Famine

"His majesty's subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall...be entitled to the same privileges, and be on the same footing as to encouragements and bounties on the like articles, being the growth, produce, or manufacture of either country respectively, and generally in respect of trade and navigation in all ports and places in the united kingdom and its dependencies.... All prohibitions and bounties on the export of articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of either country to the other shall cease...." [Act of Union]

I.  Pre-famine Ireland

Britain vs. Ireland

increasing dependence on agriculture

Irish population growth:

YEAR
POP (in millions)
1500
1.0
1641
2.1
1672
1.7
1712
2-2.3
1791
4.4
1821
6.8
1831
7.8
1841
8.2
1851
6.5
1911
4.4

Source: Oxford Companion to Irish History

lack of economic diversification

highly stratified, bottom-heavy society:

landlords
> Report of an Eviction
middlemen
small holders and agricultural laborers

poverty

Beggars on the O'Connell Estate, 1846 [Views of the Famine]
Irish Cabin, 1846
Scalpeen, 1849
Cabin interior, 1846
Cabin interior, 1847

II. Famine
causes

William Trench (1808-1872), land agent for the Lansdowne estate, "Realities of Irish Life" (1868)

A) The potato (paragraph 1)

Potato dinner, 1846
Searching for potatoes in a Stubble Field, 1849

B) Blight (paragraphs 2, 3, and 4)

phytopthera infestans
sequence of famines
regional variations
victims
    1-1.5 million deaths (Moving body to coffin cart, 1847)
    typhus, relapsing fever, dystentery, vitamin deficiencies
    1.5 million emigrated (1846-49)
evictions (Eviction, 1848)
> Report on Conditions in Scull and Skibbereen; Smith journal

C) Government response (paragraph 5)

Robert Peel (Tory PM, 1841-1846)

Indian meal ("Peel's brimstone")
        Government sale of Indian Corn at Cork, 1846
        Beggars and peasants assembled for Indian meal, 1847

relief depots and public works

Lord John Russell (Whig MP, 1846-1852)
Charles Trevelyan (Chief Secretary for Ireland)

> Mathew to Trevelyan, June 1846
> Routh to Trevelyan, July 1846

liberal ideology

laissez-faire
commitment to private property
private and community responsibility

program of public works

government intervention

> Jones to Trevelyan, Sept 1846
> Treasury circular, Feb 1847

soup kitchens (1847)

Dublin soup kitchen, 1847

application of the New Poor Law (1848-9)

Workhouse exterior
Workhouse interior

 

D. Private relief (paragraphs 7 and 8)

Quakers

Cork Society of Friends Soup House, 1847


III. Consequences (paragraph 6)

A. population decline due to death and migration (Departure, 1850) [map]

1-1.5 million deaths; 1.5-2.0 million emigrants

assistance: subsidies, "American money"

conditions on board and immigration centers

Irish living abroad in 1851:

USA 1,000,000
Britain 750,000
Canada 250,000
Australia 70,000

Liverpool

 

B. social and cultural shifts

farming structures

marriage habits

Catholic Church

Gaelic language

 

C. Irish nationalism [see next outline]

 

International Famine Center