Setting the stage for disaster
Introduction
The famine killed 1 million people and
forced another 1 million to leave.
 Most of the land in Ireland was owned
by British landlords who rented it to Irish
farmers for large amounts of money.
 One-fourth of the population could read
and write.
 Most farms were 10 acres in size.

Introduction (cont.)
1 acre of land could yield 12 tons of
potatoes (feeds a family of 6 for one
year).
 Most Irish farmers lived entirely on the
potato.
 The potato was highly nutritious and
actually kept the Irish peasants healthier
than the peasants in England who ate
only bread.

Before the Famine
1695: Penal laws put in place to punish the
Catholics for supporting the Irish King James
II (Catholic) over William of Orange
(Protestant)
 1798: Ireland tried to rebel against English
rule, but the rebellion was crushed.
 Catholics could not vote, hold office, buy
land, attend school, possess weapons, or
practice their religion.
 Gaelic language was banned.

Before the Famine (cont.)
80% of Ireland was Catholic.
 In 1600, Protestants owned 10% of the land.
 By 1778, Protestants owned 95% of the land
because of the Penal Laws.
 “but an entire nation of paupers is what was
never seen until it was shown in Ireland.”
 Irish population had reached 8 million.
 1838: Poor Law – created Workhouses.

Before the Famine (cont.)
Workhouses split up the families and put
everyone in the family on hard labor, prisonlike conditions.
 2.4 million Irish (1/4 of the population) were
living in complete poverty.
 Irish begin leaving for North America, where
they will assist in massive hard-labor
construction projects (hand digging the Erie
Canal!) for $1 per day.

The Blight Begins
1845: The leaves on some potato plants
blacken and die as the result of an
airborne fungus transported in the holds
of ships from North America.
 Fungal spores spread across the United
Kingdom in one month, destroying both
the leaves and the potatoes
underground.
 Prime Minister Peel moved to repeal the
British Corn Law.

The Blight Begins (cont.)
The Corn Law kept the price of British
Corn very high so that the British
Farmers could enjoy the benefits of
selling at those prices, but the Irish
couldn’t afford to buy the corn.
 Peel’s attempt to remove the Corn Law
was shot down in British Parliament.
 Charles Trevelyan (English) takes over
the relief effort.

The Blight Begins (cont.)
The British continue to IMPORT wheat,
barley, oats and oatmeal from Irish
farmers.
 The Irish had to sell the grain for cash to
avoid being evicted from their homes
even though they needed the food as
much as anything.
 Irish sold off livestock, hoping to get
through the year. The crop had never
failed two years in a row.

The Blight Begins (cont.)
Some Irish borrowed money at high
interest from British money-lenders,
hoping to stay in their homes and
recover the following year.
 Not only did the potato crop fail the
NEXT year as well, it failed for the next
three years. Ireland would be nearly
ruined.

The Great Hunger
June 29, 1846: Prime Minister Peel
resigned because of the anger over his
attempt to repeal the Corn Laws.
 Trevelyan takes over full control of the
situation.
 He closes the Corn Meal kitchens which
we set up to keep the Irish from starving.
He said it was to keep Ireland from
being “too dependent on England.”

The Great Hunger (cont.)
The second year of the blight saw it spread
50 miles per week and killed every potato in
Ireland.
 British people who fed the Irish were rebuked
for doing the “wrong thing.” Trevelyan told
them that the Irish should “form a relief
committee.”
 Winter of 1846 was the worst on record.
Normally, there is no snow. They got several
feet of snow each month through the winter.

The Great Hunger (cont.)
Those that died were buried inches beneath
the ground. Disease began to spread.
 Black Fever (spread by lice) and Typhus
spread across Ireland.
 Now food became available for next to
nothing, but because there was no money in
Ireland, people continued to starve.
 British landlords began evicting the Irish
farmers so that they could grow wheat.

Coffin Ships
Landlords began evicting penniless tenants
and either sent them to jail or sent them to
Canada.
 The ships were often overcrowded and not
well built.
 The 40 day journey often killed 1 in 5
passengers due to disease and sickness.
 The line of ships to get into port at Quebec
was 2 miles long and took 15 days to
process.

Coffin Ships (cont.)
Many dead were dumped into the St.
Lawrence river and others were piled
like wood in mass graves.
 The landlords’ promises that there would
be someone in Canada to help them
were complete lies. They had said
anything to get them out of Ireland and
onto the ships.
 50,000 Irish walked from Canada to
America.

Coffin Ships (cont.)
If the Irish could not get to North
America, they headed for England,
hoping to find food.
 England simply rounded them up and
sent them back to Ireland.

Financial Ruin
June 8, 1847: British Parliament passed
the Irish Poor Law Extension Act which
put the entire cost of the famine relief on
Ireland’s property owners.
 British Soup kitchens were now being
shut down to encourage the Irish to fend
for themselves.
 The British railway industry (unrelated to
the potatoes) financially falls apart.

Financial Ruin
11 British banks completely fail. Bankruptcy
occurs in hundreds of businesses.
 This means there will be no money from
Britain to help the Irish.
 Trevelyan passed a law which required any
landowner to give up their land in order to
receive help.
 The Irish began to violently rebel against
English authority.

Financial Ruin
Britain sent 15,000 soldiers to Ireland to
reinforce their authority.
 1848: Ireland begins to move for Revolution.
 Britain sends MORE troops.
 Laws were passed which would send anyone
who spoke against the British to jail for 14
years or more.
 Fall 1848: The potato crop fails for the 3rd
time.

Financial Ruin
Britain cuts off all help for Ireland.
 Irish people begin deliberately committing
crimes to be sent to the prison colony in
Australia were there was food.
 Thousands of Irish now begin boarding ships
and leaving Ireland for America forever.

Gone to America
From 1845-1848, nearly 1 million Irish
arrived in the USA.
 Their treatment in the US wasn’t much
better. Landlords continued to take
advantage of the Irish need for housing.
 Unsanitary conditions led to disease
outbreaks.
 60% of all children died before the age
of 6.

Gone to America (cont.)
The Irish now competed with the
English-born Bostonians for jobs. The
American unions had worked very hard
to get wages to $1 per day. The Irish
would work for far less than that.
 By 1850, the Irish made up 43% of the
foreign born population in the US.
 As a result of the mistreatment and the
abuse, the Irish kept to themselves.

Gone to America (cont.)
This fueled the American stereotypes that
Irish were drunks (false) and violent (false).
 In Boston, Protestant (English ancestry)
and Catholic (Irish ancestry) rivalries
turned deadly.
 As the Civil War began, the Irish were
drafted into the Federal Army.
 Following the Civil War, the Irish
discovered their way to power was through
the Ballot.

Gone to America (cont.)
Irish Catholics found their way into
government positions and began to
change the system to eliminate the
unfair practices.
 One famine descendant (John F.
Kennedy) even became president.

After the Famine
Back in Ireland, Encumbered Estates Act of
1849 allowed British Landlords to sell off lands
of any Irish who was in debt.
 1879: The potato blight returned in full force,
but this time, the Irish were organized and NO
starvation occurred.
 The Land League (funded by America)
organized boycotts against the British
landlords.

After the Famine (cont.)
The Land War (led by Charles Parnell) led the
Irish to fight against the British to keep their
lands.
 1881: Parnell called off the Land War in
exchange for the elimination of all Irish back
debt.
 Wyndham Act 1903: Allowed the Irish to buy
back their lands at a low price and pay it back
over time to the British government.

After the Famine (cont.)
“The potato failed all over Europe, but there was
no famine except in Ireland.”
 “Nature created the potato blight, but the English
created the famine.”
 Easter Monday, 1916: Violent clash between
Irish and British forces as Ireland moves for
independence.
 Irish Republican Army formed (IRA).

After the Famine (cont.)
Bloody Sunday, November 21, 1920: More
violence between Irish and British forces.
 Easter Monday, 1949: 700 years of British rule is
ended and Ireland is declared a Republic, free of
allegiance to the British Crown.
 The British, however, retained control of a
territory known as Northern Ireland.
 Violence in Northern Ireland (Irish Protestants
and Irish Catholics) played out over decades.

After the Famine (cont.)
In summary: 2,500,000 people were lost during
the Famine (1/4 of Ireland’s population!)
 1,000,000 left for other countries.
 1,500,000 died.
 Total British expense for the famine: $7 million.
 Total Irish expense for the famine: $8.5 million.
 40 million Americans have Irish ancestry.
