The Irish Potato Famine - Essay Example

The Irish Potato Famine In the mid-nineteenth century the very survival of many Irish poor was dependent on the potato crop for various reasons, many of which remain in question today. Internal and external factors depressed the economy of the nation and potatoes were often the lone food source for about three million Irish and the main source for millions more. In attempting to determine the cause of the population decline of the latter half of the nineteenth century in Ireland, researchers have continuously pointed out that “Irish capital markets in the first half of the nineteenth century were severely underdeveloped” which “had crucial implications for the working of the economy.”1 However, it cannot be denied that the effects of the potato failure had long-reaching and detrimental effects upon the population at large. There were many reasons why potatoes emerged as the primary crop for Irish farmers to subsist upon. Potatoes are nutritious, easily grown and stored which made it the perfect food for the times and circumstances. The production of potatoes as a means of feeding the family, while all other crops and manufactured goods were used for outside trade or to further enrich the land for planting, enabled society to flourish in the first part of the century. However, when potatoes became suddenly unavailable, the hardships and deaths that followed were of catastrophic proportion. There have been a wide variety of theories as to why this happened, including the contention that the decline would have occurred regardless of what might have happened with the potato crops, but careful analysis has continued to demonstrate that the failure of the potatoes created a significant shift in the direction of Ireland that continues into the present day. This sad event in history has led people to question why it happened, the effectiveness of governmental remedies and how a similar event can be prevented in the future. The human suffering that resulted from the ‘Irish Potato Famine’ of 1846 to 1850 occurred predominantly due to the peasant class of Irish being reliant solely on one crop, the potato, for sustenance. Prior to the 1800’s, the Irish grew several different types of crops, many of which would have been able to meet the humanitarian need that would arise in the failure of potatoes. These included barley, rye, oats and vegetables.2 However, British law, concerned with protecting British interests, introduced the protectionist legislation referred to as the Corn Law. This law, and subsequent laws introduced in the years to follow, imposed a tariff on imported grains as a means of essentially forcing the greater public to purchase domestic goods in Britain.3 While these laws were not uncontested, they remained in effect to some degree or another until well into the mid-century. “An Anti-Corn Law League was founded and expressed its views through meetings, petitions, pamphlets, and speakers. Two great orators, Richard Cobden and John Bright, contributed mightily toward enlisting popular sympathy in the free trade cause.”4 Between the protectionist movement and the free trade agreements that were worked out throughout this period, there seems to have been little flexibility in what could be done for the Irish during their crisis. The effect of these laws on the Irish and their contribution to the Great Famine continue to be debated. Some historians claim that because such harvests as grains and corn were no longer profitable in England due to high tariffs, most landowners converted their tillage acres over to the production of the potato.5 Because of the low rate of sales in foreign markets, Ireland remained cash-poor and these landowners therefore paid their farm workers in pounds of potatoes with which they were able to feed their families. More investigation reveals a much greater depth to the story. According to Teresa Johnson,6 most of the landowners in Ireland were already English with a few privileged Irishmen thrown in. These landowners tended to grow the grains and other products that Britain could sell at premium prices abroad through special agreements drawn up between them. Although laws changed over time, these agreements proved hard to break: “Indeed, even as Irishmen were starving, Ireland’s abundant wheat and maize harvests were being shipped to England. The effect of the Corn Laws was thus the following: Despite an abundance of food, both in Great Britain and abroad, the artificially high price of grain placed bread beyond the economic reach of cash-poor Irish deprived through the potato crop failure of their major source of income.”7 Thus, economic conditions are often blamed for having set up a vicious circle in which Irish landowners continued to grow corn and grain products to sell to England as the only means by which they could maintain their properties while the farmers who worked for them had little option but to suffer and starve. Poor farm workers in Ireland often had few options in life and, in the early 1800s, their numbers were growing. The Irish population had spiked 50 percent in the two decades prior to the famine precisely in the rural areas that were hit the hardest when the potatoes failed.8 They worked for landowners in exchange for a small place to live and a small garden plot in which they were permitted to grow their own food. The land they received was usually the land the owner couldn’t use in some more profitable way, such as by grazing herds of sheep, goats, horses or cattle or growing a saleable crop; but this same land could often sustain potatoes.9 “For their own families they [the poor farm workers] planted only potatoes, which cost little and yielded more food per acre than most other crops.”10 Millions trusted their fate to the health of the potato despite previous evidence that the potato had its own susceptibilities. According to George O’Brien,11 the potato had proven to fail in certain seasons, particularly when it became warm and moist such as in the spring or summer. Woodham-Smith12 reports that the potato had failed at least 24 times since 1739 and each summer a significant portion of the population was forced to go hungry until the new crop came in. It is interesting to note that the number of people who are generally thought to have starved through the summer, about two million, was approximately equal to the number of people who either died or immigrated out of Ireland during the famine as the population fell by approximately two million during this time.13 In 1846, the Irish climate became wetter and warmer than usual which was conducive for the proliferation the fungus that ultimately destroyed the potato crop. The weather did not cause the fungus but acted to further its progress through the country. The fungus, Phytophthora infestans, arrived in Ireland from Europe the year before. Had the country experienced a more normal weather pattern, the fungus would have not produced the same sort of devastating outcome. “The spores of the blight were carried by wind, rain and insects and came to Ireland from Britain and the European continent. A fungus affected the potato plants, producing black spots and a white mould on the leaves, soon rotting the potato into a pulp.”14 The 1846 potato crops perished almost entirely and, though potatoes can be easily stored for up to a year by simply being kept in the ground, they cannot be sustained any longer than this and still remain edible. Therefore no surplus food had been stored for use later than 1847. The poor had access to food for the first winter but had nothing at all to eat after that for three long years. Of course, the farmers planted again the next spring but the rains brought another round of fungus and the crop again failed. The ‘tubers’ they planted necessarily came from the previous year’s crop and still contained dormant remnants of the fungus making re-growth eminent. The entire Irish potato crop was ruined, but Ireland had still produced food sufficient enough to feed its population in the form of the grains and corns grown on the tillable land of the wealthy. However, this food was grown in anticipation that it would be exported to Britain where the producers could get a price above what the poor Irish could pay. “The Irish starved not for lack of food, but for lack of food they could afford.”15 Critics have pointed to the English Parliament’s failure to close the Irish ports, forcing the Irish-grown food to remain at home to feed the poor, as a primary cause for the deaths of so many poor farmers, but again, there is more to the story. The crops grown rightfully belonged to the landowners who needed to earn money as a means of ensuring their own lands didn’t fail. While Parliament might have found a means of purchasing the food and keeping it within Ireland to feed the hungry, this would have simply transferred the problem to England’s own shores. “The suggestion that the government buy Ireland’s produce and distribute it among the Irish would have solved the problem of paying the landlords, but not the problem of feeding the English laborers.”16 The poor and now starving, with no other options available to them, sold all their meager possessions to purchase food, including the tools they would later need in order to earn a living. Others used their rent money to buy food and were quickly evicted from their farm-homes, creating a homeless problem of massive proportions. The next spring, many poor had been ejected from the land on which they had previously planted and had no tools to work the land anyway, making it impossible for them to work their own way out of the trouble. The lucky few that had both land and tools had few potatoes to plant or money to buy seeds. For those who could replant, they planted crops other than potatoes in hopes of avoiding the same sort of catastrophe. The harsh lesson of being dependent upon one crop for survival was certainly not lost on the Irish. “The potato slowly recovered, but the Irish, wary of dependence on one plant, never again planted it as heavily.”17 The British government’s reaction to the famine is generally understood to have been slow, although whether this was by carelessness, design or simply the bureaucratic process of an uncertain government remains uncertain. Parliament attempted to recognize the nature of the problem by scientific inquiry but this provided no conclusions at the time. The Irish Rebellion of 1848, fought against the British, reduced the level of sympathy towards the starving Irish by both the citizens and government of Britain which adopted a laissez-faire attitude of the dire situation. “The influence of laissez-faire on the treatment of Ireland during the famine is impossible to exaggerate.”18 In other words, most believe the British government ignored the Irish in favor of caring for their more immediate citizens, but even this contention is called into question. Like the Irish, the Corn Laws that protected the British market also drove up the price of food for British laborers, making it difficult for them to find and afford food as well. In terms of the mass public, this also served to reduce sympathy for the plight of the Irish as the British poor contemplated the prospect that they, too, might soon be homeless, jobless, tool-less and hungry. “The combination of the Corn Laws and the navigation laws made it unprofitable for foreign markets to sell grain to English or Irish markets.”19 This was because navigation law prohibited any ship from going directly to Ireland with any type of product. This included ships coming from America loaded with food and produce to provide for the starving Irish. Instead, these shipments of humanitarian aid were redirected to the British ports, unpacked and reloaded on British ships before they could be taken to Ireland where they were needed. This, of course, had the effect of “increasing the cost of aiding the needy and lengthening the time that starving people had to do without food.”20 In spite of these contentions, there is evidence that the British government made some attempts to bring relief to Ireland during the worst of the famine. Once the extent of the famine was generally understood in Britain, for instance, the navigation laws were lifted, eventually allowing aid to flow freely into Ireland no later than 1846. Parliament also acted to establish Poor Laws, which utilized property taxes to establish workhouses where the poor could go to exchange work for food. These were not such a success, however, as landowners opposed the taxes and the poor struggled against the strict control, overcrowding and immorality such locations presented. “Some parents decided that it was better for their families to remain hungry than to live among such immoral conditions.”21 According to Lawrence McCaffrey,22 Parliament had also worked early to provide tenant farmers with relief funds totaling at least £8,000,000 to help them purchase the grains they needed to try to alleviate or halt the spread of the famine. All of these measures were started before the famine truly got out of hand as the government attempted to find less drastic means of addressing the various issues. After 1846, though, when the potato crop was completely destroyed, there was little option for help outside of providing free food for the masses. One further effort, the Irish Public Works Department, was instituted as a means of providing landless farmers with jobs that would earn them the money they needed to buy the grain that was being shipped over by Parliament from the United States. “Parliament’s public works system was, for the most part, an exercise in futility. Since the government had stipulated that the works should not benefit any individual, most of the work involved building roads … Because wage payment was often delayed for several weeks, some workers died of starvation.”23 A great number of requests for public works projects were sent in when it was made known that funds would be made available to help alleviate the suffering of the poor, but many of these requests were considered to be primarily based upon personal interest and benefit and thus were refused out of hand. Despite this, the reports being sent to Britain indicated that the public works efforts were having a positive effect. “Lord Lincoln, the chief secretary, assured Sir Robert Peel that the measures being taken to combat incipient famine were succeeding; 5,800 people were employed on public works; private subscriptions had been raised.”24 As has been mentioned, much of the work completed under the banner of the public works department had something to do with roads, but could not today be considered true building or improvement. “Most of the roads were patently unsuitable for transport of communication. Many roads began nowhere and ended nowhere. Few vehicles were likely to use them in the foreseeable future.”25 Thus, out of a fear of using public funds to benefit private citizens, the government instead spent public funds to little or no benefit, particularly when the problems with payment are factored into the equation. As the problems of the famine deepened and relief efforts such as the public works department were proven ineffective in meeting the needs of the populace, numerous private organizations began to send in aid for Ireland. According to Woodham-Smith,26 many private Irish-American societies were among the first to begin sending aid as soon as the famine was made known. Irish troops in India, serving the British queen, were also among the first to send what help they could. A private organization, the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, was given funding by the government and provided a measure of relief with its soup kitchens which served more than three million people a day at the height of the famine in 1847. Soup kitchens were “by far the most effective of all the methods adopted by the government to deal with starvation and disease between late 1846 and 1851. Starvation was generally averted and disease was considerably lessened,”27 as a result of this effort. However, the Quakers did more than simply provide free food through the soup kitchens. They also began distributing turnip seeds to those farmers who could not afford seed otherwise and provided fishermen with loans to help them buy back their boats and other fishing equipment that had been sold in order to purchase food.28 Many of these problems were duplicated to some degree by Parliament as a means of attempting to further alleviate the problems Irishmen were facing, proving that while they were unable to address the crisis quickly and perfectly, they were far from ignoring the problems as they have commonly been accused. While it can be argued that Ireland was doomed to experience a massive economic decline based on worldwide economic reductions in the need for rural labor efforts that made up the primary support for most of the population, it remains undeniable that the disaster that struck the potato crops in these years profoundly affected the country. To have this type of effect, numerous elements had to be in place to begin with. The poor people of Ireland depended too much upon the fallible potato for their chief or sole sustenance because of the economic conditions that provided them with land only suitable for growing this type of crop. Economic conditions of the time also held that the wealthy Irish landowners had little choice but to sell their crops of grain and corn to England in order to maintain their own properties and were, by and large, incapable of providing the assistance necessary for their poorer neighbors and workers. Climatic circumstances and an imported fungus instigated the demise of the potato crop which could do nothing else but plunge the island into economic ruin and widespread hunger. Government intervention also contributed to the bleak nature of the Irish situation during these years in the form of trade agreements that were slow to change and/or ineffective in meeting the need of the populace within the short time frame assistance was required. The lack of government aid only served to exacerbate the situation as politicians played a waiting game with what they assumed were merely ploys on the part of the Irish to coerce more funding or incentives out of the government, effectively preventing any benefit from actually reaching the people most in need of succor. Supplying free food through private agencies alleviated the problem to some extent and introduced programs that were duplicated for even further benefit. However, it remains the general consensus that more could have been done to ensure no one in either Ireland or Britain starved as a result of one crop failure. References Finneran, John P. (December 1991). “Free Trade and the Irish Famine.” The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. Vol. 41, N. 12. Green, E.R.R. (1957). “Agriculture.” The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-1852. Dudley Edwards & Desmond Williams (Eds.). New York: New York University Press. Griffiths, A.R.G. (December 1970). “The Irish Board of Works in the Famine Years.” The Historical Journal. Vol. 13, N. 4: 634-652. Japikse, Catharina. (Fall 1994). “The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s.” Environmental Protection Agency Journal. Johnson, Teresa R. (January 1987). “The Irish Potato Famine.” The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty. Vol. 37, N. 1. McCaffrey, Lawrence. (1968). The Irish Question 1800-1922. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. O’Brien, George. (1972). The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the Famine. New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley. O’Neill, Thomas. (1957). “The Organization and Administration of Relief, 1845-1852.” The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-1852. Dudley Edwards & Desmond Williams (Eds.). New York: New York University Press. O’Rourke, Kevin. (March 1991). “Did the Great Irish Famine Matter?” The Journal of Economic History. Vol. 51, N. 1: 1-22. Ranelagh, John OBeirne. (1994, first printing 1983). A Short History of Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2nd Ed. Woodham-Smith, Cecil. (1962). The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849. New York: Penguin Books. Read More