HISTORY 265 – IRELAND SINCE 1798
FIRST ESSAY:
In what
ways-if any-did the great famine mark a watershed in nineteenth century Irish
life?
Joshua
Arbury – 2522603
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Many people around the world have seen the Great Famine as the
defining event in Irish history, and “few would claim that the Great Famine had
any other than a profound impact upon Irish politics or Irish society”.[1]
However, there is great debate over whether the Famine was a ‘watershed’ or
‘turning point’; or ‘merely’ a ‘catalyst’ or an ‘accelerator’ of processes that
were already set in motion. There is little doubt that the Great Famine was the
most important event in Ireland of the nineteenth century, and its effects are
obvious: over one million dead, a further 1.5 million emigrants in only ten
years.[2]
Moreover, nationalism was hardened by the famine experience – as many felt
Britain did little to help them during the crisis; the traditional rural
society was broken down, farm sizes increased, and crops were diversified from
the traditional potato, while livestock were often introduced as well.
Undoubtedly, many processes which the Famine has been accused of ‘causing’,
were already clearly occurring before 1845: in 1842 alone over 100,000
emigrants left Ireland for the USA and Canada, while other processes such as
the decline of the Irish language and the increasing influence of the Catholic
Church were clearly evident before the Great Famine[3].
However, the scale of the Famine meant that these processes were accelerated to
such an extent that the Famine clearly was a ‘watershed’ for many aspects of
nineteenth century Irish life.
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Irish life before
the Famine, for the majority, was based around the occupation of small plots of
land under a landlord-tenant system where many of the agricultural labourers
were “contracted to work for a particular farmer for a certain number of days
per year in return for a cabin, a small plot of ground, and other privileges.”[4]
Frequently, the agricultural labourers, or cottiers, used this small plot of
land to grow potatoes to feed their families. Huge population growth over the
previous century, from 2.6 million in 1750 to 8.5 million in 1845, had placed
enormous pressure on the land because of the relative weakness of accompanying
industrial growth.[5] It was the
enormous reliance on the potato that made the blight, which first appeared in
Ireland around August 1845, so destructive. “In 1845, as many as 4.7 million
people out of a population of 8.5 million, depended upon potato as the
predominant item in their diet, 3.3 million of those hand a diet almost
exclusively consisting of potatoes.”[6]
The reliance of potatoes was unevenly distributed, both geographically and
socially, with landless agricultural labourers and cottiers dominating the
potato eaters, while potato growing (although spread throughout Ireland) was
most concentrated in the west and south, from county Cork to county Donegal.
Unsurprisingly, when the potato blight hit Ireland, these areas were the ones
to suffer the worst.
In the 1840s, over
two-thirds of the labour-force in Ireland remained dependent on agriculture, in
contrast to the rest of the United Kingdom which had experienced huge
industrialisation throughout the early nineteenth century. The widening gap
between Ireland and Great Britain, as well as the continued reliance upon the
potato, led many to perceive that Ireland was getting poorer and poorer in the
years heading up to the Famine, and that such a catastrophe was inevitable because
the rapidly growing population could no longer sustainably feed itself in the
event of a persistent potato crop failure. However, there is evidence that
population growth was decelerating and “presumably the adjustment would have
continued in that might-have-been Ireland without the potato blight in the late
1840s.”[7]
However, the impact of the famine led to a drastically reduced birth rate and a
population decrease of twenty five per cent from 1845 to 1851, a tremendous
change from the rapid population growth of the previous century.[8]
In terms of pure numbers, this was clearly a ‘watershed’ in nineteenth century
Irish life.
The loss of one
quarter of the population through death and emigration changed the structure of
Irish society immensely. “Most of the lost population came from the lower ends
of the social scale who had been potato growers”[9],
which had huge impacts on rural Irish society as many areas were ‘emptied’ of
their rural populations. However, the Famine clearly touched every part of
Irish society, and every part of Ireland, as “only six of the thirty two
counties lost less than fifteen per cent of their population between 1841 and
1851”, and those who managed to avoid the worst hit areas were often inundated
with disease carrying migrants wandering all over Ireland in search of food.[10]
The loss of population in rural areas led to huge changes in rural society in
the years following the Famine, the total area farmed with potatoes dropped
from two million acres before the Famine to less the one million acres
afterwards, indicating those most reliant on the potato had either died,
emigrated, or completely lost faith in what used to be their staple diet.[11]
Legislation by the
British government during the Famine was aimed at providing relief, which it
was incredibly ineffective in achieving, as well as facilitating changes within
Ireland’s agricultural system – which was seen as very backward and
inefficient. In its second goal, the government was far more successful, as
pasture replaced tillage in many parts of Ireland, while a quarter of all farms
disappeared between 1845 and 1851, leading to an increased average farm size.[12]
There is little evidence that any such shift was occurring before the Famine,
as tillage remained as the mainstay of agriculture on the eve of the Famine.
Therefore, any such shift was as a result of the Famine, as the scarcity of
effective labour during the crisis made successful tillage virtually
impossible. The larger agricultural plots, made available directly as a result
of the massive rural depopulation, meant that many of the farmers who remained
in Ireland were no longer limited to viewing their lots of land as solely a
venue for growing potatoes, but instead viewed their larger plots as locations
where they could grow a wider range of crops, as well as keeping some livestock
to provide a variety of food and income sources should the potato blight hit
again.[13]
These changes led to slow, but discernable improvements for people who remained
in Ireland after the Famine. Real wages and living standards slowly began to
rise, and single-room houses occupied by cottiers declined from one-third of
all Irish housing to less than one-tenth – although this change had as much to
do with the death and emigration of many cottiers as it did with any
improvement in the situation of those remaining in Ireland.[14]
Ireland’s rural society most definitely experienced a ‘watershed’ as a result
of the Famine, with shifts towards larger, more diverse farms and away from the
traditional small potato-growing plot of land which was related to the
‘emptying’ of rural Ireland through death, emigration and eviction.
The impacts of the
Famine on death and emigration levels are some of the most obvious, and
long-lasting effects of the Famine. Christine Kinealy sums up the legacy of the
Famine by noting that “Ireland never recovered demographically from the shock
of the Famine and, uniquely, at the end of the twentieth century it was the
only country in Europe to have a smaller population than it had possessed 150
years earlier.”[15] Most people
who died throughout the Famine did not literally starve, but instead died from
famine related diseases that wrought havoc upon their bodies, already severely
weakened through malnutrition. Poverty greatly increased the vulnerability to
mortality caused by the Famine, and those areas with the lowest
income-per-capita and literacy levels generally suffered the most. For many,
the only escape from the ravages of the Famine was to emigrate, and 2.1 million
people left Ireland between 1845 and 1855, of which “almost 1.5 million sailed
to the United States; another 340,000 embarked for British North America;
200,000-300,000 settles permanently in Great Britain; and several thousand more
went to Australia and elsewhere.”[16]
However, there is
great debate whether Irish emigration during and after the Famine really was a
‘watershed’ in Irish life, as it had been commonplace for more than a century
before 1845. The Irish born population in the United States was 44,000 in 1794,
indicating a small but significant flow of emigrants across the Atlantic well
before the Famine.[17]
The numbers steadily began to increase after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in
1815, and between 1838 and 1844 351,000 Irish sailed to North America: an
average of 50,000 per year, this was an increase from the average of 40,000
emigrants per year between 1828 and 1837. It has been calculated that if the
rate of increase had continued between 1845 and 1851, roughly 437,500 people
would have emigrated – less than half the 1.2 million people who actually made
the trip during this time.[18]
While this pattern fits in nicely with the argument that the Famine only
accelerated processes that were already set in motion, rather than being truly
a ‘watershed’, it is essential to compare the ‘type’ of people emigrating
before the Famine with those who emigrated during and after it. Before 1845,
most of the emigrants were prosperous farmers or merchants, and a significant
number were Protestants, who were attracted to the United States (primarily),
as a place to further advance themselves. To the majority of the population,
emigration was seen as the path to exile, rather than the necessary escape
route it would become as a result of the Famine. However, during and after the
Famine, the profile of emigrants changed substantially: eighty to ninety per
cent of all migrants between 1851 and 1855 were farm labourers or servants,
rather than the skilled workers who had been the most common migrants before
the Famine.[19] “In both
the late 1840s and early 1850s the overwhelming majority of emigrants were
drawn from the lowest classes of Irish society. Compared with pre-Famine
migrants, they were less likely to be skilled or to have been farmers.”[20]
In fact, the new waves of migrants were more likely to be Catholic,
Irish-speaking and illiterate than those who had gone before them. The
acceptability of migration increasing enormously during the Famine, customary
constraints and prudential considerations were swept aside by panic-driven
desperation to leave the country, especially in 1847 during the worst episode
of the Famine.
Because of this
shift in the nature of the emigrants from Ireland, whole new parts of society
were exposed to social processes they had never encountered before. The exodus
was particularly strong in South Ulster, north Connaught and much of the
Leinster midlands. Although these areas had traditionally had higher levels of
emigration than the rest of Ireland, the new ‘type’ of migrant and the
tremendous scale of migration meant that these areas surely experienced a
‘watershed’ during the Famine period. The impacts of depopulation on rural
society have already been discussed, but it also had significant and lasting
effects on the decline of the Irish language and the increased role of the
Catholic Church in society.
Use of the
traditional Irish language had been in decline long before the Famine, through
the increased use of English, especially in the east and north. The areas worst
hit by the Famine were those most likely to speak Irish, due to Irish been
spoken most frequently in the south and west by cottiers and labourers. This
meant that a great proportion of the Irish speaking population were either
killed by the Famine, or decided to emigrate from Ireland. Although literacy
rates increased after the Famine, as a result of high death and emigration
rates among the illiterate, the use of the Irish language continued to decline,
although more rapidly than it had done so prior to the Famine. Similarly, the
depopulation of west Ireland and the particular severity of the Famine on the
poor, illiterate, and Irish-speaking led to a decline in traditional religion,
and the strengthening of the Catholic Church’s position in Irish society. A
so-called ‘devotional revolution’ occurred during the Famine, which consisted
of a shift from traditional lax and heterodox practice towards a more formal
and rigorous Catholicism.[21]
There was a marked difference between the old mixture of pagan and Christian
celebration, and the new Roman liturgical practice encouraged by Cardinal
Cullen. The people’s acceptance of this new form of religion can be partly
explained by the effects of the Famine, as the decimated cottiers were the most
devoted to the traditional religion, while the value of old practices had
become highly questionable given the horrific nature of the disaster.[22]
However, this interpretation may be too simplistic as evidence of the
‘devotional revolution’ is fairly obvious well before the Famine. Church
building projects from the 1820s onwards, as well as increased popular
authority for priests – a result of Catholic emancipation – meant that the
Church was already becoming a more powerful aspect of Irish society before
1845. Nevertheless, the scale of the Church’s increased power after the Famine
is a sure sign that the crisis did have a significant role to play in this
change.
The perception of
ineptitude or malevolence on behalf of the British administration’s response to
the Famine played a crucial role in determining the politics of Ireland for the
next seventy-five years, and its legacy is still clearly visible today.
Although the Famine was not the ultimate origin of hostility towards the
English, many later generations of Irish nationalists have viewed the Famine as
“the nadir of British misrule in Ireland.”[23]
Many began to question the value of the Union, as the British had done little
to help the Irish who were part of ‘their own country’ during the Famine –
instead placing the burden of relief on the Irish landowners who were unable to
cope. The failure of the British government to close all the Irish ports to
exports during the Famine has led many nationalists to conclude that the Famine
resembled genocide as the Irish were producing food that was being exported
while they starved themselves. In fact, the exported produce would not have
been enough to cover the increased food demands during the Famine period, but
this view has been entrenched into the mentality of many nationalists over the
past 150 years. The experience of the Famine transformed remote anti-English
sentiment before the Famine into a much more vivid, painful and immediate sense
of injustice.
Whether or not the Great Irish Famine was a ‘watershed’ for
nineteenth century Irish life has remained as a contentious question throughout
the twentieth century. Comparing the view that: “Ireland was altered beyond
recognition after the Famine, and this is surely of greater importance than
counter-factual, and necessarily speculative, argument about the role of the
Famine in generating or accelerating change”[24]
with a more revisionist perspective of: “In accepting that the Famine was a
human disaster for the Irish, on a scale that could never have been predicted,
it has to be acknowledged that the outcomes of Famine were not new. These were
simply exacerbated to unprecedented levels”[25]
means that the question needs to be analysed on a case-by-case basis. In terms
of its effect on rural society, the Famine was a ‘watershed’ as the number of
people who left rural Ireland or were killed by the Famine left a society
completely different from that before the Famine, changes towards more diverse
agriculture and larger farm-sizes were not only generated by the Famine but
they were only possible because of the Famine. Similarly, the massive migration
of the Irish to North America and the rest of the world affected different
people, and on a vastly different scale to migration before the Famine, and its
effects are still being felt over 150 years later, a sure sign of a ‘watershed’
development. Similarly, the political effect of the Famine are still being felt
today, and the change in attitude of the Irish towards the English, as well as
towards the Act of Union was greatly changed – evident in the move from repeal
politics to violent Fenianism. However, in terms of changes to the use of the
Irish language, and the power of the Catholic Church, it seems that the Famine
did little more than accelerate changes that were already in motion before
1845. On balance, it is clear that the Famine was a ‘watershed’ in nineteenth
century Irish life, and that its legacy and effects still have a tremendous
influence on Irish politics and society today.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Cronin, Mike. A History of Ireland, Basingtoke, 2001.
Donnelly, James S. The Great Irish Potato Famine, Gloucestershire,
2001.
Fitzpatrick, David. ‘Irish Emigration in the Later Nineteenth
Century’ Irish Historical Studies XXII (September, 1980), pp. 126-143.
Guinnane, Timothy. The vanishing Irish: households, migration, and
the rural economy in Ireland 1850-1914, Princeton, 1997.
Jackson, Alvin. Ireland 1798-1998: politics and war, Oxford,
1999.
Kinealy, Christine. The Great Irish Famine: Impact, ideology and
rebellion, Basingtoke, 2002.
Nowlan, Kevin B. ‘The Political Background’ in R. Dudley Edwards and
T. Desmond Williams (eds.) The Great Famine: studies in Irish History
1845-52, Dublin, 1956. pp. 131-208.
O’Grada, Cormac. Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in
history, economy and memory” Princeton, 1999.