The Great Famine in Ireland

The individual consumption of potatoes in Ireland in 1841 was 12 lbs a person per day. It represented over 90% of the diet of virtually the entire population of the country. This represented a dangerous dependence for a population of almost 7 million and rapidly increasing. The potato had been introduced from Peru. The Phytophtora Infestans fungus has been traced to a single valley in the Mexican central highlands. It came to Ireland and much of Europe via infected vegetables aboard the newly heralded Clipper Ships from the United States. The impact of “Late Blight”, the common name for the fungus was catastrophic. Close to Three Million deaths across Europe can be blamed directly or indirectly on famine derived casualties.  The consequences to Ireland were the worst. Many regions of Ireland suffered population losses in excess of 25%. The consequent impact of emigration and redistribution of the population have had impact on Ireland even today. The population has just recently regained its 1841 levels.

Ireland had been directly governed by Britain from 1801 under the Act of Union. Executive power lay in the hands of the Lord Lt. of Ireland and Chief Secretary for Ireland both of whom were appointed by the British Government. In the forty years following the Act of Union the British government grappled with the Irish issues. The complex set of events that led to the circumstance that provided for the tragedy of the Great Famine is not only scio-economic and political. There were vast religious and cultural edicts that when combined produced the environment for the ‘Perfect Catastrophe”

 Wholesale poverty on a monumental scale immersed in the single most productive agricultural resource for British food stuffs. A disenfranchised Catholic population lived on the doorstep of poverty on tenant land held for the most part by absentee owners. 1829 saw some emancipation of Catholic rights but very little in the way of improvement to the economic plight of the over 80 % of the impoverished agricultural anchored population.

British protectionist tariffs on grain were in place prior to the impact of the Great Famine; The Corn Laws. These tariffs artificially kept the price of corn high. Prime Minister Peel recognized early in the Famine the severity of the crop failure. He moved to have the Corn Laws repealed in order to bring down the cost of grain. In a stop gap effort he secretly purchased £ 100,000 worth of Indian corn from the United States. The corn, essentially cattle feed, was not milled and required ample preparation before it was “suitable” for consumption. The attempt at repealing the Corn Laws split the conservatives and led to the fall of Peels government. His successor John Russell’s efforts at relieving of famine stricken Ireland proved relatively inadequate.