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Ireland - Potato Famine - 1846-1849

Millions of people died in Ireland during the mid-1800"s when their food crop, potatoes, became sick. The population of that country in 1841 was over 8,000,000, of whom one half literally depended for their subsistence upon the potato crop ; nearly all the corn grown in Ireland was exported.

During the 1800s, despite attempts at rebellion, Ireland was ruled by the British. Most of the land was owned by English landlords who sublet small parcels of the land to Irish tenants at high rates. (Often these tenants were people whose families had historically owned the land.) The tenants could afford the high rates because they sold or traded their crops. Before the famine, Ireland's population exceeded 8 million people. While harvests were bountiful, employment opportunities were few. In 1835, 75 percent of Irish workers lacked consistent employment.

As in many other countries, food production was concentrated in growing of one or two types of crop plants. When these plants become sick due to infections, they can cause starvation of people relying on these plants. During the 1800s, the Irish fed their growing population by planting potatoes. A farmer could grow three times as many potatoes as grain on the same plot of land. The potato provided 60 percent of the nation's food needs, and many Irish consumed 8-14 pounds of potatoes each day. They planted a potato called the "lumper".

In the summer of 1845, blight attacked the potato crop, which was almost entirely destroyed, and contributed to approximately 750,000 deaths. The actual number of deaths is unknown because many died unseen and were buried in shallow, unmarked mass graves. An additional two million Irish residents left their homes for Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. This famine was more destructive to human life than many modern day famines and is an example of how a single pathogen can greatly affect mortality, morbidity, and economic and social patterns of a country.

Climate data obtained from trees, ice cores, marine sediment and historical documents indicate a mini ice age that lasted from 1400 to around 1860. During this time lower solar output produced harsh winters, shorter growing seasons and drier climates which were blamed for a host of human suffering and crop failures such as the Irish Potato Famine.

Potatoes are propagated vegetatively, so diseased potatoes used as planters sprouted diseased shoots. Moreover, the potatoes were all genetically identical to one another, so there was no genetic variation in immunity to pathogens. In 1845, the "lumpers" became susceptible to Phytophthora infestans. Not all of the potatoes were infected the first year, so farmers replanted the same potatoes during the next few years hoping for better results. The situation worsened as the spores spread. The Irish Potato Famine gave birth to the science of plant pathology. When the famine occurred in 1845, Louis Pasteur had not completed his work with bacteria, and the germ theory of disease had not been developed. The famine supported the idea that infectious microorganisms and plant pathogens can lead to disease. Prior to this time, it was felt that diseases and crop failures were caused by bad omens, weather, and other superstitions. People had noticed localized outbreaks of the disease early in the 1800s, but it didn't become a widespread problem until 1845.

The potato famine that gripped Europe, particularly Ireland, in the mid 1800's was the work of an insidious organism known as Phytophthora infestans. Long considered a fungus, it is now known to be a member of the oomycetes or "water molds," which are more closely related to the malaria parasite than to fungi. P. infestans thrives in cool, wet weather, and can infect potatoes, tomatoes and other related plants, causing a "late blight" disease that can decimate entire fields in just a few days.

Phytophthora infestans is the most destructive pathogen of potato and a model organism for the oomycetes, a distinct lineage of fungus-like eukaryotes that are related to organisms such as brown algae and diatoms. As the agent of the Irish potato famine in the mid-nineteenth century, P. infestans has had a tremendous effect on human history, resulting in famine and population displacement. To this day, it affects world agriculture by causing the most destructive disease of potato, the fourth largest food crop and a critical alternative to the major cereal crops for feeding the world's population. Current annual worldwide potato crop losses due to late blight are conservatively estimated at $6.7 billion. Management of this devastating pathogen is challenged by its remarkable speed of adaptation to control strategies such as genetically resistant cultivars.

The genetic data are consistent with the hypothesis that the initial migration of P. infestans in the 1840s was from Mexico to the United States and that only a single genetic individual was transported to Europe and subsequently to the rest of the world. If this hypothesis is correct, then the Irish potato famine was caused by a single clonal genotype of P. infestans.

Sections of Ireland's population were entirely dependent upon the potato. Ireland at this time had only 70 miles of railroad track, so efficient food distribution was not possible. Fish remained out of reach in waters that were too deep, and starving fishermen had sold their nets and boats to buy food. In addition, the Irish had ancient cultural taboos against eating certain foods. For example, seals were thought to be reincarnated relatives. When food became available, the Irish had no money to purchase it. Without money, residents were unable to pay rent, and many became homeless. Phytophthora infections have occurred in the northeastern United States and in other countries. However, because of a much more diversified diet, the effects have not been nearly as devastating as those resulting from the Irish Potato Famine.

The famine led to severe poverty and homelessness, which led to unsanitary and crowded conditions. Diseases such as cholera, dysentery, scurvy, typhus and lice infestations were common. Typhus was called the "Black Fever," because it blackened the skin and was carried by body lice from town to town by beggars and the homeless. Many doctors, nuns, and others who attended to the sick in lice-infested dwellings also became ill. Masses of bodies were buried without coffins just a few inches below the soil.

A push factor in Irish emigration during the Great Irish famine was eviction, the legal process of recovering land or property from those who occupy but do not own it. Famine evictions were especially cruel because those evicted were suffering from hunger and/or famine-related disease. Some evictions were carried out so landlords could clear their lands of smaller farms - some less than five acres-in order to have fewer, more efficient holdings. Some landlords evicted tenants because they themselves were in debt and had to raise cash. Other simply cleared their lands of those tenants who were unable to pay their rents. As conditions became more desperate, bonds of community and kinship became frayed and there were even cases of the neighbors turning out neighbors. Whatever the reason, evictions have a special horror for the Irish. The topic of laws about land ownership became the most important post-Famine issue, and was settled only with legislation that introduced land purchase for tenants (Wyndham Act, 1903).

Those who traveled to other countries did not fare much better. They traveled in crowded conditions that were perfect for disease transmission. Hundreds of men, women, and children were crowded together with no ventilation and no sanitary facilities. Another problem was the lack of potable drinking water. Water was stored in old, unwashed wooden casks that had previously stored wine, vinegar, or chemicals, which leached and contaminated the water. The trip to Quebec, Canada, took from 40 days to 3 months, depending on the weather. Shiploads of feverish Irish overwhelmed local medical facilities.

In Boston, during this same time, there was neither enforcement of sanitary regulations nor building or fire safety codes in place. A single-family three-story house was divided room by room into housing for 100 Irish. On average, adult Irish lived six years after stepping off the boat onto American soil. Cholera was the predominant disease, and infant mortality rates were high.

Repeated Irish potato crop failures in 1845, 1846, 1848, and 1849 called for extraordinary measures. The Russell government responded with the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act (1847), a revision of the 1838 Poor Law. While the 1838 Poor Law offered only the workhouse to the needy poor, this legislation permitted the elderly, the sick poor, and widows with two or more dependent children to get outdoor (or work and housing) relief. The law continued to assert that Irish relief was Ireland's problem and assigned the costs of the appropriations to the Irish Poor rates (taxes). People avoided the workhouse for three reasons: its prison-like regime, the stigma of having to go to the workhouse, and the association of workhouse with death. People feared the terrible overcrowding, the poor sanitation, the meager diet and limitations of what doctors could do about infectious diseases like cholera and typhus.

The English sent Indian corn from America to aid the Irish. However, the corn had to be ground into digestible cornmeal, and there weren't enough mills available. The cornmeal itself caused problems - it was difficult to cook, hard to digest, and caused diarrhea. It also lacked vitamin C, so scurvy, a disease previously unknown to the Irish, became a problem. Cornmeal stocks were depleted after the first year, and the Irish survived by selling their livestock and all their possessions to buy food.

The Irish relief effort soon came under the control of Charles Edward Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the British Treasury. Trevelyan believed in the popular theory of the day, "Laissez-faire (let it be)," which advocated a belief that a situation would eventually solve itself through natural processes. The British economy was also suffering at this time, and food supplies were very tight throughout Europe.

The British government was sharply criticized for its laissez-faire economic policy during the famine and particularly that it allowed food to be exported while Ireland starved. There was also food left in Ireland that was diverted to other use, including the production of alcohol. In 1847, with the price of grain sky high, the production of legal spirits fell 25 percent-from about eight million gallons to about six million gallons.

Charles Trevelyan, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, defended British policy in Ireland during the Great Irish Famine. "That indirect permanent advantages will accrue to Ireland from the scarcity, and the measure taken for its relief, I entertain no doubt.Besides the greatest improvement of all which could take place in Ireland would be to teach the people to depend upon themselves for developing the resources of the country. ... For several centuries we were in a state of open warfare with the native Irish, who were treated as foreign enemies, and were not admitted to the privileges and civilizing influences of English law, even when they most desired it. Now, thank God, we are in a different position; and although many waves of disturbance must pass over us before that troubled sea can entirely subside, and time must be allowed for morbid habits to give place to a more healthy action, England and Ireland are, with one great exception, the subject to equal laws; and so far as the maladies of Ireland are traceable to political causes, nearly every practical remedy has been applied. The deep and inveterate root of social evil remained, and this has been laid bare by direct stroke of an all-wise and all merciful Providence. God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part..."

An editorial in The London Times, September 22, 1846, argued that "The (Irish) people have made up their minds to report the worst and believe the worst. Human agency is now denounced as instrumental in adding to the calamity (disaster) inflicted by Heaven. It is no longer submission to Providence, but a murmur (complaint) against the Government ... The Government provided work for a people who love it or not. It made this the absolute condition of relief. The Government was required to ward off starvation, not to pamper indolence (laziness). Alas! the Irish peasant has tasted of famine and found that it was good ... There are ingredients in the Irish character which must be modified and corrected before either individuals or Government can hope to raise the general conditions of the people ... For our own part, we regard the potato blight as a blessing."

Isaac Butt, a leading Irish Conservative, demanded more British aid for the poor. "Can we wonder if the Irish people believe that the lives of those who have perished have been sacrificed by a deliberate compact to the gains of English merchants and if this belief has created among all classes a feeling of deep dissatisfaction, not only with the ministry but with English rule. What can be more absurd, what can be more wicked, than for men professing attachment to an imperial Constitution to answer claims now put forward for state assistance to the unprecedented necessities of Ireland, by talking of Ireland being a drain upon the English treasury?"

John Mitchel was one of the nationalists who was tried for treason during the Great Irish Famine (1848) and sentenced to 14 years transportation (penal servitude) in Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). He escaped to America in 1853. The Irish nationalist John Mitchel said of the Great Irish Famine, "There began (in 1847) to be an eager desire in England to get rid of the Celts by immigration; for though they were perishing fast of hunger and typhus, they were not perishing fast enough . The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine." [John Mitchel. The Last Conquest of Ireland. Dublin, 1861.]

That statement has represented the feelings of many Irish and Irish-Americans about British culpability for famine deaths and dispossession. Some historians and political activists have argued that British policy in Ireland during the Great Irish Famine was an example of genocide. They believe it should be classified and studied alongside other atrocities in world history, such as Nazi efforts to exterminate European Jews during World War II (the Holocaust), Turkish attacks on Armenians during the era of World War I, the Atlantic Slave Trade and its impact on Africa, the destruction of native civilizations following the Colombian encounter, and the mass slaughter of members of the Tutsi tribe during 1994 civil war in Rwanda.