(4) The Great Irish Famine and diaspora

1) The Great Irish Famine, 1845-1852

2) Mass emigration & diaspora
3) The British Empire
 1) The Great Irish Famine, 1845-1852

• An gorta mór (the Great Hunger)

• Seminal event in Irish history & Anglo-Irish relations

• About one million dead & mass emigration

• Not the first and last famine in IRL:

-1651-53, Cromwellian conquest.
-1740-41, 300-400,000 dead (-13-20% in pop.,
proportionally greater than Great Irish Famine).
-1879 (minor).
-1924-25 (minor).

• Controversial British reaction

• Population:
-1841: 8.2 million.
-1851: 6.5 million.
(total of population in island of IRL today: c. 7 million)

• About 1 million dead

• Importance of the potato (staple diet), lumper variety (high

yield)

• Abject poverty in Ireland:

-51% of dwellings are one-room mud cabins in 1841,
-cottiers & subdivision/subdivision of land.

• Elite is Protestant landed gentry:

-absentee landlordism & agents.
Baron
József Eötvös
(1813-1871)

“Everywhere people
are in rags, and
wearing the traces of
hunger and disease on
their pale faces”.

phaeton.ie
Frederick Douglass
(c. 1817-1895)

“I had heard much of the

misery and wretchedness
of the Irish people,
previous to my leaving the
United States, and was
prepared to witness much
on my arrival in Ireland [in
1845]. But I must confess,
my experience has
convinced me that the half
has not been told … of all
the places to witness
human misery, ignorance,
degradation, filth and
wretchedness, an Irish hut
is pre-eminent”. bing.com
• Diet of potatoes & dairy products is healthy

• Over-reliance on potato

• June 1845 in Belgium: potato blight, phytophthora

infestans

• On continent, blight disappears after one year; in IRL it

lasts several years in a row (1845-1852)
• Inadequate (and controversial) British response

• Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel (Tory, 1845-46):

-relief works,
-purchase of Indian Corn (North America),
-opening of food depots on west coast,
-Poor Law (1838) and workhouses under pressure.

• Food exports from IRL continue

• Food riots

• Importance of security during a famine:

-15,000 GB troops in 1843, 29,500 in 1849,
-£9.5 million on relief, £14 million on security.
• Prime Minister Sir John Russell (Whig, 1846-52)

• Laissez-faire

• Irish resources to pay for Irish problem

• Charles Trevelyan (treasury official): Irish famine due to

Irish social evils

• Some landlords good; others (& big farmers) abuse:

-profiteering & evictions (250,000-500,000).

• Government reaction not good:

-additional £50 million needed to replace lost food
• Private charity activities:
-Quakers (Society of Friends),
-British Association: £400,000
-Etc

• Queen Victoria, “The Famine Queen” (Maud Gonne): £2,000

(1848)

• Foreign aid:
-France, £45,000
-Netherlands, n/a
-German states, n/a
-Bengal, £15,000
-Russian government, £2,644
-Sultan of Ottoman Empire, Khaleefah Abdul-Majid, £10,000
but obliged to reduce to £1,000…
 2) Mass emigration & diaspora

• Mass emigration, West worst affected:

-1 million, 1821-1841,
-1 million, 1846-1851,
-500,000, April 1851-end 1852.

• 1821-1921: about 8 million people emigrate:

-poor,
-Irish speakers,
-mostly Catholics.

• Some state-funded/landlord assisted emigration

• Huge impact on IRL:

-depopulation of certain areas.
• Huge impact on areas of destination (UK & abroad):
-low-paid jobs,
-prejudice.

• UK one of main destinations:

-up to 300,000 end up in slums of Liverpool, Glasgow,
London, Manchester…
-some enduring symbols: Celtic FC.

• United States:
-New York, Boston, Philadelphia…
-New York gets 900,000 migrants, 1845-1855,
-New York (Tammany Hall, Democratic Party),
-need for domestic service sees mass arrival of
Irishwomen & girls.
• Irish migration to Canada:
-1847: 441 ships (over 80,000 people) arrive in Québec.

• By 1891, 4/10th of total Irish-born population living abroad

• Creation of ethnic communities

• Anti-British (remembrance of famine etc)

• Following political developments “at home” (IRL)

• Many Catholic hierarchies dominated/influenced by Irish-

born bishops/priests:
-Archbishop John Ireland (1838-1918), St Paul, USA,
-Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864-1963), Melbourne,
Australia.
 3) The British Empire

• Australia:
-1845-1855 (many convicts), 70,000 people,
-1855-1860, 175,000 people.

• Many Irish soldiers & administrators

• British army is a good employer:

-1830, 42% (40,000 soldiers) is Irish,
-infantry (many enlist outside IRL),
-alternative to poverty & imprisonment.

• Irish Protestant élite well represented in officer corps

• British Army seeks to avoid sectarianism:
-Orange Order banned from army, 1822,
-Catholic chaplains gradually accepted,
-loyalty of Irish soldiers?
-army can deal as adjunct to RIC.

• India:
-many Irish soldiers involved in Indian mutiny, 1857,
-1/3 of Indian civil service is Irish, 1857,
-British government riggs recruitment procedure in
favour of Oxbridge (away from Queen’s colleges in
IRL).

-Connaught Rangers mutiny in India, June 1920 (protest

against British army in IRL
• Catholic missionary activities in British Empire (faer
more than Protestant)

• Irish missionary activity also outside empire

• British rule in IRL is reference point for British rule in

India

• Other British empire police forces train in Dublin (RIC)

• Irish people not necessarily in favour of empire:

-Irish nationalist criticise British response to Indian
mutiny in 1857.

• Some Irish nationalists becoming more militant after

famine (British misrule).
 4) Post-famine socio-economic changes

• Belfast becomes main industrial city (globally important)

• Cottier class is wiped out

• Emergence of Catholic middle-class in towns &

countryside

• Farming from tillage to pasture (less need for farm

labourers)

• Less land available = later marriage (celibate life = more

emigration)

• Wages & life expectancy increase

• Emergence of new rural middle class: large farmers

• New urban middle class in towns (shared economic

interests with large farmers)

• People increasingly buy their food

• Changes in fashion, leisure…

• Changes in language and religious practices (from rural

underclass to Catholic middle class)

• Brewing, milling & food processing industries doing

well

• Huge shipbuilding industries in Ulster

• Religious changes:
-1834: 80% Catholic, 11% Anglican & 8% Presbyterian,
-1901: 74% Catholic, 13% Anglican & 10% Presbyterian.

• Protestant community strongly concentrated in Ulster

• Wealth concentrated in Protestant Ascendancy (landed)

and professional classes

• Anglican privilege declining: disestablishment of Church

of Ireland, 1869
• Catholic revival, Church more disciplined & organised:
-1840, 1 priest for 2750 people,
-1900, 1 priest for 900 people,
-Catholic middle classes provide bulk of new clergy,
-respectable Catholic society.