Causes of the Great Famine

Rise in population

Population in Ireland grew

More demand for food

When the population increased => people became poorer

Blight

Blight: fungus that attacks and rots potatoes

Timeline of blight in Ireland

• 1845: First blight recorded

• 1846: Blight everywhere

• 1847: Little blight and small potato crop

• 1848: Blight everywhere

• 1849: Less blight

• 1850: Some blight

• 1851: Mostly blight free

Subdivision of Land

1. Farmers divided land between their son

2. The sons divided the land they got from their father’s between their own son’s

3. Land size decreased

4. Process repeats

As the land got smaller families got poorer

Over-reliance on the Potato

Three meals of potatoes everyday

Daily diet of a poorer class adult male - 1840s:

What did the British government do?

Government relief

Time line

• 1845: Government bought Indian corn and set up public works

• 1846: Laissez-faire (sort itself out), public work scemes, workhouses

• 1847: Soup Kitchen Act, work houses

• 1848: Workhouses, public works, outdoor relief

• 1849: Workhouses, public works, outdoor relief

• 1850: Workhouses, public works, outdoor relief

Robert peel

• Ordered the importation of £100,000 worth of Indian corn

  • €10.2 million in today’s money

  • Irish people couldn’t cook Indian corn

• Set up public work schemes

Workhouses

• Set up to help poor people

• By 1848 there were around 200,000 people in work houses

  • They were only built for 100,000 people

  • Overcrowding => diseases spread quickly

Emigration

• Leaving the country

• People went to:

  • Britain

  • America

  • Canada

• Bad conditions on boats

  • Coffin Ships

Consequences

Fall in population

• The population fell by 2 million between 1845 and 1851

  • 1 million died from hunger and disease

  • 1 million emigrated

• The population continued to decline after the famine due to emigration and low birthrate

Irish diaspora

The scattering of Irish people around the world

Subdivision ended

• Instead the eldest son got the land

  • They only got the land when their father died so they married late which resulted in a low birthrate

• Other sons and daughters were forced to emigrate

Decline in Irish Language

People in Irish speaking areas died resulting in the decline of the Irish language

Politics

• Britain was blamed for the famine

• Emigrants of Ireland took their hatred of the British to America

• Americans supported the Fenians, the Land League, Home Rule, the rebels in the 1916 rising and the IRA