The Irish Famine

We Are Learning To... Develop skills of enquiry by investigating the causes of the famine.

Subdivision of Land Most land was owned by English landlords and the majority of Irish people were tenant farmers or landless labourers. In Ireland, family land - even if it was rented – was traditionally divided up equally among the sons on the death of the father. The size of the farmers became smaller with every passing generation. This meant the amount of land for each family to live off became increasingly smaller. In 1845 approx. 200,000 families lived on less than 5 acres.

Activities  Visualisation of subdivision of land  A farmer had 32 acres of land and four sons. He will divide his land between his sons. If each of these sons also had four sons, and so on, how many generations would it take for each son to be living on just half an acre?

Overpopulation The population of Ireland increased very quickly in the first half of the 19 th century. In 1800 the population was 5 million, by 1841 there were 8million. This rise in population increased the pressure on the land and farms became even smaller and people became increasingly dependent on the potato because they were easy to grow and could produce a large yield (quantity) on a small amount of land and were very nutritious.

Potato Blight The blight caused the potatoes to become a stinking, soggy, black mess.

Potato Blight It was only possible to live on such small plots of land because most people ate potatoes as the main part of their food. On average a person ate 7-9lbs of food, and even a small plot of land could provide enough potatoes for a family for a year! But in 1845 the potato blight ( phytophthora infestans) struck the potato crop, ruining almost all potato crops in Ireland. This in conjunction with overpopulation and subdivision led to the famine.