In
Ireland, the
Great Famine (
Irish: an Gorta Mór) was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration between 1845 and 1852. It is sometimes referred to, mostly outside Ireland, as the
Irish Potato Famine because one-third of the population was then solely reliant on this cheap crop for a number of historical reasons. During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight.
Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population.
Records show during the period Ireland was exporting approximately thirty to fifty shiploads per day of food produce. As a consequence of these exports and a number of other factors such as land acquisition, absentee landlords and the effect of the 1690 penal laws, the Great Famine today is viewed by a number of historical academics as a form of either direct or indirect genocide.[8]
The famine was a watershed in the history of Ireland.[9] Its effects permanently changed the island's demographic, political and cultural landscape. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory[fn 1] and became a rallying
point for various
Home rule and
United Ireland movements, as the whole island was then part of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The massive famine soured the already strained relations between many of the
Irish people and the
British Crown, heightening
Irish republicanism, which eventually led to
Irish independence in the next century.
Modern historians regard it as a dividing line in the Irish historical narrative, referring to the preceding period of
Irish history as "pre-Famine".
Contemporary opinion was sharply critical of the
Russell government's response to and management of the crisis. From the start, there were accusations that the government failed to grasp the magnitude of the disaster.
Sir James Graham, who had served as
Home Secretary in
Sir Robert Peel's late government, wrote to
Peel that, in his opinion, "the real extent and magnitude of the Irish difficulty are underestimated by the
Government, and cannot be met by measures within the strict rule of economical science."[134]
This criticism was not confined to outside critics.
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
Lord Clarendon, wrote a letter to Russell on 26 April 1849, urging that the government propose additional relief measures: "I do not think there is another legislature in
Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of extermination."[135] Also in 1849 the
Chief Poor Law Commissioner,
Edward Twisleton, resigned in protest over the Rate-in-Aid Act, which provided additional funds for the Poor Law through a 6p in the pound levy on all rateable properties in Ireland.[136] Twisleton testified that "comparatively trifling sums were required for
Britain to spare itself the deep disgrace of permitting its miserable fellow subjects to die of starvation." According to
Peter Gray, in his book
The Irish Famine, the government spent £7,
000,000 for relief in Ireland between 1845 and 1850, "representing less than half of one percent of the
British gross national product over five years. Contemporaries noted the sharp contrast with the 20 million pounds compensation given to
West Indian slave-owners in the
1830s."[
101]
Other critics maintained that even after the government recognised the scope of the crisis, it failed to take sufficient steps to address it.
John Mitchel, one of the leaders of the
Young Ireland Movement, wrote the following in
1860: "I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more.
The English, indeed, call the famine a 'dispensation of
Providence;' and ascribe it entirely to the blight on potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud; second, a blasphemy.
The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the
English created the famine."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
- published: 07 Apr 2014
- views: 13891