family of six” or 9s, 6d with meat and bread.” *Laborer’s wages are 5s. 10d for men and 3s for women]

Donegal Before the Blight

• 4000 residents in 1831• One plow, 20 shovels, 7 table-forks, no boots,

no clock, no swine, no fruit trees, no turnips, no parsnips, no carrots.

• No woman had more than one shift• Most families slept together in a single straw

bed.Asenath Nicholson Annals of the Famine in Ireland (1851),

Potato Blight

Origins

Spread in Europe

Famine – Historian’s Response

Whelan, Kevin “The Revisionist Debate in Ireland”

boundary 2, Volume 31, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp. 179-205

The Poor Get Poorer

Coping

• Meat sources

• Crime: indictments

– Property crimes increase

– 19,000 between 1842 and 1846

– 31,000 between 1847 and 1850

– Involuntary(?) transport

• Emigration

Liberal Government

Lord John Russell Charles Wood

Government

Charles Trevelyan Lord Clarendon

Agricultural Economy•Ports guarded

•Export of cattle, pigs

•Import of “Indian corn”

Government Intervention

• Import “Indian corn” (1845)

• Remove duties on corn imports (1846)

• Public works (1846) 700,000

• Relief ₤7,000,000

• Soup distribution 3,000,000 people (1847)

• Workhouse (1847) 250,000

• Outdoor relief (1847) 800,000

Indian Corn

• Purchase £100,000 from US

• Not nearly enough to make up for loss of potato crop

• Protested by Irish merchants

• Tories (Disraeli) allege that scale of relief is unnecessary and politically motivated

Public works

• Communities get funds by lobbying

• Fraud

• Malnourished too weak to work

• Lack of supervision of efforts by local committees

Workhouse

• Over crowding

• Infection in workhouses

• Poor nutrition

• No work

• Outdoor relief

Workhouse Orphanage 1850

Relief from overseas

Outside Aid - US

• 1846 Society of Friends (Quakers) Central Relief Committee in Dublin

– Contributions from US and Canada

• Catholic churches

• Cherokees and Choctaws

• US Congress turns down direct aid; provides ships

Local aid

• £98,000 from local committees, primarily landlords (1% of total rents)

• £1,200,000 Private expenditures by landlords on improvements

Poor Relief-Testimony

• Strzelcki

– More Unions or boards

– Better qualifications

– Labor test unfair when there is no market for labor

– Relief for children through religious institutions

– People believe land of Ireland is cursed

Failures

• Government attempt to maintain free market in agriculture

– No means to purchase food

– Poor transport?

• Bankruptcy of landlords

– No food

– No employment

Soup – ‘Soupers’

Food Distribution

1849 Rate-in-Aid Issue

• Proposal that all areas of Ireland pay a tax to aid bankrupt poor-law unions in the West

• Vehement opposition in Ulster

“it has now become almost a fundamental principle of the constitution, that rates or charges raised upon a locality should be levied and administered by local authorities”

Rep. from University of Dublin

Government aid - Perspective

Public works £2.4 million

Soup kitchens £1.2 million

Loans £4.5 million

Irish poor rates £7.6 million

Annual UK tax revenue £53 million

Crimean war £69.3 million

Landlords

Clearances

• Market changing from tillage to pasture

• Landowners protecting their rights – one English view

• No safety net

Ejectment

Deserted village

Marquess of Londonderry

• Money for renovations £150,000

• Money for local relief £30

• Heartlessness: priceless

Mount Stewart,

Mt. Stewart

Housing changes

Emigration

Emigration

Effects

Destinations

Destination - Liverpool

Liverpool

• 1841 Population 223,000

• January to June of 1847 ~ 300,000 Irish pass through

• June 1847 Government allows local authorities to deport Irish (~15,000)

Stopover - Liverpool

1847 Cork to Melbourne

Migration to Canada

• Most by way of Liverpool

• Death rate (at sea or in quarantine) (1847)

From England -Liverpool 1%

From Liverpool 15.4 %

From Ireland 7.9 %

From Scotland 3.1 %

From Germany 1.3 %

Death rate 1848 1.35%

Grosse Ile

Longer term effects

• Decline of birth rate

– Later age at marriage

– Migration of males to industrial centers

– Increased celibacy

– Increased intramarriage and increased PKU (?)

Sources of emigrants to

Argentina

Death at sea or in quarantine

• Rate for all migrants, including children 8.84 %

• Rate for migrants from England, excluding Liverpool, less than 1 %

• Rate for migrants from Liverpool 15.39 %

• Rate for migrants from Scotland 3.12 %

• Rate for migrants from Ireland 7.86 %

Government policy on assisting emigration

• " The Government cannot undertake to convey Emigrants to Canada because if it were to do so, if we were even to undertake to pay part of the cost, an enormous expense would be thrown upon the Treasury, and after all more harm than good would be done."

• " . . . some 150,000 would have to be spent in doing that which if we do not interfere will be done for nothing”

Earl Grey

Sympathy

Blame the IrishPunch 1849

Victoria in Dublin, 1849

Children Dancing at the Crossroads

“What have we done for Ireland?"

• The discussions on it have been prolonged—in what had they resulted?

• Their legislation had been active—what had it produced?

• They found Ireland prostrate in February—had they raised her in July?

• Her condition was one almost of despair when they assembled—was it one of hope as they dispersed?

Population Changes