3.5 The Irish Famine, 1843-51 Flashcards
1
Q
Absentee landlords
A
- owned most of land in Ireland
- mostly in Irish towns or GB
- run by managers
- majority of land in Ireland was given to British/Scottish nobles in plantations
= either lived in Ireland or let out lands
2
Q
Middlemen
A
- local individuals who absentee landlords rented their land to
- took our fixed price long leases
= 100 to 1000 acres - leases out land to tenant farmers - rent out to cottiers
3
Q
Landholdings
A
- exploited cottiers
- no incentive to look after land - parcels get smaller, especially as population increases
- 1841 - 7% of landholdings were ver 30 acres
= 45% under 5 acres
= ealy 1840s, 300,000+ cottiers in Ireland
4
Q
Monoculture and Blight
A
- ‘lumper’ potato
- 10-15lbs of potato between families per day
- potatoes are perishable
= good harvest essential - July 1845, bad weather = blight, Aug 1845
- 1845, 1/3 of crop destroyed
- 1846, 3/4
- 1848, 1/3
- end of 1845 = famine
5
Q
Impact of famine on the populace
A
- 1m irish deaths due to starvation, 1851
= 1st deaths in Autumn 1845
= Population in poor phyrical condition anyway
= also typhus and relapsing fever - winter 1847, epidemic and bad weather
= early months 1847, 250,000 dead - scurvy was an issue - lack of vit C
- famine most prevalent in rural places
- 7% of country’s landholdings were greater than 3 acres
- Co. Cavan had a mortality rate of 42.7%
- poor cottiers most affected - potato only subsidence
= sought charity or wandered for food/work
= took toll on young and old
= high mortality in younger children
= affected Ireland’s social structure for the rest of the century - better off farmers woth 10-15 acres of land hit hard
- potato acreage before 1845 = 2m acres
-1847 = 250,000 acres - Exposed Ireland’s vulnerable rural society
= small farmers/cottiers dependent on 1 crop
= not enough surplus generated
= created by exploitative land system that encouraged the continual subdivision of land = smaller plots - population reduced by 20% by 1851
- famine stimulated emigration aborad
= increased the number of people going to the UK and USA
= over 1 m
= country still hasn’t regained its pre-famine population
6
Q
Robert Peel’s response to the famine
A
- sympathetic
- scientific commission under Dr Lyon Playfair
= had to ascertain the nature of blight and prevent further spreading
= failed, blight was a fungal disease and remedies were ineffective
RELIEF PROGRAMME - initiated 10th Nov 1845
- £100,000 worth of Indian Corn and meal to allow Ireland to purchase reasonably
- corn unfamiliar = food poisoning
= scurvy was common
= inadequate amount - Nov 1845 - RELIEF COMMISSION
- programme of public works
- voluntary donations and gov grants
- gave work to 140,000
- 1846, repeal corn laws in GB, Irish market increased
= wider market in GB for Irish corn
= angered English farmers
= ineffective, Irish still couldn’t afford food
7
Q
John Russell’s response to famine
A
- more abrasice
- advocate of ideas of John Smith
= laissez-faire/free trade
= non intervention of gov
= decided to eave the supplying of food to provate enterprises - Charles Wood and Charles Trevelyan, central decision makers
- Malthus - thought Ireland was vastly overpopulated
= complimented ideas of Wood and Trevelyan regarding free market and non-interventionism - Whyigs though Irish problems were the consequence of poor management
= solution: to minimise further intervevntion - cost of public works = £30,000 a day
= gov relented from non-interventionist policy - Jan 1847, Temporary Relief Destitute Persons Act = soup kitchens
= already establishd by endeavours of the society of friends, provided aid
= e.g. Nov 1846, a quart of soup and 1/2 lb of bread free for 180 people
= rose to 600 within 2 weeks
= cost £6.75 per week
= raised through donations
= conveyed to Russell by chairman of gov’s relief commission, Sir Randolph Routh
= acceptable to gov - rehabilitated action of gov
- soup kitchen through Ireland
- London Refrom Clubs chef Alex Soyer
= 100 gallons of soup for £1
= nutritious - limited nature of gov intervention = obvious
8
Q
Poor Law Extension Act
June 1847
A
- long term attempt by Whigs to solve issues
- to amend the existing Poor Law to deal with bigger problems in Ireland by changing the nature of the Poor Law provision and who eventually funded it
- including:
= all Irish citizens had the right to relief (discretion of Poor Law Guardians previously)
= outdoor and indoor relief now permitted if workhouse was full/infected
= anyone living on more than 1/4 of an acre had to give this up to be deemed as destitute and eligible for relief (GREGORY CLAUSE)
= an Irish Poor Law Commission set up, separate to English one - far reaching impact - reloef now statutory right,s o had to by funded by Poor Law officials not the gov
- now an Irish Commissions, absolved the GB gov of resoponsibilty for cost and organisiation
- Poor Rate was not to be paid for Irish ratepayers, not British
= meant that it was Irish landowners who Russell’s Whig gov blamed for the problems - 1849, 932,000 people were in warehouses and 2x that on outdoor relief
= huge burden on Irish ratepayers - in 1847, expenditure of poor was relief was £1.7m - in response, landowners increased evictions of pauper tenants and converted land to pasture and grazing
9
Q
The problem of export of food from Ireland
A
- food still being exported at height of suffering
- durin 1847, 4,000 vessels left Ireland with cargoes and food stuffs
- majority of this went to GB
- 1846-50 = 3m livestock were exported from the country
- the economic principle of free trade was a dominant concept amongst GB politicians during the 1840s
= they were reluctant to close ports during times of food scarcity - Sir Robert Peel = significant protest when he repealed the corn laws
= didn’t want to undermine the prospects of the English corn market - strong inclination of upkeeping a commercial amrkey despite the humanitarian crisis in Irelad
- further emphasised under Russell in 1847
= stopped buying Indian corn
= bad decision, harvest became worse in 1847 - exports from Ireland rose ad Irish markets sought higher profits selling abroafd
10
Q
John Mitchel
1815-75
A
- though GB could have done more to help famine victims
- observed famine and then became embroiled in the Young Ireland Uprising in 1848
- transported to Bermuda
- when abroad, he collected his vew and opinions on the famine
- wrote ‘The Last Conquest of Ireland’
- asserted an anglo-phobic perspective
- Mitchel singled out Charles Trevelyan
- felt he had deliberately interfered with the relief efforts
- due to his ideological stance
- Mitchel became increasingly hostile to Britsh control as the famine set in
- his writing began to make greater calls for a radical solution to Ireland’s problems
- he was encouraging a natural rebellion
- he desired to fire up greater support for the desire of Irish independence
11
Q
Charles Trevelyan
1807-86
A
- key figure in bringing relief efforts to Ireland
- permanent undersecretary, had a direct role
- keen supporter of Laissez-faire attitudes
- encouraged Ireland to look after themselves
- following the creation of the public works programme in 1846
- had a job of establishing the opeeationg roles
- they were felt to be punitive and though to deliberatelt add stipulatiosn that made the system hard for people seeking assistance
- wage levels for public works were set below local wage levels
- anuone who could find agricultural work was not to be employed
- labourers were to be paid by task rather than by fay
- these were designed to be strict to deter people
- motivation behinf this approach was that he though relief was excessive, Ireland would become dependant on it
- dominant trend among liberals
- Trevelyan was a keen advocate for these principles
- he was meticulous in his application of them in Ireland
- other politiciams founf him having limited awareness when it came to the conditions in Ireland
- he was unprepared to adapt his moralist principles accordingly
- he was big in the poor law extension commission
- he ended the gov soup kitchen act, stopped gov-bought cornmeal
- this was to force people into the workhouses
- by Oct 1847, these activities had both ended
- Trevelyan became a figurehead for nationalist antipathy
12
Q
Depopulation
A
- 20% of population lost 1845-51
- more than 2m people
- death and emigration equally
13
Q
Social impact of depopulation
A
- loss of gaelic language
= before 1845, 2-4m speakers
= 1851 census - 1.8m speakers
= nearly 50% decline
= people unwilling to tell truth in census, not well regarded by GB officials
= many cottiers/small farmers wiped out by famine - 1m dead in 6 years
- social classes
= 1845, 300,000 cottiers
= 1861, 62,000 cottiers
= rural communities transformed
= by 1851 - replaced by fewer individuals holdinf greater tracts of land
= the number of large famers (35+ acres) increased from 277,000 to 314,000
= the desire to retain larger holdings of land, e.g. couples didn’t marry as early as they once did = subdivision of land - catholic religion
= cottiers/small farmers followers of faith - mixing older pagan practices with a more modern concept of Christianity
= 1840s, move in Catholic chyrch - to formalise worship and strengthen the position of the clergy
= ‘devotional revolution’
14
Q
Economic impact of depopulation
A
- reduced numbers direcly impacted tax revenue
- before famine, relied upon tillage farming and growing crops for exploration as the mainstay of the economy
- ‘breadbasket’ of UK - majority of foodstuffs sold in GB
= early 1847 - 32,852 firkins of butter were imported to Liverpool - tillage farming replaced by open pasture and grazing cattle
= due to desire among landowners to evict poor tenants once they became responsible for relief after 1847
= consequent desire to maintain a reduced dependency, grazing cattle profitable alternative to labourer
= grazing for cash regeneration
= tillage farming used for personal usage
= immediate improvement after 1850, world food markets picked u
= prosecution of the ‘GREGORY CLAUSE’ - 25yrs after famine = 2/3 increase in farmers annua income
15
Q
Emigration
A
- begun in c18th, rocketed during famine
- 1m emigrated
- = Irish Diaspora - more than 80m aroung the world
