Survival and Migration: The Human Impact of the Irish Potato Famine
Reading Time: 10 minutes The Irish Potato Famine was one of the most horrendous tragedies of modern times. From 1845 to 1852, Ireland was wracked with heartbreak, grief, hunger, and starvation. Although this was, on the surface, a story of crop failure, at the core, it was a humanitarian crisis. Survival and Migration: The Human Impact of the Irish Potato Famine will examine the famine’s impact on Ireland’s population.
The starvation was so desperate that some families packed up what little they had and left Ireland for other countries to search for food. Migration during this time permanently changed Irish life. This was not only a local, national, or even European issue; it had worldwide demographic and societal repercussions. As we excavate through the search for survival, we will learn about the famine’s impact on the Irish population.
Ireland Leading Up to The Irish Potato Famine
Before the Famine, the island of Ireland could be described as bucolic and picturesque, with little social equality. Native Irish people lived under British rule as tenants of English landlords. These landlords farmed the land and frequently left Ireland to focus on the more lucrative export of grain. They left what they saw as marginal land to native Irish tenants. As a result, the Irish people, left to farm on the less desirable plots of land, were relegated to raising potatoes, which were hardy and high-yielding enough to support their families on their small plots of land.
Because of this social and economic situation, Irish farmers depended heavily on the potato. In fact, an estimated two-fifths of the population’s survival depended on this one food source.
Ireland’s economic and political landscape was shaped by broader forces in the years before the Irish Potato Famine. As part of the United Kingdom since 1801, Ireland was increasingly bound economically to Britain. This, along with several socio-economic factors, would work to their detriment as the Potato Famine drew near.
While trade and transport improved and parts of Irish industry modernized, the most important consequence of British rule was that Irish farmers’ primary market for their products was in the south. The bulk of the Irish agricultural produce was shipped to feed the rapidly urbanizing and industrializing English cities. In this sense, the Irish were unique in that they could export surplus grain to Britain and Ireland (as well as the New World), while their own people depended heavily on a single food source.
The political and social reality of the time also contributed to the pending tragedy. The Penal Laws of the late 17th and 18th centuries had been relaxed somewhat by the early 19th century, but an enormous imbalance between Ireland’s Protestant and Catholic people remained. Land and business ownership, as well as political rights and wealth, were still not shared equitably between the two religious groups.
The next decade would be pivotal in Ireland’s history. Although the Irish were largely unaware of it at the time, the Potato Famine, an event that would alter the face of Ireland forever, was about to begin. As the first clouds of potato blight appeared in the mid-1840s, Ireland was unprepared for the changes to come.
The Blight Begins & Then Rages
The Irish Potato Famine was caused by an aggressive strain of water mold known as Phytophthora infestans. It was first identified in the United States in the early 1840s, then in Belgium, and later in 1845 in Ireland. It began as strange black blotches on potato leaves and quickly spread across fields. The blight killed potatoes, making them black, moldy, and inedible. As farmers harvested the potatoes, they found them rotten and smelly, turning a vital food supply into mushy trash.
The disease spread faster and more widely than any in history. It was most devastating in a country where so many people were so dependent on this one food crop.
The calamity worsened year by year as the blight destroyed each successive potato harvest from 1845 to 1852. Without their staple food, large numbers of the population began to starve. This was worsened by the lack of other foodstuffs and the continued export of other agricultural produce to Britain. Mass starvation was soon accompanied by epidemics of typhus, cholera, and dysentery.
Ireland’s social and economic fabric, already taut before the famine, began to tear. Tenant farmers were evicted en masse because they could not produce enough to pay their rents. In addition to those evicted, rural families unable to feed themselves or pay rent fled their homes in search of work, food, and assistance. The countryside was dotted with huts and shanties built on the roadside, and workhouses were filled beyond capacity.
But beyond this, Ireland’s face was changing in more lasting ways as well. The Great Irish Potato Famine triggered a mass diaspora. It is estimated that 1-2 million Irish fled in the hope of not dying in Ireland during the famine years. Ships carrying Irish to North America, Australia, and elsewhere were filled beyond capacity, and many never saw Ireland again. The scale of this mass exodus changed the face of Ireland as the country lost a large part of its young, able-bodied population.
Death was an extremely prevalent occurrence throughout the Potato Famine in Ireland. The primary cause of death during this time was starvation. As more fields fell fallow and food shortages spread, more and more families ended up with no food at all. Malnutrition left many people vulnerable to diseases, which were equally rampant. Typhus, relapsing fever, cholera, and dysentery were all widespread epidemics that likely took as many lives as starvation. The living conditions of the Irish, whether in workhouses or shanties by the road, were also cause for this spread of disease.
Ironically, such places designed for comfort, such as the workhouses, became centers of infection. The famine conditions, consequently, turned the Emerald Isle into a landscape of despondency, characterized by the grotesque, skeletal appearance of its occupants and the presence of death. It is generally believed that at least one million Irish people perished due to starvation and related diseases.
Irish Sentiment Towards Great Britain During the Irish Potato Famine
The famine also increased tensions between Ireland and Great Britain, its colonial ruler. Many Irish blamed British policies for the disaster. This tension, combined with the steady decline in the Irish population while exports of grain, meat, and dairy to Britain were not curtailed, roused deep resentment among the Irish people. The laws in place that prevented imports of cheap foreign grain also protected British grain producers and guaranteed a profit for Irish grain exported to the British market. These laws were known as the Corn Laws.
In addition, the British relief efforts, such as the establishment of public works projects that were intended to give the Irish work in exchange for wages with which they could buy food, were viewed as too little, too late, and were generally mismanaged by British authorities. The public works projects often required backbreaking labor for very little pay (generally not enough to keep a family alive in the inflated economy caused by the famine). The creation of workhouses to provide relief to the poor only further angered many, as these places were notoriously overcrowded and disease-ridden. As such, they were seen as being more penitentiary than charitable.
The British government’s refusal to directly interfere with the food market because of its deeply held laissez-faire beliefs and doctrines further angered the Irish, who viewed the British relief response to the Irish Potato Famine, with its general hands-off approach and emphasis on market economics, as a policy of deliberate genocide or at the very least, a sign of the utter lack of concern that they had for the Irish people. The general feeling of betrayal felt during the Irish Potato Famine years by many Irish people would later help to fuel the movement for Irish independence from Britain.
Ireland’s Slow Recovery & What the Emigrants Found Abroad
The Irish Potato Famine did not end with a single miraculous event that reversed all the bad luck coming Ireland’s way; it ended slowly, as the blight’s grip on potato crops loosened and agricultural and political policies changed. The first change to this came in 1852 when the blight that had stricken Ireland year after year for the duration of the famine began to dissipate and the potato crop of each harvest began to return to normal levels, but this did not mean that all returned to normal right away, the damage had been done and its consequences would affect the nation and its descendants for many generations to come.
Before the famine began, the population of Ireland was nearly 8.5 million people; at the end of the Irish Potato Famine, it is estimated that a million people had died from hunger and disease, and at least another million had emigrated in order to find a better life. This immediately caused the country’s population to decline drastically, and its effects on emigration would continue for years, as many Irish left in the coming decades. By the end of the 19th century, Ireland’s population had nearly halved.
The Famine Memorial sculpture on Custom House Quay is located on the departure site of the Perseverance, one of the first famine ships to leave Dublin in 1846. It shows a group of people about to enter the ship with various expressions of sadness, despair, and hope. – Bernd Thaller from Graz, Austria, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Many emigrants crossed the ocean, and the US became a popular destination for Irish emigrants. Many Irish found themselves living in crowded urban centers and working in low-paying jobs. As Catholics with strong accents, and because of the sheer number of Irish, they often found themselves discriminated against. This caused tensions to rise between Irish and other immigrants, but also between the Irish and people born in the US.
Their participation in the American Civil War helped them to change the image of the Irish abroad. Thousands of Irishmen from the northern states joined the Union Army. Their courage and sacrifice in defending their new country helped change the status of the Irish in their adopted home.
Irish people emigrated to other parts of the world, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They also lived in very different places from Ireland and faced different challenges. Despite this, they contributed to every country they went to and played a role in its development in many ways. This included building infrastructure and getting involved in politics. They also brought a bit of Irish culture, such as Halloween, and left a lasting impression.
Ireland also underwent dramatic changes after the famine. The near-complete reliance on a single crop was seen as a critical mistake, and farmers diversified their crops. The trauma of the Irish Potato Famine would also have a long-lasting effect on the country’s psyche, with a strong nationalist movement following in the wake of the famine. The event became a major part of Irish collective memory, and many saw it as a failure of Britain to support its people. It would be a long time before the memories of the Irish Potato Famine faded. The Irish Potato Famine was a massive event not only in Irish history but also in world history.
