0:00

The. Following is an encore presentation of

0:02

everything everywhere. daily. In.

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Eighteen forty five farmers around Europe suffered

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from a blight that devastated the potato

0:11

crop. This. Lasted for several years but

0:14

no one was a more pronounced than it

0:16

was on the Island of Ireland where it

0:18

resulted in death in mass migration. The

0:20

effect of this potato blight can still be witnessed

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in the world today. Learn more

0:24

about the Great Irish Famine also known as

0:26

the Irish Potato Famine. on this episode of

0:28

Everything Everywhere Daily. This.

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coms like for of eligibility as possible for concerns

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and response Beginning resources. To

2:47

understand how and why the Irish Potato

2:49

Famine occurred, there are a few things

2:51

we need to understand First and most

2:53

important was economic and political situation in

2:55

Ireland at the time. Despite

2:57

the fact that Ireland was supposedly fully

2:59

integrated into the United Kingdom, it was

3:01

in reality a colony, having been conquered

3:03

by England. Almost all major landowners in

3:06

Ireland where English or Anglo Irish. In

3:09

theory, they had representation in parliament in both

3:11

the House of Commons in the House of

3:13

Lords, but almost all of those people were

3:15

also wealthy Englishman. Many of

3:17

the landowners in Ireland also didn't even live

3:19

there. They simply had no connection to the

3:21

land with people who work on the land.

3:23

It was simply and investment. Almost

3:26

all of the land was confiscated by

3:28

force by aristocratic English starting back in

3:30

the seventeenth century. Irish

3:32

Catholics were, for all practical purposes

3:34

second class citizens in their own

3:36

country. The way the

3:38

absentee landlords would make money was by renting their

3:40

lands out to peasants who would grow crops for

3:42

export. This was all conducted via

3:44

system known as the middleman system. Agents

3:47

would be hired who lived in Ireland and collected

3:49

all the rents. These. Agents

3:51

held great power and they could and

3:53

did abuses power on a regular basis.

3:56

Their. Bosses weren't there and quite frankly didn't

3:58

really care. As long as there rent for

4:00

paid, almost all of the money made in

4:02

Ireland was sent out of the country. This

4:05

system resulted in Ireland being the poorest country

4:07

in Europe in the mid nineteenth century. Parliament.

4:10

Connected many inquiries into the problems of

4:13

Ireland's one such report which the Earl

4:15

of Devon oversaw reported quote. He.

4:17

Would be impossible adequately describe the privations

4:19

which the Irish labor and his family

4:21

habitually and silently endure It Many districts

4:23

they're only food is the potato and

4:26

they're only beverage water. Their cabins are

4:28

seldom a protection against the weather. A

4:30

bed or blanket is a rare luxury.

4:33

And in nearly all, their pig and

4:35

a manure heap constitute their only property.

4:38

And. Quote. On top

4:40

of this, Ireland also had the highest population

4:42

density of any country in Europe at the

4:44

time, and I had a population of about

4:46

eight point, seven, five million people. I

4:49

should also note that at this time, much of

4:51

the native population in Ireland didn't even speak English.

4:53

They spoke Gaelic. A poor,

4:55

large population resulted in high rents for very

4:58

small plots of land, which were the only

5:00

things that peasants had to grow their own

5:02

food. And this brings me to the

5:04

subject of a potato. If

5:06

you remember back, I did an entire

5:08

episode on potatoes. Potatoes were actually a

5:10

miracle crop for Europe. Wants Europeans opened

5:12

up to it. Potatoes provided far more

5:14

calories and nutrients than any other crop

5:16

which could be grown. If the amount

5:18

of land you had was limited than

5:20

the smart option was to grow potatoes.

5:23

For poor Irish Catholics, Potatoes for the

5:25

foundation of their diet. They would

5:27

literally eat potatoes in almost every form

5:29

for every meal. They might occasionally have

5:31

some butter and onions with them, but that

5:33

was about it. Not only

5:36

did people eat potatoes, but so did the

5:38

lifestyle. It turns out that

5:40

Ireland was also very well suited for potato production.

5:42

They grew well, and Ireland was one of the

5:44

first countries in Europe to adopt a potato. Potato

5:47

was really the food the made life in

5:50

Ireland even possible in the mid nineteenth century.

5:53

And then something happened around eighteen. Forty

5:55

Two Eighteen Forty Four. In

5:57

the Toluca Valley in Mexico or Passage and. The

6:00

and spread and potatoes was a fungus

6:02

second wipe out entire crops and make

6:04

the products inedible. The blight

6:06

spread north into the United States, but the

6:08

impact wasn't that severe because Americans weren't reliant

6:10

on potatoes that a wide variety of foods

6:13

of are grown. and without potatoes they are

6:15

plenty of substitutes. From the U

6:17

S, the blight spread by shipped to Europe. And

6:20

here I should note that the potato blight

6:22

didn't only occur in Ireland. The Irish Potato

6:24

Famine was just a subset of what was

6:26

known as the European Potato Failure, which affected

6:29

most of Europe where potatoes were grown. In

6:32

fact, many countries suffered worse potato harvest

6:34

then Ireland. It. Would magnify

6:36

problems in Ireland was the poverty,

6:38

land ownership, and over reliance on

6:40

a single crop. When. The

6:42

Blade arrived in Ireland and eighteen forty five. Nobody

6:45

was your what caused it. It was a bad

6:47

year for whether the worst that any one of

6:49

any age could remember. The. Blight

6:51

was first reported on the Isle of Wight and

6:53

mid August, and it was spreading through Ireland like

6:55

wildfire by September. It became clear

6:57

that Ireland was going to have big problems.

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Estimates are that a potato crop and eighteen

7:02

forty five was down by a third to

7:04

assess. Not to be sure a

7:06

failed crop is a bad thing, but if a

7:09

single year's crop goes bad, it usually is something

7:11

that you can survive. This. Happened before

7:13

in Ireland and it wasn't an unfamiliar

7:15

occurrence in all a cultural societies. What

7:18

made this so bad is it the blaze

7:20

didn't go away. In eighteen, forty

7:22

six was estimated that seventy five percent

7:24

of the potato crop was lost. Or

7:27

was just widespread hardship and now turned

7:30

into an actual famine. The

7:32

government's reaction to this was totally out of

7:34

the hands of the Irish who really didn't

7:36

control anything. All. Around Europe governments

7:38

did two things immediately. first be remove tariffs

7:41

on food imports are the more food could

7:43

come into the country from on affected areas.

7:45

Second the usually band food exports so more

7:47

food was available to the people in their

7:50

own country. This is exactly

7:52

what Ireland did back and seventeen Eighty Two

7:54

and seventeen Eighty three when Ireland face to

7:56

food shortage. The. british parliament did

7:58

the first thing They removed what were

8:00

known as the Corn Laws which were high tariffs on

8:02

grain. However, they never did

8:05

anything about exports. During

8:07

the entire time of the famine, Ireland

8:09

was exporting food out of the country,

8:11

usually to England. Food

8:14

which was owned by wealthy Englishmen who

8:16

didn't live in Ireland. The

8:18

person who the British sent to Ireland had up

8:20

relief efforts was Sir Charles Trevlyn. The

8:23

problem was Trevlyn pretty much hated the

8:25

Irish. He didn't view the famine

8:27

as a problem of food or even land ownership. He

8:30

viewed the famine as a result of the moral failure

8:32

of the Irish. He thought

8:34

that this was the judgment of God on

8:36

the Catholics and said, quote, the real evil

8:38

with which we have to contend is not

8:40

the physical evil of the famine, but the

8:42

moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent

8:44

character of the Irish people. End

8:47

quote. 1847

8:49

was probably the worst year of the famine. Parliament

8:51

passed the Poor Law Amendment Act which modified the 1838

8:53

Irish Poor Law. This

8:56

law mandated that anyone who owned at least

8:58

a quarter acre of land was ineligible for

9:00

any aid or assistance. This

9:02

meant that someone who had sold off everything

9:05

to pay their rent would now receive nothing

9:07

until the land reverted back to the landowner.

9:10

This resulted in massive evictions which began

9:12

in 1847, but increased all the way

9:14

through Also,

9:16

because of the hunger deaths which began in

9:19

1846, there were few seed potatoes available for

9:21

1847, which just made matters worse. An

9:24

estimated 50,000 families were evicted from their land between

9:26

1847 and 1850. The

9:29

total number of deaths from 1845 to 1851 is unknown, but the estimates are

9:32

usually around

9:35

one million and as high as 1.5 million. This

9:39

includes deaths from starvation and from disease.

9:42

In addition to the deaths, the famine also

9:44

resulted in a massive wave of immigration out

9:46

of Ireland. There was a

9:48

peak of 250,000 people who immigrated to the United States

9:50

in just 1847 with another 100,000

9:53

who left for Canada. Immigrants

9:56

brought diseases with them which ravaged the ships as

9:58

they crossed the Atlantic and they were were responsible

10:00

for a large outbreak of typhus in the United

10:02

States in 1847. Many immigrants were

10:05

often sent away by their landlords in exchange

10:07

for their land. Most of

10:09

the immigrants in North America were young people,

10:12

predominantly, from the western counties of Ireland. Many

10:15

people also immigrated to England. Liverpool became a

10:17

quarter Irish by the year 1851. Aidan

10:21

donations were sent to Ireland from around the world.

10:23

The most interesting donation came from the Choctaw

10:25

Nation of Oklahoma, who had been forced to

10:27

live there via the Trail of Tears just

10:29

a few years earlier. They raised $170,

10:31

which was a fair amount of money for

10:35

1847, and a whole lot of

10:37

money for a mid-19th century tribe that had lost its

10:39

land. The Great Famine

10:41

set off a spark that resulted in massive

10:44

changes to Ireland. It really could be said

10:46

to have kicked off the Irish National Movement,

10:48

which eventually resulted in Irish independence decades later.

10:51

The biggest example of this was the young Ireland

10:53

Rebellion of 1848.

10:55

Immigration from Ireland didn't stop

10:57

once the famine was over. Ireland

10:59

saw a decrease in population every

11:01

decade until the early 1960s, when

11:03

the population bottomed out at around

11:05

2.1 million people. Even

11:08

today in the 21st century, the population of Ireland,

11:10

both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is

11:12

less than what it was in 1841. As for

11:14

the blight

11:17

itself, it was eventually identified as

11:19

the fungus Phytophthora infestans, which can

11:22

still infect potato and tomato crops

11:24

today. In fact, there was

11:26

another potato blight which occurred in Ireland in 1879, but it

11:28

never resulted in a mass death. So

11:32

one of the big questions for historians is

11:34

why did crop failures before and after the

11:37

Great Famine not result in the same things?

11:40

Why did the same potato blight in other

11:42

European countries not result in famine when it

11:44

did in Ireland? The overwhelming

11:46

historical consensus is that it was due to

11:48

the British response and the rule over Ireland.

11:51

The land confiscation, absentee landlords, the

11:53

middleman system, the evictions, the failure

11:56

to stop food exports all contributed

11:58

to turning a bad situation. into

12:00

a disaster. John Mitchell,

12:02

one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Rebellion in 1848,

12:05

wrote one of the first academic accounts of the famine in

12:07

1860 and in

12:10

it he wrote, quote, The Almighty indeed

12:12

sent the potato blight but the English

12:14

created the famine. Today

12:16

there are many commemorations of the Great Irish

12:18

Famine. There is an unofficial National Famine

12:21

Commemoration Day in Ireland which is celebrated on

12:23

the third Sunday in May. In

12:25

2015 a sculpture titled Kindred

12:28

Spirits was installed in County Cork which

12:30

honors the donation of the Choctaw people.

12:32

There is an Irish Hunger Memorial located near

12:35

Battery Park in New York and the National

12:37

Famine Museum is located in Strokes Town Park,

12:39

County Ross Common, Ireland. The

12:41

Great Famine remains probably the singular most

12:43

influential event in the history of modern

12:45

Ireland. It has directly or

12:48

indirectly shaped the history and demographics of

12:50

the island of Ireland for over a

12:52

hundred and seventy-five years. The

12:58

executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles

13:00

Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and

13:02

Cameron Kiefer. I wanted to

13:04

give a big thanks to everyone who supports

13:06

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