The Irish Potato Famine

Vote or hold public office Purchase land British Racism In the 1690s, Penal Laws were passed in Ireland that were designed to repress the native Irish No Catholic could: Own a weapon Receive an education Vote or hold public office Purchase land

During the 18th Century the practice of the Catholic faith was considered a sin & priest-hunting was considered a sport. Irish Catholic peasants were made outlaws - resulting in the formation of secret societies such as the Oak Boys, White Boys & Ribbon Men. The British viewed the Irish as below themselves - just above Africans. British often compared Irish, Africans & apes

Irish Racism

“Bog Trotters” is a long-standing English term for Irish people especially Irish peasants.

The potato was introduced to Ireland in the late 16th Century. The Potato & Famine The potato was introduced to Ireland in the late 16th Century. Irish peasants subsisted on a diet consisting largely of potatoes since a farmer could grow triple the amount of potatoes as grain on the same plot of land.

About half of Ireland’s population depended on potatoes for sustenance

Because of the potato the Irish population more than doubled between 1780 & 1845 peaking at 8.5 million. The famine began with a blight that left the potatoes covered with black rot. Harvests across Europe failed & the price of food soared.

Peasants who ate the rotten potatoes became sick & entire villages were consumed with cholera & typhus. Parish priests desperate to provided for their congregations were forced to stop buying coffins in order to feed starving families - the dead went unburied or buried only in the clothes they wore when they died.

The government in London was aware of the threatening problem, but did not consider Ireland as important until the famine had become a full blown crisis. However, it wasn’t the famine crisis that spurred the government but the threat to their economic policies. Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing & exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population.

However, this was a “money crop” not a food crop and could not be interfered with. By 1851 over one million people had died and another million fled to North America The combined forces of the famine, disease & emigration caused Ireland’s population to go from 8 million before the famine to 5 million after.

“The workingman’s burden” shows a gleeful Irish peasant carrying his Famine relief money while riding on the back of an exhausted English laborer.

“Equal Burdens” Here the stereotype of the belligerent Irishman meets the stereotype of the happy slave. Irish were called “white Negroes.”

"The spores of the blight were carried by wind, rain and insects and came to Ireland from Britain and the European continent. A fungus affected the potato plants, producing black spots and a white mold on the leaves, soon rotting the potato into a pulp."

Starving Family

Mother and children digging for potatoes hoping some were overlooked in the harvest

The sight of dead bodies along the road became a common sight.

Mass Evictions During the worst months of the famine, the winter of 1846-47, tens of thousands of tenants owed back rent & were evicted from their homes. “A nationwide system of ousting the peasantry began to set in, with absentee landlords & some resident landlords... more determined than ever to rid Ireland of its ‘surplus Irish’”

By 1850 over 104,000 people were evicted Even when tenants were evicted in the dead of winter & died of exposure, the British Home Secretary “rejected the notion that landlords were open to any criminal proceedings...”

British Parliament passed a law reducing the notice given to people before they were evicted to 48 hours - it also made it a misdemeanor to demolish a dwelling while the tenants were inside - it also prohibited evictions on Christmas Day & Good Friday

The “Irish Poor Law” made landlords responsible for relief of the poor on the smallest properties. This gave the landlords a strong incentive to rid themselves of tenants who were in that category & unable to pay rent. They did this by paying for the tenants to emigrate.

A family being forcibly evicted

Woman left homeless after eviction

Emmigration Rather than face certain starvation & death, many Irish, who were able, decided to leave Ireland & emigrate to America & Canada. The ships they traveled on were called “Coffin Ships” because of the 50% mortality rate on the trip over. The worst ships were those that brought emigrants sent out by their landlords.

“Hundreds of poor people, men, women & children, of all ages from the driveling idiot of 90 to the babe just born, huddled together, without light, without air, wallowing in filth, and breathing a fetid atmosphere, sick in body, dispirited in heart...the fevered patients lying between the sound in sleeping places so narrow, as almost to deny them...a change of position...by their agonized ravings disturbing those around them...living without food or medicine...dying without spiritual consolation & buried in the deep without the rites of church”

Between 1845 and 1855, 2.1 million Irish emigrated to the United States and Canada

Leaving Ireland

One of the Coffin Ships as portrayed in a U.S. Paper

Relief Efforts At first, the greatest relief to the starving came through the Poor Law (1838) - it provided accommodation for the destitute in workhouses. There were 130 of them in Ireland in 1845 Conditions for entry were very strict - families were torn apart - men & women lived in different parts of the workhouse & children were keep separately from adults

The government initiated work-relief programs such as road building The government initiated work-relief programs such as road building. However, the payment for food was minimal & often workers were too weak to complete jobs. To this day there are roads leading to nowhere in Ireland. Quakers became involved in 1846 - providing food, clothing & bedding.

The British Relief Association (1847) raised money for one year, but it did not repeat it’s charity another year -reflecting the British attitude towards the Irish.

Private Charity - Handing out clothes to the Irish

Definitions for Genocide “The systematic, planned annihilation of racial, political or cultural group.” American Heritage Dictionary “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or parts.” UN Convention on Genocide 1948

3. “Government is as responsible for genocidal policy when its officials accept mass death as a necessary cost of implementing their policies as when they pursue genocide as an end itself.” Richard Rubenstein The Age of Triage: Fear and Hope in an Overcrowded World

Was the Irish Potato Famine an act of Genocide by the British Government?