The Great Potato Famine Introduction The great Irish Potato Hunger or the Great Potato Famine (is also known as An Drochshaol or An Gorta Mor) occurred between 1845 and 1849. As far as we know from various historical sources, potato was the main daily product for Irish families. No wonder that when the potato crop was merely lost in result of a potato blight (phytophthora infestans), Irish people were doomed for starvation and death. The aim of this essay is to discuss the conditions that contributed to Famine, to explore various sources related to the Great Potato Famine, and to examine the social, political, and economic reasons that led to the Potato Famine as well as environmental conditions. We will also dwell on the relief efforts, namely food aid, participation of governments, countries and international organizations, etc. The Great Potato Famine According to Digital History Website, n.p., during the summer of 1845, a blight of unusual character devastated Irelands potato crop, the basic staple in the Irish diet. Several days after the Irish peasants dug potatoes from the ground, the crop began to turn into a blackish mass of rottenness.
The expert panels were called to investigate the reasons of such unusual disease, however, they came to an erroneous conclusion and suggested that it was a result of static electricity or the smoke that billowed from railroad locomotives or the mortiferous vapours rising from underground volcanoes (n.p.).
The Essay on Irish Potato Famine Lived In England
... was about to happen in 1845, the beginning of the Great Irish Potato Famine. The Irish Potato Famine was the worst tragedy in the history of Ireland. ... eat them due to the loss of the healthier potatoes. In 1845 a crop disease known as 'blight' would be introduced to ... in poor farming conditions. The whole country relied on the crop of potatoes as their source of food and income. In the ...
However, it was a phytophthora infestans, the disease that caused potato blight and, finally, contributed to the great Potato Famine. The spores of phytophthora infestans were carried by the rain, wind and insects. Potato blight, accompanied by dysentery, cholera, infestations or lice, and scurvy spread all over Irish territories. The historians witnessed seeing children crying with pain and looking “like skeletons, their features sharpened with hunger and their limbs wasted, so that there was little left but bones (Digital History Website, n.p.).
Famine fever caused more than 750,000 deaths over the next 10 years and another two million people emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Greta Britain.
However, it is very difficult to find the exact number of deaths, as there are lots of debates. Modern historians and statisticians estimate that between 500,000 and 1,500,000 died. Some historians suggest the death-toll was in the region of 700,000 to 800,000 (Wikipedia. n.p.).
In such a way, within 5 years, population of Ireland was reduced by twenty five percent. Social, political and economic reasons contributed to Great Potato Famine According to Return of the Potato Blight, the deaths occurred in result of the Great Potato Famine were not due just to disease, but also to overpopulation, extreme fragmentation of holdings, enormous income inequalities between rich and poor, and British hostility to Ireland.
Was it true? First of all, lets remember that British-Irish conflict was one of the longest conflicts in the world history. The Irish people relate it to the 12th century and claim that Ireland was considered the first colony of Great Britain. They remind the Ulster Plantation where Scottish Protestants settled and local inhabitants were forced to move out of the lands. Under Oliver Cromwells government England issued the law depriving Irish people their right for the land. According to this law, local Irish inhabitants were not allowed to carry out any kind of foreign economic relations with other countries and were not allowed to rent or buy the land or enter any profession associated with officials/teachers/etc. Instead, many rented small plots of land from absentee British Protestant landlords.
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In Great Britain, there were economic difficulties. For example, the decline of several industries led to high unemployment. In 1929, the Labour Party, which was the largest party in Great Britain, couldn’t solve the problems and fell from power two years later. A new government brought Britain out of the worst stages of the depression by using budgets and tariffs. Britain wouldn’t go ...
Half of all landholdings were less than 5 acres in 1845 (Digital History Website, n.p.) Irish families depended on potatoes since potatoes were the lions share of their diet. Besides, potatoes are very economic and productive in growing, since a farmer could grow triple the amount of potatoes as grain on the same plot of land (Digital History Website, n.p.).
One acre of potatoes was able to feed the family for a whole year. More than 50% of Irish people were completely dependent on potatoes crop. Environmental conditions By the mid 1840s the Irish families were growing enormous amounts of potatoes. Historian James Donnelly, Jr. claims that working families typically ate twelve pounds of potatoes per day (Return of the Potato Blight n.p.).
What is even more, out of a population of 8.5 million on the eve of the famine, about 3.3 million would have been entirely dependent on potatoes for food, and 4.7 million at least heavily dependent (Return of the Potato Blight n.p.) Potato as a vegetable culture was the most productive staple starch for Irelands cool, damp climate (Return of the Potato Blight n.p.).
However, the Irish families also grew oats, wheat, and barley. These cereals together with potatoes, rice and corn, were highly in the list for poor Irish families. Relief Attempts Relief efforts made by the British Government were not very effective. The inadequacy of those attempts worsened the situation. In the beginning of Famine, Great Britain considered that the free market would inevitably put an end to Potato Famine. However, in 1846, in a victory for advocates of free trade, Britain repealed the Corn Laws, which protected domestic grain producers from foreign competition.
The repeal of the Corn Laws failed to end the crisis since the Irish lacked sufficient money to purchase foreign grain (Digital History Website, n.p.).
The Term Paper on Irish Potatoes Famine History Of Ireland
... of office in July 1846. He wanted to reform the Corn Laws, which kept the tariffs high on imported grains. He wanted ... London and New York, 1988. Percival, John The Great Famine, Irelands Potato Famine 1845-51 Viewer Books. New York. 1995. Foster, R. ... and family settlements easier. Hundreds of Irish Landowners put their land on the market because they were almost bankrupted by the famine. Land ...
During spring of 1847, the England tried to undertake another measures to reduce the consequences of Great Famine. These attempts were more successful and consisted of a number of soup kitchens as well as programs of emergency work relief. However, some of these programs collapsed when a banking crisis stroke the Great Britain. Finally, Britain continued to rely merely on a system of work houses and public works. The system of work houses aimed to support starving people was implemented during Lord Russells ministry as laid forth in the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, where the Gregory Clause of the Act was introduced, making aid available only to those who owned less than one quarter of an acre (1,000 sq.m) of land (Wikipedia, n.p.).
This Act was of no help for starving Irish, as it forced them either to give up their homes and land, and so become destitute after the famine, or hold on to them and risk starvation (Wikipedia, n.p.).
These work houses were originally created in 1838 and never aimed to cope with such crisis. According to Digital History Website, some 2.6 million Irish entered overcrowded workhouses, where more than 200,000 people died. Besides, the Famine of 1740-41 is generally considered as the Forgotten Famine. The response of Tory government head Sir Robert Peel was to buy some quantity of foreign maize and deliver it to Ireland. The second part of response was to repeal the Corn Laws (the Corn Law didnt allow to import cheap foreign grain to Irish lands).
These changes made to the Corn Law were made untimely and, unfortunately, werent able to help starving people. Wikipedia (n.p.) describes the response of British government policy towards the famine as prompt and relatively successful. For example, the words by professor Joe Lee are as follows: There was nothing unique (by the standards of pre-industrial subsistence crisis) about the [Irish] famine. The death rate had been frequently equalled in earlier European famines, including, possibly, in Ireland itself during the famine of 1740-41. Bibilography Digital History Website. Retrieved June 9, 2006. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/iri sh_potato_famine.cfm Potato Famine. Wikipedia. Retrieved June 9, 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Potato_Famine_( 1845-1849) Return of the Potato Blight.
The Essay on Sources of Irish Law
Constitution The 1937 Constitution, containing 50 articles, is the cornerstone of the Irish legal system. It lays down the rules that govern interactions between organs of the state and between the state and the individual. The legal system is based on common law tradition. It may be invoked by individuals to challenge the constitutionality of laws passed by the Oireachtas. Under the terms of ...
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