The Irish Potato Famine 1846 – 1850
Assignment:
[Irish potato famine 1846-1850 2 pages what were the social, political, and environmental conditions that contributed to the famine. also include a description of a the extinct of famine, and efforts that were taking to alleviate human suffering.]
Notes: Please copy this paper (cut paste) it into your own document (to make sure the document properties reflect your personal information, rather than any information retained by the Word DOC from my PC.)
Also, feel free to include any pictures (see the references), change wording to reflect things the way you would say them, and otherwise update the document to personalize it.
I know that you cannot use Wikipedia, but you’ll find lots of good analysis of the subject in the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) You may want to go there to find background, additional sources, and stories for this topic (if you have time.)
This is a longer version (4 ½ pages) of the paper. I’ll post this one up here so you can look at it, and work on paring it down to two pages. Please let me know if this works for you.
Thanks – Steve
Body of the paper is below:
The Irish Potato Famine 1846 – 1850
The Irish Potato Famine was one of the most significant events in the history of Ireland, with effects that impacted almost every area of Irish life. The Potato famine was caused by a mix of political, social, and environmental factors that combined to destroy the main food source for the Irish peasantry. This lead to mass starvation, disease, emigration, social upheaval, and unrest. Almost a quarter of the island’s population either died or emigrated.
Social and Political Conditions:
English landlords were often Protestant and absentee, living in England. Many seldom visited their estates due to distance, concerns for their own safety, and lack of an appropriate social life. Indeed, some landlords only visited their holdings only once or twice in their lifetimes. Instead, the holdings were managed by middlemen, who managed the operations of the estates. These estates produced grains, beef, and dairy products for export (usually to England). The middlemen themselves were judged by the revenues produced by their estates. Part of the revenue came from rents collected from the generally Catholic Irish tenant farmers, who would lease small plots of land from the middlemen. These were usually 5 acres or less, and larger plots might be subdivided over the generations into smaller and smaller plots.
The tenant farmers often lived in very cramped conditions, with many people living in small, windowless and chimney-less huts (that they often shared with their livestock). They were crushingly poor, and for some, their possessions amounted to their clothes, their animals, and the dung heaps that were used as fertilizers.
Environmental Conditions:
The potato was first discovered by the Spanish, in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Potatoes grow well in poor soil, and produce a plentiful harvest. This made them an idea food for feeding the Irish peasants, as they could produce enough food to feed a family on their small plots of often marginal land. An acre of land could yield up to 12 tons of potatoes, triple the amount of grain that could be grown on the same plot of land. This was enough to feed a family of six for a year, with the average laborer eating between 7 and 15 pounds of potatoes each day. Potatoes contain all the vitamins and minerals necessary for human life, so other crops weren’t grown as much. These factors meant that the potato became more and more important as a primary food source for much of the year.
There had been failures of the potato crop prior to the great Potato Famine. However, those blights were caused by different organisms, and although some were severe, none spread as quickly and as completely that of Phytophthora infestans, the organism that causes Potato Blight.
The spores of the organism can overwinter in infected tubers (such as the volunteer seed potatoes), or in manure/cull piles (used as fertilizer). The spores are easily carried by the wind and washed into the soil by rain. They thrive in the warm, wet environment of the Irish summers.
Once a plant is infected, the surface part of the plant can quickly die, creating more spores that are carried by the wind to infect additional plants. Entire regions can be infected, and the plants die in a matter of a few weeks. The tubers underground may not be immediately infected, but once dug up they can in turn be attacked and destroyed quickly. Many people reported watching healthy appearing tubers turning black and rotting within hours. Potato stores could be attacked and almost literally melt away in days. These provided even more spores, to be carried by the wind to infect further areas.
By the early 1840’s, the conditions were set for a disaster. The social practices of depending on a single crop for the majority of food, along with the practices of subdividing plots of land into smaller and smaller plots; the political divisions and prejudices between the English and the Irish; and the practices used in cultivating potatoes combined to set the stage for the Great Potato Famine. The almost complete dependence on the potato as a food source, the vulnerability of the lumper variety to the potato blight, and its quick and virulent spread meant that large areas were quickly deprived of food. Seed potatoes were either destroyed, or there weren’t enough for the next year’s crop.
Humanitarian efforts
There were several attempts to reduce human suffering, although they met with no widespread success. Although the British were largely responsible for the social and political conditions which set the stage for the famine, they also deserve some credit for trying to prevent the catastrophe (as well as credit for its worsening.)
At first, the British government purchased grain and enacted public works to alleviate the impacts of the crop failures. Great public works projects were enacted, with laborers paid to build roads and level hills. These had mixed successes. In order to avoid competing with private enterprises, the roadways often led to nowhere, and projects were deliberately run inefficiently. It was not unknown for labors to starve to death before receiving their wages.
In 1846, in the belief that market forces would provide the relief necessary (and also wishing to shift the burden of relief efforts to private groups), the British government halted the public works projects and food sources. This left many without any work, money, or food. Official British government aid was reduced and almost eliminated. The burden was shifted to the local governments and landlords, and private charities.
Work Houses, administered through the Poor Laws, sheltered and fed many. Various charities also attempted to provide aid. Funds were raised for famine relief from a number of sources. Soup kitchens, often supported by religious groups, also were used to help feed and support the starving. Donations of food and funds came from all around the world; from Irish soldiers serving in British regiments in Calcutta, to American Irish Immigrants, to Royalty such as Queen Victoria and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. .
Many of the landlords also tried to help their tenants. Some fed their tenants from the produce originally marked for export. Others either forgave or deferred rents until the situation had improved. Some landlords helped the starving to emigrate, by encouraging or paying for passage
Summary
The Irish Potato Famine was devastating. An estimated 1 to 2 million people, of an estimated population of almost 8.2 people in 1841, either died or emigrated during the famine, leaving a population estimate of 6.5 million in the 1851 census. Hunger continued for years afterwards, as the social and economic echoes continued to reverberate through Ireland. Since many of the victims of the famine tended to be the poor farmers and tenants, the Irish language suffered the loss of many of its speakers – leaving English as the language of many of the survivors in the cities and less hard hit regions. Distrust between the Irish and English, due to the poor relief efforts, the harsh tenant eviction laws, and overall repression continued to deepen – resulting in continued rebellion and discontent. Huge numbers of Irish emigrated throughout the world, landing in North America.
References:
Ireland: The Great Famine http://www.humboldt1.com/~history/lexiso/
The History Place: Irish Potato Famine http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/
The Irish Potato Famine http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm
The Irish Famine: 1845-9 http://www.victorianweb.org/history/famine.html
The Fungus That Conquered Europe http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17reader.html?_r=1
Letters on the Irish Potato Famine http://encarta.msn.com/sidebar_781539711/letters_on_the_irish_potato_famine.html
The Irish Famine http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/2807/irishfamine.html
Gratitude to the Ottomans http://www.fountainmagazine.com/articles.php?SIN=7316305e60&k=854&1347841039&show=part1