Irish History Synopsis: The Famine Years

Irish History Synopsis; The Famine Years pg 1

In 1837 Victoria became Queen of England at age 18 years.
Within 2 years she had married her firt cousin Albert of Saxe Colburg.The marriage produced 4 children for 1840. 1841, 1843 and 1844. Much of the day to day running of the Monarchy was given over to Albert by the much in love young mother.
Her Minister was Lord Melbourne a Whig party member who proved a helpful and good advisor for the young Queen.
The English Parliament however remained callous passing such coersive acts as the Criminal Lunacy Act in June 1830 which allowed 2 judges or a lord lieutentant to remand or discharge a person in asylum or any person'intent to commit crimes' or suspicion of degeneracy.

Melburne had been elected in general election in 1834 However King George IV did not likehis politics of Whigness and replaced him with the Conservative Peel. Melbourne again won the geneneral election in 1835 adn was returned where he remained in power until the Peel government was re elected in 1841. Peal remained Prime minister during Victorias regn until 1845 and during that time passed the repeal of the corn laws which forbade grain being imported into Ireland and purchased some 20,000 pounds of corn meal for the Irish relief. He was ousted on trying to defeat the Cohersion Bill Parliament proposed to controlthe unrest in Ireland and was replaced by the Whig Lord Russel in 1846. Lord russell was a free trade and lazssez faire candidate and remainined in charge of the prime mininsters office till 1852 when he was oustd by the Earl of Derby ,Stanley.
thus the Queen had three Mininster during the troublesome Famine years.

In Ireland 100 workhouses were founded in July 1838.The Unions were subdivided to electoral districts and each district charged with its own poor, every parish to bear its own burden.This Act introduced by Wellington would properly relieve the deplorable social conditions in Ireland when the Coersion bill had been proposed and passed.
By 1838 there were crowds of beggars on the roads.

Of Irelands 20,319,924 total acres including water and bogs, 5,238,575 acres were under cultivation.
306,915 of these acres being farms of 1-5 acres tilled by cottiers and laborers under a con acre system of rental.

The 1841 Census showed an Irish population of 8.3 million souls, over half of these dependant on the land for sustainance.
The English government pursued a policy of free trade and lassez faire. A policy hotley and adamantly perusued by the Whig Liberals.
The idea of a state being responsible for the welfare of citizens was unaceptable to lassez faire economists who believed and made it government policy that all enterprise should be left alone no matter how bad a human or environmental condition it produced.
A common prejudice was in vogue amongst the assendant religious views that the Irish were an inferior people and a sinful one.
In writings of the English Home Secretary to the Prime Mininster Peel, James Graham expressed the common belief among Calvinists:

"Its Awful to observe how the Almighty humbles the pride of nations.
The Sword, the Pestilence and Famine are the instruments of his displeasure:
the canker- worm and the locusts are his armies,
He gives the word: a single copy is blighted;
and we see a nation prostrate,
streaching out its Hands for Bread.
These are solemn warnings, and they fill me with reverence;
they proclaim with a voice not to be mistaken,
that doubtless there is a God who judgeth the Earth."

At the time and occurance of the Great Hunger almost all Irish land and wealth were in the hands of the English Aristocracy, all of whom were pre-destination Prodistants. The native population holding small plots as tenants at will.
1/4th of these were Peers and Lords. Most of these Lords had never set foot in Ireland leaving the 'rent collecting' to agents.These rents were not collected in money as the Irish had no money to speak of but by rendering of labor to the Lords without pay and by the crops or livestock which were simply given to the estate manager for export to enrich English markets.

The Irish themselves existed almost totaly on the imported south american tuber potato and an occational milk diet without any other food but perhaps an occational festive occcation fish such as cod, haddock or herring. The teaming salmon runs were forbidden them as his Lordship considered these his personal estate. Fishing had been forbidden to he Irish under the penal laws.
The law considered this usually as criminal types keeping them in line with Parliamentary Acts forbidding about all human endevor and viewing them as uncivilized and inferior people.
The same philosophy expressed in nazi Germany a century later.

the state assendancy system operated daily on a human need to survive from it. Irish serf populations provided great leisure and profit to its perpetrators.

At the height of the famine under Lord Calendon, George William Federick Villiers than Viceroy paid out
1,297 pounds for table wine
1,868 pounds for butchers
619 pounds for chickens and poultry
352 pounds to the fish monger
562 pounds for butter
for the Castle court.
His personal salary was 20,000 pounds per annum.
Laborors earned 10 d a day not enought to purcahse a meal.

The Liberal Whig Lord Russell government which replaced the Conservitaive Peel in 1846
continued its free trade policy through the famine years with profiteering unchecked.

During 1846 and Black 47 speculators sold omported corn meal that the Pell government had purchased from America to relieve famine in Ireland.
The meal contained no nutrient value but sufficed to remove hunger pains Therefore, many eating it simmply perished from malnutrition and deseae inspired by malnutrition.
Riot police and troops were ever present to put down any mob anger.
These troops were provided beef pork and biskets for putting down food riots amonst the natives.

These were under the control of Trevelyan the permanent exchecker secretary.
Trevelyan being among the prevailing belief in the doctrine of pre-destination and the government imbibement in lassez faire Malthus doctrine preaching to Parliament that Ireland would be left to' the operation of natural forces'.[ the Reverend Thomas Malthus Essay on the Principles of Population 1798].

These lordly people truly beliving from indoctrination that God Himself was the planned instigator of the misfortunes besetting their fellow man.

Late in 1860 John Mitchel writing in the Last Conquest of Ireland stated:
'The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight but the English created the Famine'.





famine pg 2

The Irish under the potato system having no money had no new cloths and were usually ragged , shoeless and unkempt. Living in mud cabins with sod roof and mud floors and sleeping on skanty piles of old straw or rushes they were also unbathed.
If they had no money to pay the larger tenants farmers conacre without prepayment was refused. this was sometimes alliviated by providing free labor for the necessary 1/2 acre to grow and produce 6 pounds of potatos.

During the worste Famine years 46-48 English Exchecher remined closed to Irish needs. Only a small smattering of private charity such as the Baron de Rothchilds 1846 British Association to relieve extreme distress in remote parishes.
Qeen Victoria donated 2000 pounds, Rothcild provided 1000 the Duke of Devonshire who owned in addition to his several English palaces, a castle in Lismore in Waterford County gave 1000 pounds. He also owned Bolton, 1/2 of Yorkshire,Chatsworth,Derbyshire East Borune entirely and a hugh palace in London.

The Association appointed Count Strelecki an anglisized Pole to admininster the fund along with the Evangelical Church and the Quakers.
Charles Trevelyan advised the Association would be of no help. He believed in free trade and was religious stating:

"The great evil with which we have to contend is not physical of the famine but the moral evil of the selfish ,perverse and turbulant character of the people".

This attitude prevailed among most religious and government persons with influence and power.
The belief that the State owed no responsiblity to the people and that their misfortunes were a punishment from God for their sin or fecklessness was the norm.
The Manchester Guardian printed much against the Irish race blaming all their ills on their own atitudes of lazyness and refusal to work and the use of gavelkind division of the assigned land rather than the English promogeniture distributing all the land to the eldest son..
Malthusian and Darwinism ideas prevalied in England.

In 1847 the Parliament passed the Passenger Act making the coffin ships posible.

Lord Palmerston having Sligo lands he never went near, sent no relief but exported as many as he could to Canada on the Aeolus which was sent to St John Newfoundland with 428 on Board.
Destututea and in rags some stark naked when the ship arrived 8 people were found dead on board as the ship came into port.
The people of St Johns had no place for them and demanded free passsage back to Ireland.
Palmerston was required to defend himself in Commons. He required all the passengers to write letters to the St Johns newspapers absoving him and expressing their gratitude for his help in getting them to the New World. He blamed his Agents for the deplorable conditions on the Aeolus.
These 'passengers' were left on the docks to survive as best they could begging all winter with no shoes or socks and no warm cloths in the snow.

Some went to New York or risked the anti-Irish hostility of England for navvie work.
Parliament insisted the Assendant gentry of Ireland not itself should pay for relief.
The English Governmnent consciously conspired to de-populate Ireland of the native Gael and its culture.
This policy of extermination of North America Indians had alredy begun in the east of the United States. An article comparing the two was published in the Times.

After England had tried military conquest, plantation and legislative union all of which the Irish had resisted, extermination provided by 'providence' and man induced dysfuntion seemed the solution to 'progress'.

In legislative demands putting the burden of relieving starvation on the landlords, Parliament assisted with malice aforthought, the financial distruction of the Assendany Class Landed Gentry.

In depriving Ireland of the plantation stock a hope remained to anglisize Ireland completely.
Dublin ate the countryside starved.

Spereanza wrote such lines in the Young Irelanders Nation newspaper:

"Weary men what reap ye--Golden corn for stranger.
What sow ye?--Human corpses that wait for the avenger.
Fainting forms, hunger-stricken, what see you in the offings?
Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffings."

Daniel O Connell now 71 years old was spent.
He traveled to Parliament to tell in a weakened voice inthe Commons:
'Ireland is in your hands. If you do not save her she cannot save herself'.
He than went on towards Rome dying on the road.

The government both Irish Confederates and the Commons seemed unaware of the starving Irish masses. They argued on unconserned.

William Smith O Brien argued that the government should provide assistance to the starving Irish. He was arrested and given 30 days in cell under the Parliament where he had a bed ,a table, some chairs,a toilet which was more than most Irish cabins starvees had.

By 1847 the Irish lay dead in the fields, in the workhouses, in the road side ditch . A steady treck of skeletons to Irish ports where the scandal of ships loaded them for transportation to America.

Dozens of these unfit craft sank at sea. Those that sailed on thousand died of dysentry, typhoid and cholera and were uncerimoniously dumped into the sea. At ports such as Grosse Island in CAnada and other ports these ships were denied entry and sent back out to sea.

The Famine continued unablated for 3 more years.
No other crops were planted such as beans or peas to relieve the death spiral.
the British believed the social structure would collape if it distributed free food. Spectators made fortunes selling meger corn meal to those starving masses.

At last in 1851 the potato appeared eatable and the Famine was relieved- not by mankind but by the benevolance of Mother Nature.

In 1848 the cripple hunchback James Fintan Lalor formed Young Irleand with Gavan Duffy Frank Meager and Davis dictating, 'the owners of the soil must be Irish'.

James preached revolution but was unable to complete his plan. He died of bronchitis 3 months after the Battle fo Widow McCarthys Cabbage Patch at Ballengary in 1848.

The Irish suffered on. They ate raw turnips, nettles and seaweed finally consuming the grass itself dying green mouthed from the stain.
The Irish themselves of nature a hospitable people turned away beggars out of fear of deseases to themeselves and their families,.

Oats and Barley Wheat and livestock continued unabated to leave Ireland, 3 ships going out full of food for one coming in.

Whole cabins containing the deseased families were demolished and burned withthe bodies within out of fear of typhoid cholera and the ever present famine fever.
The treck to the ports continued amongst the 100,000 dead. Passage either provided by the landlords for all his tenantry or being individuly paid.

The potato blight continued to appear in Ireland until 1914 when it was treated by copper sulfate.
The landlords continued to demand rents of all crops and livestock and continued to evict with police and troop enforcers , braking down the mud hovels adn turnign the former holdigns into pasture.

The population of 8.3 million in 1841 became 4 million by 1900.
The Island had the lowest population in Europe having regressed instead of increasing.
The English government considered the Holicast was in the end a benefit and good for Ireland.

100,000 had been evicted and no one knew what happened to them.
Gavelkind was ended. Gaelic culture was defunct. The Gaelic language with its song and dance was heard no more.

Exports of oats wheat barley and livestock continued unenterupted.

In 1849 the little mother ofEngland Queen Victoria visited Dublin where she was warmly recieved and cheered by her subjects for her goodness.
At this time she was the mother of 5 healty offspring,3 left to be born in 1850, 1853 and 1857. She was 30 years old and had been Queen for 12 years.

By 1850 my two great grandfathers born in 1830 and surviving the Famine married and betwen them produced 9 children after 1850 whose births were unrecorded and no one knows waht happened to them.

In 1854 England spend 70 million pounds on the Crimean War where Irish soldiers served.
7 million had been spent on the Great Hunge relief effort.

In 1855 Castle Garden was opened at Battery Park Manhattn, NY to provide assistance to the Immigrants with food purchases, train tickets and lodging at the station.Children were assisted in finding the American relatives. It was the first Travelers Aide.

In 1856 Old St Patricks was built in downtown Chicago and I have been there in 1990 it still has the warm and caring spirit within.
St Patricks in NY City was built in the same way by donations of the faithful in 1858.

St Patricks in Armagh had to be postphoned in its building program as the money was needed to feed the starving.
It was finally dedicated and finished in 1873 with its 34 foot mark of pre-famineline blocks at window heights.

Most of the emigrees sent home money to relive the suffering of death to assist in sending passage money to family members.

By 1860 the Irish had gained success as police, maids ,nanies, dock workers , mill works and
other respectable work.








famine pg 3


By 1848 Irelands 8.3 million had dropped to 6 million. One million dead of 'natural causes' and exposure to the elements;
1.1 million dead of starvation.
Over 100,000 had fled to Canada and the US. 200,000 by 1851.
5000 ships were used to transport them.
The usual voyage took 4 weeks or 10 weeks if no wind.
Yellow fever was added to the list of deadly deaseases available on board.They landed at
Deer Island in Boston
Battery Park Manhattan Ny
Grosse Iles Montreal.
Many had died on the dock newly buried in mass graves in the new soil. Most wore rags Most were shoeless as the old kings of Ireland were inagurated with their bare foot on a rock impression of that investure. All were hungry and overwhelmed by the large cities they encountered having been born raised and lived an entire life in small rural villages.
Many were children sent on alone to find relatives.
All were easy marks for con artists who sold them false railway tickets, led them to unsrupulous lodges and to alleged employers.

Any shelter would do and most ended up in tenement houses filty, unsanitary, cime ridden, garbage piled onthe street, no toilet or water.

in 1849 a cholera epidemic swept the east coast of the US. 500 ofthe 700 killed were Irish.
In New Orleans yellow fever wiped out 20% of the Irish immigrants.

the Gold Rush reports drew many to take railroad jobs laying track to get to California for 1.00 a day.

Of 370,000 Immigrants in 1850 1/2 were Irish [185,000]

After that year 50,000 a year left Ireland for future in America.
They recieved anti-Irish backlash from Anglo Americans who provided them with abuse and ridiclule, refused them jobs, attacked catholic churrches.
A No nothing party formed called the American Party in 1852 against immigration and Catholics.
The party gained seats in govenrment to obtrain these ends..It held secret meetings.

The irish immigrants formed such socities as the Friends of St Patrick,St Patricsk Mutual Allaince, Legion of Mary,Hibernian Society,Emigrant Society.

150,000 Irish fought for the Union in the American Civil War.
40,000 for the Confederacy.
The IRB was formed with the Fenians from these regiments.

An irony to the Famine was that by 1830 the Irish made up over 40% of the British Imperials Legions. Before the Famine over half of the white soldiers in India were Irish.
The Irish nursery seemed inexaustable.
Irishmen fought at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 inhancing the vitory over France and aiding the empire ,condusive for its future growth.

The Irish continued to die for both Britain America and Canada through both Worlds Wars I and II throughout the 20th Century and as Sarsfield said at his death in France'
"Oh but for Ireland.



sourses: The Victorians, A N Wilson, W W Norton and Company, NY , 2003;
For the Cause of Liberty, Terry Galway, Simons and Schuster, 2000;
The History of Ulster, Ramsey Colles, Gresham Publishing Coy Ltd ,1919;

Our Cutural Heritage-Irish Americans, Sarah deCapua, 2003, Childs World;
Irish in America, Margaret Goldstein,2005 Learner Publications;
The Irish American Family Album, Dorothy Hobbler, 1995 , Oxford University
Press

Judi Donnelly
Copyright August 1 2007