The Great Famine of 1845

A famine is a situation when there is a shortage or lack of food for a large number of people. During the famine, there was hunger, malnutrition, starvation, and often death among a large number of people. Ireland had observed the worst famine in 1845 which is now known as the Great Famine of Ireland. It continued till 1850 but the worst years were 1845 and 1849. It caused the death of almost one million people and the flight or immigration of 2.5 million crores over the period of six years. The population of Ireland was over 8 million in 1841 and it was further reduced to about 6.5 million.

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What Does Great Famine Mean?

The Great Famine, also known as the Irish Potato Famine, or Great Irish Famine, occurred when the potato crop failed in successive years. The crop failures were due to the late blight, a disease that destroys both the leaves and edible roots, or tubers of potato plants. The causative agent of the late blight is the water mould Phytophthora infestans. The Irish famine was the worst to occur in Europe in the 19th century.

How Did Irish Famine Begin?

The Irish Famine or the Great Famine of 1845 in Ireland began as a natural catastrophe of sensational magnitude. The effects of the Great Famine were seriously magnified due to the laziness of the Whig Government, led by Lord John Russel in the crucial years from 1845-1850.

Altogether, about one million people in Ireland are estimated to have died of starvation and epidemic disease between 1845 and 1852. In most famines of the modern world, only a small part of the population of a given country or region is exposed to the danger of death from starvation or infectious disease. But in the Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s, successive blasts of potato blight or the fungus Phytophthora infestans - robbed more than one-third of the population of their usual means of subsistence for four or five years in a row.

What are The Causes of the Great Famine?

Ireland's tenant farmers in the early 19th century, specifically in the west of Ireland, struggled to provide cereal crops both to themselves and to supply to the British market. The potato, which was considered a staple crop in Ireland by the 18th century, was appealing in that it was a hardy, nutritious, and high-calorie crop that was relatively easy to grow in the Irish soil. Almost half the Irish population in early 1840, especially the rural poor, had depended almost exclusively on the potato for their diet. Irish tenant farmers often permitted landless labourers, also known as cottiers, to live and work on their farms, as well as they were permitted to maintain their own potato plots.

A traditional cottier family consumed almost 8 pounds of potatoes per person each day. It is an amount that is assumed to provide about 80% or more of all the calories they consumed. The rest of the population was also dependent on potatoes for their diet. A large dependency on just one or two high-yielding types of potatoes greatly reduced the genetic variety that ordinarily prevents the destruction of an entire crop by disease, and hence the Irish became susceptible to famine.

In 1845,  a shear of the water mould Phytophthora infestans, which caused the disease late blight in potatoes and tomato plants, arrived accidentally in Ireland from North America. When plants become infected with this disease, lesions are observed to appear on the leaves, petioles, and stems. A whitish growth of spore-producing structures was observed at the margin of the lesions on the underleaf surfaces. Potato tubers were observed to develop rot up to 15 mm deep. 

Secondary fungi and bacteria also invade potato tubers and produce rotting that results in great losses during storage, transit, and marketing. Hot dry weather probably checks the spread of Phytophthora, but in 1845, Ireland had faced unusually cool moist weather, which allowed the blight to flourish. Almost half of the potato crop rotted in the fields during that year. That partial crop failure was followed by more disastrous failures in 1846–50, as each year’s potato crop was almost completely destroyed by the disease blight.

Ireland was under the control of the British Government during the famine and the parliament was in London. Sir Robert Peel was the prime minister when the potato blight ruined the first potato crop in 1845. He knew that most Irish people would face food scarcity. In 1846, he exported some Indian corn to Ireland and arranged for it to be sold in different parts of the country at a minimum price. This relieved some families, however, the poorest people had no money to buy Indian corn. The corn was also difficult to reach to some of the most isolated areas where the famine was worst and where the roads were bad. Another issue faced by the people was that they had to cook the corn, however, they often did not know how to cook it as they had never eaten it before. This corn was so hard it was renowned as “Peel’s Brimstone”. 

Robert Peel also arranged relief work where people were paid for their work. Poor people were paid wages by the government to do work such as building roads or piers. However, the money they were paid was very less and the food prices were high. The wages did not allow the workers to buy much food for themselves and their families. However, it did help to feed many people. During the Irish potato famine of 1845, no one died of famine. Peel also arranged relief committees in each area to collect money from wealthier people by collecting taxes.