Irish Potato Famine

(1845–49) Famine that occurred in Ireland when the potato crop failed in successive years.

By the early 1840s almost half the Irish population, particularly the rural poor, was depending almost entirely on the potato for nourishment. A reliance on only one or two high-yielding varieties made the crop vulnerable to disease, including the late blight fungus, which ruined the crop. The British government provided minimal relief to the starving Irish, limited to loans and soup kitchens. The famine was a watershed in Ireland's demographic history: more than a million people died from starvation or famine-related diseases, and perhaps as many as 1.5 million emigrated to North America and Britain. Population continued to decline thereafter, and by independence in 1921 the Irish population was barely half of the 8.4 million it had been before the famine.

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▪ Irish history

also called  Great Potato Famine,  Great Irish Famine , or  Famine of 1845–49 

 famine that occurred in Ireland in 1845–49 when the potato crop failed in successive years. The crop failures were caused by late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots, or tubers, of the potato plant. The causative agent of late blight is the fungus Phytophthora infestans. The Irish Potato Famine was the worst famine to occur in Europe in the 19th century.

      By the early 1840s, almost one-half of the Irish population—but primarily the rural poor—had come to depend almost exclusively on the potato for their diet, and the rest of the population also consumed it in large quantities. A heavy reliance on just one or two high-yielding varieties of potato greatly reduced the genetic variety that ordinarily prevents the decimation of an entire crop by disease, and thus made the Irish vulnerable to famine. In 1845 the Phytophthora fungus arrived accidentally from North America, and that same year Ireland had unusually cool, moist weather, in which the blight thrived. Much of that year's potato crop rotted in the fields. This partial crop failure was followed by more devastating failures in 1846–49, as each year's potato crop was almost completely ruined by the blight.

      The British government's efforts to relieve the famine were inadequate. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel did what he could to provide relief in 1845 and early 1846, but under the Liberal cabinet of Lord John Russell, which assumed power in June 1846, the emphasis shifted to reliance on Irish resources and the free market, which made disaster inevitable. Much of the financial burden of providing for the starving Irish peasantry was thrown upon the Irish landowners themselves (through local poor relief). But because the peasantry was unable to pay its rents, the landlords soon ran out of funds with which to support them. British assistance was limited to loans, helping to fund soup kitchens, and providing employment on road building and other public works. Cornmeal imported from the United States helped avert some starvation, but it was disliked by the Irish, and reliance on it led to nutritional deficiencies. Despite these shortcomings, by August 1847 as many as 3,000,000 people were receiving rations at soup kitchens. All in all, the British government spent about £8,000,000 on relief, and some private relief funds were raised as well. Throughout the famine, many Irish farms continued to export grain, meat, and other high-quality foods to Britain because the Irish peasantry lacked the money to purchase them. The government's grudging and ineffective measures to relieve the famine's distress intensified the resentment of British rule among the Irish people.

      The famine proved to be a watershed in the demographic history of Ireland. As a direct consequence of the famine, Ireland's population of almost 8,400,000 in 1844 had fallen to 6,600,000 by 1851. The number of agricultural labourers and smallholders in the western and southwestern counties underwent an especially drastic decline. About 1,100,000 people died from starvation or from typhus and other famine-related diseases. The number of Irish who emigrated to North America and Britain during the famine may have reached 1.5 million. Ireland's population continued to decline in the following decades owing to overseas emigration and lower birth rates. By the time Ireland achieved independence in 1921, its population was barely half of what it had been in the early 1840s.

Joel Mokyr

Additional Reading

Joel Mokyr, Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy, 1800–1850 (1983); Cormac Ó Gráda, The Great Irish Famine (1989, reissued 1995); Austin Bourke, The Visitation of God?: The Potato and the Great Irish Famine, ed. by Jacqueline Hill and Cormac Ó Gráda (1993); and Cathal Póirtéir (ed.), The Great Irish Famine (1995).

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