Six months and more later, it's time to step back a little in history again. Sure, we will of course come to the scandal of the Magdalene Laundries in time, but right now I want to look at an event which changed Irish history, and the perception of Ireland so radically and fundamentally that we would never again be the same. In fact, it almost made sure we became nothing more than a memory, a footnote in history, and might in time pass into legend as a race who may, or may not, have existed.
Bitter Harvest: Blight on the Landscape
The Great Famine (1845 - 1849)
"The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." - John Mitchell
While famine is always a big issue, and should always be taken seriously, and if we can, we should do all we can to help avert or end it, overall I think it’s fair to say that the days of Live Aid are gone, and in these times of, well, more important things on our mind, we can watch news footage of famines in Africa and Central America and other places and just shrug. It’s not that we don’t care, but without Geldof to poke and prod us and snarl “Give us your f
ucking money!” while providing us world-class music entertainment in the hope of prising that fiver or tenner (hey, this was 1985, remember! I’d barely left school!) from our pocket, you might say the conscience that drove our revulsion at famine, and the need to do something about it, has gone.
Not that I’m for a moment proposing that nobody cares. You probably give to good causes and hope they will funnel the money to those who need it, those who have nothing to eat, rather than self-styled warlords living in opulence off the backs of the people they purport to be freeing, or to have freed, from oppression. Or even corrupt governments who divert the funds into slush accounts and personal nest eggs. Our faith in our charitable institutions has without doubt taken a serious knock over the last say ten years or so, and I know that I, personally, maybe like a lot of you, only give out of guilt. To some degree, I only half-expect my small contribution to go where it’s supposed to go, but what can you do?
Famines are of course not new to the twentieth century, nor the twenty-first, and back hundreds of years ago they were more common across Europe than they are today in the poorer, developing countries (not socially acceptable to call them third world countries now - always wondered what qualified a country as a second world one?), mostly because of, well, the same reasons really. A huge gulf between the classes, with the super-rich not giving a curse about the super-poor, wars constantly raging across the continent (most, but to be fair, not all, driven by England, who always seemed to be at war with someone, and were that restless when they weren’t that they had to fight among themselves) and rising prices and mass unemployment making it harder to make ends meet. Market forces, as ever, drove supply and demand, and those who could afford to bought all they could at the lowest price they could, and then sold it to those who could not afford it at the highest price they could. Never changes.
But while Europe had its famines, and they were many, none seemed as devastating and none are remembered with such horror by history as the one that gripped Ireland in the tail-end of the nineteenth century. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing across Europe, and especially in Britain, Ireland still lived in a kind of hundred-year reverse, where peasants toiled the land with crude tools, there were few if any factories, crops had to be dug out of the soil by the sweat of your brow, and wealthy landowners kept all the best and most arable land to themselves. An underclass of Irish Catholics worked as tenant farmers on the worst and least cultivable land, where the only thing that would grow in such hardy soil was that old Irish staple, the potato.
But before we get too wrapped up in crops and harvests and blights and the inevitable road to starvation and emigration, we should of course examine the years leading up to what became known in Ireland as
Gorta Mór, which literally means “the great hurt”, but which would be remembered by generations of Irish people as The Great Famine.
The Devon Commission
Appointed in 1843 and reporting the year the Great Famine begun, the Devon Commission was a royal commission undertaken by the Crown to enquire into the state of Irish tenant labourers and farmers in Ireland. It was headed by the Earl of Devon (hence the name) and identified many facts which were well-known to the Irish - and, most likely the English, though the latter would prefer they remained unknown - the principle one being that the distribution of land in Ireland was unfairly weighted on the side of wealthy Protestant landowners. Its recommendations were strenuously objected to by Irish (read, English) landowners and landlords, mostly because they had no intention of putting their hands in their pockets, and so watched impassively and with absolutely no sympathy or sense of responsibility for the horrible famine that swept across the country.
Evidence is given here by a land agent as to how all but impossible a task it was to get Irish landowners to even engage with the few improvements that might have saved lives, had the commission reported sooner (though two years is actually quite rapid for a report, even now) and/or its recommendations been implemented with all haste. The emphasis in the following extract has been added by me.
Robert O’Brien, esq., land proprietor, and agent to properties in the counties of Clare and Limerick.
6. A farming society, professing to be for the counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary, has been in existence for the last few years, and has certainly produced some good in inducing cattle breeders to take more pains about their stock than they would otherwise do; but every effort to extend its application to the small farmers has been attended with failure from want of co-operation, arising from its sphere of action being too extended. When I was manager, in 1841, I endeavoured to establish branches in every barony, for the benefit of small farmers, making the condition that £10 should be contributed to the parent society out of that barony. Though three baronies were qualified, no application for the premium was made from anyone. In 1842, I endeavoured to get up a ploughing-match, and though I advertised for land could get none. I also, that year, had the prizes placed at our disposal by the Royal Agricultural Society offered for competition in the Limerick district alone; and though I circulated the papers largely, no claim for competition was made. Again, in 1843, I applied to the local society, and obtained a grant of money for premiums, in addition to what was given by the Royal Agricultural Society, to be offered for competition in each poor-law union in the counties of Clare and Limerick. The union of Ennistimon was the first on the list, and though I sent the premium sheets to every resident gentleman and clergyman, yet hardly any notice was given to the small farmers to prepare themselves, and only a few competitors appeared; nor had it the effect which was intended, of inducting residents in the union to attempt to form a local society. One of the reasons that a farming society, whose object is the improvement of tillage, has not succeeded here is that the gentry generally hold rich lands, which are kept for pasture, and do not, as a class, feel so direct a sympathy with those who occupy the waste and poor lands. It is, therefore, only a few landlords who, taking an interest in the improvement of the tenantry, would be willing to support such a society; but they, finding no general interest in the subject, confine their exertions to their own estates, on which several are engaged in extensive improvements.
Extract from notes by David J. Wilson, landowner in County Clare:
The small piece of land attached to it (three and a half statue acres) is the greater part of it very poor land, at the foot of a mountain, and with a very thin surface…
The Great Emancipator himself had little faith in the impartiality of the Commission, nor its intent to help the poor farmers, being made up as it was exclusively of landowners: " You might as well consult butchers about keeping Lent as consult these men about the rights of farmer!” he snarled. Perhaps he would have eaten his words - to use a terribly inappropriate metaphor - had he seen the report of the commission, but it came, as I say, too late, and though its recommendations would later be put into practice, those whom it was supposed to help would by then either be in America, dead at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean or dead in the grey, mucky, empty fields of Ireland.
Laws were of course weighted heavily, almost entirely on the side of the landowner, and a tenant who was unable to pay his rent could have goods to that value - including his crops - seized, meaning that as these were his sole means of income, he had no chance at all of making good on the debt. The landlord was, in effect, robbing him and leaving him with no way to make good on that deficit. Then of course he could just be ejected, or evicted from the land, a process that was made easier for the landlords and which was often chosen by them as their preferred method of dealing with a tenant in arrears. Conacre was another practice in wide use in Ireland. This was the idea of letting a small plot of land for the growth of one or two crops, barely enough for the tenant to feed himself and his family on. The idea of class - closer to ancient serfdom or even slavery really - was never more potent than in Ireland, especially the south, what became known as the Republic, under the English. The feelings of many British MPs were summed up almost in one sentence by the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland: ‘Esquimaux [sic] and New Zealanders are more thrifty and industrious than these people who deserve to be left to their fate instead of the hardworking people of England being taxed for their support.”
Why was this? Why the lack of empathy, pity or even a sense of inclusion into what was now the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland? The reality was that the Union had been more or less forced on Ireland; at no time had she requested it, and though the likes of Daniel O’Connell had supported it, in the hope that it would bring more recognition for Ireland, and even the protection of the king most Irish people hated, this was of course not the case. It was merely a way for the British government and the Crown to tighten their hold over the troublesome country, dismiss its parliament and rule from Westminster. It was, I suppose you would have to say, a way of showing the Irish who was boss. But like marginal members of society suddenly pulled into, and in most cases forced upon that society - think maybe itinerant/gypsy/pikies being given houses in a housing estate, or maybe immigrant refugees - it was made clear that the Irish were still “poor cousins” (emphasis heavily on the poor) and were neither accepted nor wanted. Like children being told they have to play nice with those of neighbours they didn’t like, the British people sulked and muttered but could do nothing about this new addition to their Union. But they didn’t have to make them welcome, and they went out of their way to make sure this was far from the case.
It’s a matter of historical tragic irony that at the height of the Great Famine, Ireland was in fact exporting to Britain enough corn to feed two million people, twice as many as would die of hunger in Ireland during this awful period. Far from being able to grow only potatoes - and those useless once the blight hit - Irish farmers grew crops which were, however, not for local consumption but for export, literally sending out of the country food that could have prevented the Famine. There was no corresponding import of grains, this all due to the infamous Corn Laws, passed in order to keep the importation of corn prohibitively expensive and therefore allow domestic corn prices to remain competitive. In reality, what it did was give the Irish landowners a monopoly and the opportunity to raise their own prices, as corn could not be got from anywhere else unless you wished to break the bank. This all began in laws enacted back in 1815 by the British Government.
The Corn Laws
It should be understood that “corn” was, in the legal sense of the Act, a catch-all word which covered all grains - wheat, barley, oats and of course corn - as the Tory Government sought to keep Britain competitive in the agricultural market. In the time of George III, prices for the importation of foreign corn had been set at a ceiling of 48 shillings per quarter. A quarter was equal to eight bushels, and though it’s very complicated, basically it seems a bushel was in or around maybe 14 Kgs or about 30 pounds. With victory over Napoleon corn prices began to fall, and in order to remain competitive Britain passed the Corn Laws (
An Act to amend the Laws now in force to regulate the importation of corn), raising the ceiling to 80 shillings. What this meant, in effect, was that as long as Britain (and Ireland) produced corn that cost no more than 80 shillings per quarter (around £1200 per tonne) no corn would be allowed to be imported to the country. Falling prices as noted above, due to peace finally being attained in Europe, ensured this ceiling would never be reached.
And then came an unexpected event.