The Great Famine

Overdependance on Potato

Had 3 meals on Potatos in 1840

Began in South America and spread to North America and comes here

Land was divided from English and British

Middlemen controlled the land for the landlord

Taxes were paid by tenants

A small number rented 20 acres of land

The majority had 10 acres had just enough to grow food and survive

Cottiers were the poorest and were 56% of the population

Relied completely on the potato

were underground and paid tenants for land

Cottiers had no land ad no rent and worked for the tentants so they could survive

Had a cabin made of mud from a conacre

They suffered the most during the Famine

Ireland ruled in Aras an Uachtaráin by Lord Lieutenant

95% percent were on landlord land

All were protestant

Local agents were around and twice a year to pay rent

If you couldn't pay your rent you were evicted

like a death sentence

Increased rent every year and was called rack renting

One of the poorest in Western Europe

Vey little employment oppurtunities

Only a quarter of the people could write

Protestant areas like in Belfast were rich

In 45 years Ireland is gone from 4 million to 8 million

People married young and had a lot of Children

Main topic

Housing

Mud cabins

No windows, no chimneys

A dozen people slept in the house

pigs slept with them

really poor

Course of the Famine

1845 50% has blight

1846 75% had blight

In 1845 Britain was one of the wealthiest in the world

Ireland was England's food exporter

Exporting eggs corn salmon and alcohol

3 million tenants, and 2 million 4th class citizen

1845 No one dies as 2 harvests

Robert Peel was Prime Minister and was trying sell cheap grain to the people

They can't afford it and are left starving

Peel tried to help the Irish and he split his party and lost power after trying to appeal corn laws

Called Peel's brimstone

Maize brought in and cause diarrhea

it lacked Vitamin C and resulted in scurvy

Didn't bring the same filling as the potato

Sets up relief commition

Public works - sets up work schemes to get money and in your weaken state

Children as young as 8 or 9 working in it

Poor law - ordered landlords to set up workplaces

Some charitable organisations set up soup kitchens

Quakers did this not the British Government

Charles Trevelyan

In 1846 people started dying

Set up workhouses and the amounts of work you did you got paid

set up roads and piers

Cuts the pay by 20% and the prices still went up

Laissez - Faire

means the goverment should not intervene for business and the poor were to blame

Ireland were exporting food

Lord John Russell

Typhis and cholera spreads

Russell sets aside £10 million

stops the importation of maize

All soup kitchens closed

In 1846, coldest winter in 100 years

Consequences of the famine

Emigration grew and 2 million left on coffin ships

Went to America Liverpool Manchester and Australia

racist abuse to irish

farmers now gave land to oldest son

parents taught kids english instead of irish due to immigration

1 million died

population wnet from 8 million to 4 million now 5 million

Henry ford

79 million Irish descendants

Come back to trace their roots which Irish economy benefits on

Strong hatred to British

Liverpool and Manchester United

GAA in other places such as London, New York, Abu Dhabi

Songs such as the fields of athenry

Black 47

Military barracks double to prevent trouble

English anounnce famine is over

famine was still there though

English kindly said let them die

Crop failed

Choctaw tribe donate money which we never forget

Worst year of the famine