THE GREAT FAMINE IN IRELAND, 1845-1849

1. BACKGROUND TO THE GREAT FAMINE

AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

The potato was the principal source of nutrition for the vast majority of the
poorer classes because this crop produced more food per acre than wheat and
could also be used to generate income. The practice of Conacre/Land Division
meant that peasants needed to produce the biggest crop possible. The most
variety of potato was the ‘Aran Banner’ which, whilst producing high yields also
was very susceptible to Blight.

Many farmers had a few animals; the pig, easily fed on left-overs and requiring
little space, was quite common. In many cases , however, other crops and
animals were used to pay the rent and were never regarded as food

SOCIAL CONDITIONS

At the start of the famine over one half of the population of the country lived in
small 1 roomed dwellings. Little or no furniture and animals would be
accommodated with the occupants of the. The other half would live in 2 storey
houses or mansions – landlords or wealthy tenants – mostly found along the East
and the South Coast. Two thirds of the population were involved in agriculture.

The arrival of the month of June indicated the start of the hungry or meal months
in rural Ireland as old potatoes were not dug until August. People simply had
nothing to eat or at best could manage a meal of porridge. Hunger was
commonplace and small scale famines were therefore not unknown.

DEPENDENCE ON THE POTATO

The potato became the staple diet of much of the country during the early 1800s
as it was ideally suited to the Irish climate, could be grown even in poor soils,
gave a high return per acre and a single acre could support a family of 5 – 6
people.

By 1945, it is estimated that about one third of the entire population was totally
dependent on the potato, and in poor regions, like Mayo, it was the only food
eaten by up to nine – tenths of the population.

LAISSEZ – FAIRE

The policy of ‘Laisse Faire’ (meaning to leave alone) meant that Governments did
not interfere in business markets or the economy in general. This policy was
disastrous when famine struck as it meant that there was no way of quickly
rectifying the crisis. Scarce food became costly and the poor simply starved

OVER-POPULATION

While the population of Europe rose throughout the 19th Century, population
growth in Ireland was particularly dramatic. In 1800, the population was about 5
million. By 1841, it had risen to over 8 million according to the census of that
year. This growth can be explained by the fact that people married early in life
and they tended to have large families.
Unlike Britain, Ireland lacked major industrial centres. Jobs were scarce and there
was little point in trying to save up by waiting to get married. a part of the family
farm on which to grow food and a house built with stones and ‘mud kneaded with
straw’ was the most any married couple could hope for. Early marriages were
followed by large families – children were seen by parents as insurance against
starvation in their old age. As a result subdivision and holdings were gradually
reduced to tiny plots.

2. THE FAMINE YEARS

In the early summer of 1845, on the 11th September of that year a disease,
referred to as blight was noted to have attacked the crop in some areas. In that
year, one – third of the entire crop was destroyed. In 1846, the crop was a total
failure. This report came from a Galway priest.

“As to the potatoes, they are gone – clean gone. If travelling by night, you would
know when a potato field was near by the smell. The fields present a space of
withered black stalks”.

Though 1847 was free from blight, few seed potatoes had been planted, and so
the famine continued. Yet the country was producing plenty of food. As the Irish
politician, Charles Duffy wrote: “Ships continue to leave the country, loaded with
grain and meat”.

As food was scarce people would eat anything such as nettles, berries, roots,
wildlife, animals, dogs and cats in order to survive.

In the mid 1840′s, Bishop Loras of Dubuque, Iowa, visited Ireland. He was so
appalled by the conditions that he found there that he submitted a letter to the
London Tablet. Here is a portion of that letter:

I assure you, dear sir, the scene of poverty and misery in some quarters was
wonderful (that is, awful), and I am told that it is still worse in other counties. I
saw many poor cottages covered with straw, half buried in the ground, and
occupied by poor Catholic tenants, who cultivate in the sweat of their brow small
fields divided by poor green hedges or half-tumbled walls.

The manner in which many were clothed was a sure indication of great poverty
and unavoidable sufferings. At every station, at least in towns, the stage was
surrounded by whole families of beggars, who, by their pressing demands, would
elicit charity from the most hardened heart. Many of those cottages were
crumbling in ruins and abandoned by their tenants, who had emigrated to some
more hospitable shore. As I was traveling along I saw occasionally some of those
extensive and princely estates occupied by rich English lords, whose dwellings
and parks are surrounded by old lofty walls and shaded by quite annuated trees.
The contrast between great opulence and extreme poverty was truly appalling,
and one is at a loss to understand how this state of things can be tolerated in this
age of light and philanthropy.

Another contrast I cannot help noticing. As soon as I crossed the Channel from
Dublin to Holyhead, In England, I perceived great change for the better in the
face of the country, and in the look of the people; so much so, that one could
hardly believe that Ireland and England were both under the same laws, and
protected by the same government; and more than that, the poor Irish are either
incarcerated or transported, whenever they make any attempt to better their
truly miserable condition.

DEATH, DISEASE AND STARVATION

Subsistence-level Irish farmers found their food stores rotting in their cellars, the
crops they relied on to pay the rent to their British and Protestant landlords
destroyed. Peasants who ate the rotten produce sickened and entire villages were
consumed with cholera and typhus. Parish priests desperate to provide for their
congregations were forced to forsake buying coffins in order to feed starving
families, with the dead going unburied or buried only in the clothes they wore
when they died.

The potato crop of 1845 was destroyed by a fungus, Phytophthora infestans,
commonly known as Blight, which had spread from North America to Europe. By
the early autumn of 1845 it was clear that famine was imminent in Ireland, but
British government reaction was slow and incapable of responding to the
magnitude of the crisis.

WORKHOUSES

Landlords evicted hundreds of thousands of peasants, who then crowded into
disease-infested workhouses. Other landlords paid for their tenants to emigrate,
sending hundreds of thousands of Irish to America and other English-speaking
countries. In many cases, these ships reached port only after losing a third of
their passengers to disease, hunger and other causes.

Conditions in the workhouses were desperate and often the only way to get food
was to fight for it, leading to misery, violence and even more despondency.

Diseases in the workhouses were common and included Typhus, Relapsing Fever.
Dysentry, Bacillary Dysentry. Scurvy and Asiatic Cholera. There was little in the
way of medical care for the victims.

THE COFFIN SHIPS

The condition of the ships in which tens of thousands of people emigrated were
appalling as many middle-men used sub-standard vessels and carried too many
people, with a view to making a quick profit. On one of these coffin ships, of the
348 passengers, 117 died at sea; on another, going to Canada, 158 died of a
total of 476 passengers.

RELIEF

During the winter of 1845-1846 Peel’s government spent £100,000 on American
maize which was sold to the destitute. The Irish called the maize ‘Peel’s
brimstone’. Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as
canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid
at the end of the week and often men had died of starvation before their wages
arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little used: men filled in
valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash
payments. The Irish crisis was used as an excuse by Peel in order for him to the
repeal the Corn Laws in 1846, but their removal brought Ireland little benefit. The
major problem was not that there was no food in Ireland – there was plenty of
wheat, meat and dairy produce, much of which was being exported to England -
but that the Irish peasants had no money with which to buy the food. The repeal
of the Corn Laws had no effect on Ireland because however cheap grain was,
without money the Irish peasants could not buy it.

In 1846 the major disaster began. This was due to number of factors. In 1845 the
crop only partially failed. It totally failed in 1846. Peel’s government was defeated
in England and Lord John Russell became Prime Minister of a Conservative
Government. He had a different attitude to that of Peel:

“It must be quite clear that we cannot feed the people…
We can at best keep down prices.”

The starving people had no money however to buy food at any price, so keeping
the prices down was useless. The Assistant Secretary of Ireland at this time was
Charles Trevelyan, who believed in laissez faire, the policy of ‘leaving well alone’.
To give anything to the people for nothing would, he said, result in

“Having the country on us for an indefinite number of years.”

He stopped the public works and sent back a boat load of Indian Corn which had
arrived from the U.S.A. The death toll steadily mounted, due to starvation and to
the spread of typhus and cholera. Thousands flocked to the overcrowded
workhouses and into towns – spreading disease and causing more deaths.

In September 1847 Russell’s government ended what little relief it had made
available and demanded that the Poor Law rate be collected before any further
money be made available by the Treasury. The collection of these rates in a
period of considerable hardship was accompanied by widespread unrest and
violence. Some 16,000 extra troops were sent to Ireland and troubled parts of
the country were put under martial law. The potato crop failed once more in
1848, and this was accompanied by Asiatic cholera.

In 1847 the Government realised that their policies were not working and made
money available for loan and established soup kitchens. Russell’s Government
ended what little relief it had made available in late 1847 and demanded that the
Poor Law rate, a tax on property to fund relief in Ireland, be collected before any
further money be made available by the Treasury. The collection of these taxes in
a period of considerable hardship was predictably accompanied by widespread
unrest and violence. Some 16,000 extra troops were sent to Ireland and troubled
parts of the country were put under martial law.

Government efforts were also helped by some local landlords who lowered rents
and distributed clothes and food to their tenants. As a result, many landlords
went bankrupt. The Quakers (The Society of Friends) also did much to help.

3. EFFECTS OF THE GREAT FAMINE

THE DEAD & CULTURAL CHANGES

The Irish Famine of 1846-50 took as many as one million lives from hunger and
disease, and changed the social and cultural structure of Ireland in a number of
profound ways.

The Irish language, which was already in decline, suffered a near fatal blow from
the Famine, since it was the more remote areas which still used Irish that were
most affected by the famine.

Land holdings became larger, as the tendency to subdivide the family farm
declined. From now on, the farm was given to one son and the others often had
little choice but to emigrate. The Famine also changed centuries-old agricultural
practices, hastening the end of the division of family estates into tiny lots capable
of sustaining life only with a potato crop.

The famine affected the poorest classes – the cottiers and labourers – most of all,
the cottier class being almost wiped out.

EMIGRATION

It is estimated that at least one million people died from starvation and its
attendant diseases, whilst a further 1 million emigrated during the famine years.
The population of the island dropped from over 8 million in 1845 to about 6
million in 1850. By 1900, over 4 million had left Ireland and emigration continued
well into the 1950′s – averaging 60, 000 a year. Early marriages almost
disappeared and a decline in the birth rate resulted.

NATIONALISM

The millions who left Ireland on the emigrant ships took with them a hatred of
England and English rule that has survived to the present day. Suddenly, Irish
people realised that they had to take control of their own affairs. England had
failed in its obligations to the people that it ruled and a new generation of rebels
and agitators were born. Parnell and Davitt fought for and achieved land reforms.
The Gaelic Athletic Association was formed to promote a greater sense of Irish
identity. Rebels such as Padraig Pearse were expounding the need for national
independence from England. The 1916 Easter Rising and the subsequent War of
Independence, Civil War and ultimate Independence have roots in the Great
Famine and the 1798 Rising by the United Irishmen that proceeded it.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE LANDLORD SYSTEM

The Landlord class was ruined by the famine. The Government introduced the
Encumbered Estates Act in 1849, making it easier for landlords to sell off their
land. The land acts later in the century fought for by Parnell and Davitt finally put
paid to this hated system of authority in rural Ireland.

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THE EASTER RISING IN IRELAND, 1916

1. BACKGROUND TO THE RISING

THE IRISH REPUBLICAN BROTHERHOOD (IRB)

One of the main and lasting effects of the Great Famine of 1845-47 was
emigration. The ‘Coffin Ships’ carried tens of thousands of the poorest Irish
people who fled Ireland to avoid starvation. They created a new Irish nation
within America whilst remembering the injustice of the English occupation of their
homeland as well as harboring a deeply felt hatred of landlords and evictions.

A Clann na Gael source estimated that there were over one and one half million
people of Irish birth in America towards the end of the nineteenth century. These
people supported the republican cause by giving money, weapons and,
significantly, a propaganda machine which has continued to this day.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood was formed in a Dublin timber-yard on Saint
Patricks Day in 1858. James Stephans was assisted by Thomas Clarke Luby,
James Denieefe, Garret O Shaugheynessy and Peter Langan.

Joe Denieefe brought financial support back from America. He had left Ireland
after the Ballingarry defeat in 1848. James Stephens , Michael Doheny and the
John O’Mahony fought in Ballingarry in 1848. Stephens was injured but still
manage to escape to Paris where he familiarised himself with the revolutionary
tactics of that country. He came back to Ireland to try to establish an
underground organisation to remove the English from Ireland.

Denieefe and Luby traveled the country extensively and organised military groups
called ‘circles’. They formed oathbound secret societies of loyal patriots. Popular
opinion did not support the revolutionary ideals of the IRB nor did the Church
whop were strongly opposed. The mainstream support came from the poorer
classes who, despite their poverty, were often highly idealistic.

At the time of the 1867 rising the membership of the IRB was estimated at over
80,000.

INFORMERS

Informers such as Corydon and Magle did untold damage to the IRB by betraying
their oath and giving information to the English.

The Fenian movement split in America in 1865. John O’Mahony took over from
the Stephans. O’Mahony was later himself to be deposed when his hesitation in
calling an insurrection dissatisfied the soldiers he commanded (many of which
were veterans of the American Civil War). Colonel Thomas J. Kelly,
was appointed Chief of Staff of the IRB in 1867 and departed for Ireland.

A rising was planned for February 1867. Chester Castle in England was to be
attacked and simultaneous raids in Ireland were to be carried out. The English
knew in advance however as the informer, Corydon, kept them informed.

The news had not filtered through to the Fenians in Ireland and sporadic battles
took place in Kerry and Dublin.

THE MANCHESTER MARTYRS

The IRB was reorganised in Manchester in July of 1867 and a supreme council
elected. Colonel Kelly and Jim Deasy were captured by the English and then
rescued by the Fenians in a daring raid in which a police officer was killed. Allen,
Larkin and O’Brien were hanged for their complicity in the events and they
became known as ‘The Manchester Martyrs’.

These mass funerals and events with the Land League focused the minds of the
popular masses on the injustice of English rule in Ireland.

CLAN NA GAEL

The IRB delegates in Manchester broke away from the feuding factions of
Fenianism in America and supported Clan na Gael who were founded there in
June of 1867. The objectives of Clann na Gael was to secure an independent
Ireland and to assist the IRB in achieving this aim. John Devoy was the mainstay
behind the Clan.

Devoy became involved in the ‘New Departure’ and assisted Davitt and Parnell in
their fight against the landlords. Independence remained his main aim however
as he felt that the Land League was not militant enough to remove the landlords.

Devoy, assisted by Doctor Pat McCartan, founded a newspaper, ‘The Gaelic
American’.

Doctor Pat McCartan transferred from Clan na Gael to the newly formed
‘Dungannon Clubs’, a separatist organisation which was denounced by the
Church.

Tom Clarke became a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB in 1909 and
helped form the revolutionary paper ‘Irish Freedom’. He became the link with
Clan na Gael in America.

In 1912 the IRB sent Sean MacDiarmada as a delegate to the Clan convention
and he succeeded in securing the enormous sum of $20,000 for the IRB at home.

IRISH VOLUNTEERS

In November 1913 the Irish Volunteers were formed in Dublin and 4,000 enrolled
on that first night. In 1914 Padraig Pearse went to America to raise funds to save
his Gaelic school, St. Enda’s. This was achieved and Pearse turned his attention to
revolutionary matters.

On his return from America he sought 1,000 rifles from McGarrity. He as assisted
by Seán Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceannt and Seán Fitzgibbon. Pearse was
convinced that the revolutionary force in Ireland had never been better organised
or equipped. His speech in 1914 reflected this:-

” It is my matured conviction that, given arms, the Volunteers who have
adhered to us as against Redmond may be depended upon to act
vigorously, courageously, promptly, and unitedly if the opportunity comes.
We are at the moment in an immensely stronger position than ever
before. The whole body of Volunteers that has supported our stand against
recruiting may be looked upon as a separatist body. In other words, the
separatist organisation has been multiplied by a hundred.

In Dublin, we have some 2,500 admirably disciplined, drilled, intelligent,
and partly armed men. Nationalist Ireland has never before had such an
asset. Our main strength is in Dublin, but large minorities support us
everywhere, especially in the towns and in the extreme South and West.
We expect to have 150 companies, representing 10,000 to 15,000 men,
represented by delegates at next Sunday’s Convention.

This small, compact, perfectly disciplined, determined separatist force is
infinitely more valuable than the unwieldy, loosely-held together mixum-
gatherum force we had before the split. The Volunteers we have with us
now may be relied upon to the death, and we are daily perfecting their
fighting effectiveness and mobilisation power. It seems a big thing to say,
but I do honestly believe that, with arms for these men, we shall be ready
to act with tremendous effect if the war brings us the moment.

The spirit of our Dublin men is wonderful. They would rise tomorrow if we
gave the word. A meeting of Dublin officers the other night was as
exhilarating as a draught of wine.

We gain daily in the country as Redmond’s treachery or imbecility
becomes more manifest. The recruiting campaign has failed utterly, and
already he is a discredited politician.”

THE GAELIC LEAGUE AND THE GAA

The IRB were influential in many cultural and national organisations. Most of the
leaders like Pearse, Plunket and McDonagh were fluent Irish speakers and were
members of the Gaelic League. The Gaelic Athletic Association (the GAA) was
formed by Cusack in November 1884.

THE GREAT WAR 1914-18

At the outbreak of the first world war, Redmond urged the Irish Volunteers to join
in the fight against the oppressors of small nations (Germany). 170,000 of the
Volunteers supported Redmond whilst 11,000 supported Pearse.

Tom Clarke urged the Supreme Council of the IRB that a rising must happen
before the end of the war, especially as the Irish Home Rule bill had been
suspended at the outbreak of the war. Pearse, Plunket and Ceannt drafted the
first military plans.

ROGER CASEMENT

Prior to the rising and thanks to Hobson, Casement and Childers, guns were
landed at Howth and Wicklow. Casement went to Germany where he published
the Irish cause in German newspapers. His efforts to secure weapons were dealt
a severe blow when he and the weapons they were attempting to smuggle into
the country were captured on Banna Strand.

Casement, an English subject, was eventually convicted of treason and hanged.

PLANS FOR THE RISING

Thomas Clarke was the main instigator of the rising, supported by Pearse, Seán
Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceant and Seán T. O Ceallaigh who went to America for
further assistance. Thomas McDonagh, Joseph Plunket and James Connolly. were
later brought on to the Supreme Council.

During all this activity Eoin McNeill was unaware of the secret body that was
organising the rising. Few penetrated the IRB as they prepared for the rising.

James Connolly used his paper ‘The Workers’ Republic’ to call for an armed revolt.
He used the Citizens Army to protect the paper.

The Irish Volunteers were holding recruiting meetings throughout Ireland and
training enthusiastically. They awaited the signal to act as the rising had been set
for Easter Saturday, 22nd of April, 1916.

Setbacks to the plan included the capture of Casement and the weapons, the
capture of Austin Stack, commandant of the Kerry Brigade and the discovery of
the plans for an uprising following a raid on German officials in New York.

The Supreme Council decided unanimously decided to proceed with the uprising
despite the fact that they knew it had little chance of success. It was decided to
strike on Easter Monday. In spite of the order from McNeill not to revolt, over
2,000 soldiers made a strike for freedom.

2. THE INSURRECTION

On Easter Monday, 24th April, 1916 the GPO was occupied by the revolutionary
forces. Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic to a bemused gathering:

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations
from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us,
summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary
organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military
organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently
perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal
itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in
America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own
strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to
the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The
long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not
extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction
of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right
to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred
years they have asserted it to arms. Standing on that fundamental right and
again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish
Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives
of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its
exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every
Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty,
equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to
pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts,
cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences
carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the
majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a
permanent National, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by
the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby
constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for
the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High
God. Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who
serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine. In this
supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the
readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself
worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government.

Thomas J. Clarke,
Sean Mac Diarmada,
Thomas MacDonagh,
P. H. Pearse,
Eamonn Ceannt,
James Connolly,
Joseph Plunkett

The Volunteers seized and fortified six positions In Dublin city: the GPO, the Four
Courts, Boland’s Mill, St. Stephen’s Green, Jacobs Factory and the South Dublin
Union. Attempts to seize Dublin Castle and Trinity College failed. This latter
failure severely restricted the Volunteers mans of communicating with each other.

The failure of the country to rise made it impossible to prevent the arrival of
English reinforcements. By Wednesady the revolutionaries were outnumbered by
20 to 1. The English secured a cordon about the city and closed in. They
concentrated their attack on the GPO whilst none of the other strongholds came
under the same sort of concentrated bombardment.

A gun-ship, the Helga, arrived in Dublin and field-guns were mounted on Trinity
College. The effect of the continuous shelling of O’Connell St. virtually destroyed
it and the surrounding areas. By Friday the GPO was engulfed in flames and
Pearse gave the order to surrender. 450 people, many of whom were civilians,
were dead with over 2500 wounded. The city was in ruins with the damage
estimated at a massive 2 Million pounds.

Over 3,500 people were subsequently arrested country-wide (including DeVelera
and Collins), although 1,500 were freed after questioning. 1,841 of these were
interned without trial in England, and 171 were tried by secret court martial
resulting in 170 convictions. 90 were sentenced to death but 75 of these
sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The seven signatories of the
proclamation of independence (Pearse, Connolly, Clarke, MacDonagh,
MacDermott, Plunkett, and Ceannt) were all executed to the outrage of the Irish
public who had now begun to revise their opinion of the insurgents to that of a
heroic nature.

3. EFFECTS OF THE REBELLION

The rising was critical in terms of the overall fight for an Irish Republic.

For the first time the masses of the country wanted an end to English rule.
Nationalism swept the country especially as the details of the secret executions
became known.

National attention was brought to the Irish cause and to the oppressive ways in
which the English ruled the country.

These realisations were in all probability the main aim of the insurgents. The War
of Independence which followed in 1919, the subsequent Civil War of 1922, the
formation of the Irish Free State in 1923 and the declaration by Costello of an
Irish Republic can all be traced back to the events of Easter week, 1916.

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The Leader in Free Resources from Ireland
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http://www.ireland-information.com

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