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The Great Irish Famine, the Irish Holocaust[1]^{[unreliable source?]} or The Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol, meaning The Bad Life) reduced the population of Ireland by 20 to 25 percent between 1845 and 1852.^[1] The proximate cause ^[2] of the famine was a pathogenic water mold, Phytophthora infestans, commonly known as potato blight. Though P. infestans ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, its human cost in Ireland was exacerbated by a host of political, social, economic, and climatological factors which remain the subjects of heated historical debate. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... The Irish Famine of 1740-41 (or The Potatocaust) was perhaps of similar magnitude to the better-known Great Famine of 1847-49. ... In the law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held the cause of that injury. ... A pathogen or infectious agent is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its host. ... Orders Lagenidiales Leptomitales Peronosporales Pythiales Rhipidiales Saprolegniales Sclerosporales Water moulds or Oomycetes are a group of filamentous protists, physically resembling fungi. ... Potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a serious disease of the potato plant. ... For other uses, see Potato (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ...

The famine was a watershed in the history of Ireland. Its effects extended well beyond its immediate demographic impact and permanently changed the island's political and cultural landscape. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory and became a rallying point for various nationalist movements. Virtually all modern historians of Ireland regard it as a dividing line in the Irish historical narrative, referring to the preceding period of Irish history as "pre-Famine." The History of Ireland began with the first known human settlement in Ireland around 8000 BC, when hunter-gatherers arrived from Britain and continental Europe, probably via a land bridge. ... // The Irish diaspora consists of Irish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and states of the Caribbean and continental Europe. ... Folk memory is a term often used to describe stories, folklore or myths about past events that are passed orally from generation to generation. ... Irish nationalism refers to political movements that desire greater autonomy or the independence of Ireland from Great Britain. ...

An 1849 depiction of Bridget O'Donnell and her two children during the famine.

Download high resolution version (1291x1873, 539 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1291x1873, 539 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

Background

Although central to everyday life, the Irish potato crop was an uncertain quantity. The famine of 1845 was notable for its vastness only: according to the 1851 Census of Ireland Commissioners there were twenty-four failures of the potato crop going back 1728, of varying severity. in 1739 the crop was "entirely destroyed", and again in 1740, in 1770 the crop largely failed again. In 1800 there was another "general" failure, and in 1807 half the crop was lost. In 1821 and 1822 the potato crop failed completely in Munster and Connaught, and 1830 and 1831 were years of failure in Mayo, Donegal and Galway. In 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1836 a large number of districts suffered serious loss, and in 1835 the potato failed in Ulster. 1836 and 1837 brought "extensive" failures throughout Ireland and again in 1839 failure was universal throughout the country; both 1841 and 1844 potato crop failure was widespread.^[3] Statistics Area: 24,607. ... Statistics Area: 17,713. ... Statistics Province: Connacht County Town: Castlebar Code: MO Area: 5,397 km² Population (2006) 123,648 Website: www. ... Statistics Province: Ulster Dáil Éireann: Donegal North East, Donegal South West County Town: Lifford Code: DL Area: 4,841 km² Population (2006) 146,956 Website: www. ... Statistics Province: Connacht County Town: Galway Code: G (GY proposed) Area: 6,148 km² Population (2006) 231,035 (including Galway City); 159,052 (without Galway City) Website: www. ... This article is about the nine-county Irish province. ...

From 1801 Ireland had been directly governed, under the Act of Union, as part of the United Kingdom. Executive power lay in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Chief Secretary for Ireland, both of whom were appointed by the British government. Ireland sent 105 members of parliament to the British House of Commons, and Irish representative peers elected twenty-eight of their own number to sit for life in the House of Lords. Between 1832 and 1859 seventy percent of Irish representatives were landowners or the sons of landowners. ^[4] The 1800 Act of Union merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself a merger of England and Scotland under the Act of Union 1707) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801. ... Official standard of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (plural: Lords Lieutenant), also known as the Judiciar in the early mediaeval period and as the Lord Deputy as late as the 17th century, was the Kings representative and head of the Irish executive during the... The Chief Secretary was the most important position for determining British policy in Ireland after the Lord Lieutenant, and was frequently a cabinet level position in the 19th and early twentieth centuries. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ... Type Lower House Speaker Michael Martin, (Non-affiliated) since October 23, 2000 Leader Harriet Harman, (Labour) since June 28, 2007 Shadow Leader Theresa May, (Conservative) since May 5, 2005 Members 659 Political groups Labour Party Conservative Party Liberal Democrats Scottish National Party Plaid Cymru Democratic Unionist Party Sinn Féin... In the United Kingdom, representative peers were individuals elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to represent them in the British House of Lords. ... This article is about the British House of Lords. ...

In the forty years since the union, successive British governments had grappled with the problems of governing a country which had, as Benjamin Disraeli put it in 1844, "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world."^[5] One historian calculated that between 1801 and 1845 there had been 114 commissions and 61 special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland and that "without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low." ^[6] Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (December 21, 1804 - April 24, British Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and author. ... The Church of Ireland (Irish: ) is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, operating seamlessly across the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. ...

Catholic emancipation had been achieved in 1829, and Catholics made up 80% of the population. The bulk of that population lived in conditions of poverty and insecurity. At the top of the “social pyramid” was the “Ascendancy class,” the English and Anglo-Irish families who owned most of the land, and had more or less limitless power over their tenants. Some of their estates were vast — the Earl of Lucan, for example, owned over 60,000 acres. Many of these landlords lived in England and were called ‘absentees’. They used agents to administer their property for them, with the revenue generated being sent to England. ^[7] A number of the absentee landlords living in England never set foot in Ireland. They took their rents from their “impoverished tenants” or paid them minimal wages to raise crops and livestock for export. ^[8]

The 1841 census showed a population of just over 8 million. Two-thirds of those depended on agriculture for their survival, but they rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for the patch of land they needed, in order to grow enough food for their own families. This was the system which forced Ireland and her peasantry to rely on a single crop, as only the potato could be grown in sufficient quantity. The rights to a plot of land in Ireland meant the difference between life and death in the early 19th century. ^[8] Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The period of the potato blight in Ireland from 1845—51 was full of political confrontation. ^[4] The mass movement for Repeal of the Act of Union had failed in its objectives by the time its founder Daniel O'Connell died in 1847.^{[citation needed]} A more radical Young Ireland group seceded from the Repeal movement and attempted an armed rebellion in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. It was unsuccessful. Daniel OConnell set up the Repeal Association in 1840 to campaign for the Repeal of the Act of Union. ... Act of Union can mean: United Kingdom The Act of Union is a name given to several acts passed by the English, Scottish and British Parliaments from 1536 onwards. ... For other persons named Daniel OConnell, see Daniel OConnell (disambiguation). ... Young Ireland was an Irish nationalist revolutionary movement, active in the mid-nineteenth century. ... The Young Irelander Rebellion or Famine Rebellion of 1848 was a failed uprising of the Young Ireland political movement, which took place on July 29, 1848 in the village of Ballingarry in the Republic of Ireland. ...

Ireland at this time was, according to the Act of Union of 1801, an integral part of the British imperial homeland, “the richest empire on the globe,” and was “the most fertile portion of that empire,” in addition; Ireland was sheltered by both "...Habeas Corpus and trial by jury...". ^[9] And yet Ireland's elected representatives seemed powerless to act on the country's behalf as Members to the British Parliament. Commenting on this at the time John Mitchel wrote:

Ireland remained a net exporter of food even during the blight. The immediate effect on Ireland was devastating, and its long-term effects proved immense, changing Irish culture and tradition for generations. ^[10] The population of Ireland continued to fall for 70 years, stabilizing at half the level prior to the famine. This long-term decline ended in the west of the country only in 2006, over 160 years after the famine struck.^[11]

Causes and contributing factors

Symptoms of the potato blight were first recorded in Belgium in 1845. ^[12] Plant pathologist Jean Beagle Ristanio speculates that the pathogen (not a fungus but an oomycete) arrived in Europe on a shipment of potatoes from South America in the 1830s. In Ulster, the development of a considerable manufacturing sector generated revenue which was in turn invested into farms reducing the impact of the blight. ^[12] Orders Lagenidiales Leptomitales Peronosporales Pythiales Rhipidiales Saprolegniales Sclerosporales Water moulds or Oomycetes are a group of filamentous protists, physically resembling fungi. ...

Land consolidation

Tenants, subdivisions, and bankruptcy

In 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4 to 2 hectares (one to five acres) in size, while 40% were of two to six hectares (five to fifteen acres). Holdings were so small that only potatoes — no other crop — would suffice to feed a family. The British Government reported, shortly before the Great Hunger, that poverty was so wide-spread that one third of all Irish small holdings could not support their families, after paying their rent, except by earnings of seasonal migrant labour in England and Scotland.^[13] Following the famine reforms were implemented making it illegal to further divide land holdings.^[14] A hectare (symbol ha) is a unit of area, equal to 10 000 square metres, commonly used for measuring land area. ... An acre is the name of a unit of area in a number of different systems, including Imperial units and United States customary units. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... This article is about the country. ...

Evictions

Over half a million people were evicted during the Famine.^[15]

Food exports to England

Records show Irish lands exported food, even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland experienced a famine in 1782-83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests; that export ban did not happen in the 1840s.^[16]

Starving Irish family during the potato famine

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Christine Kinealy, a University of Liverpool fellow and author of two texts on the famine, Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. However, the poor had no money to buy food and the government then did not ban exports.

Irish meteorologist Austin Bourke, in The use of the potato crop in pre-famine Ireland disputes some of Woodham-Smith's calculations, and notes that during December 1846 imports almost doubled. He opines that Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ...

The Quakers are the only Protestant religious group commonly recognised to have come to the aid of the Irish during the Great Famine but, unfortunately, often at a price more costly than gold. Quaker Alfred Webb, one of the many volunteers in Ireland at the time, wrote: The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ...

In addition to the religious, non-religious organizations came to the assistance of famine victims. The British Relief Association was one such group. Founded in 1847, the Association raised money throughout England, America and Australia; their funding drive benefited by a "Queen's Letter", a letter from Queen Victoria appealing for money to relieve the distress in Ireland. ^[18] With this initial letter the Association raised £171,533. A second, somewhat less successful "Queen's Letter" was issued in late 1847. In total, the British Relief Association raised approximately £200,000. (c.$1,000,000 at the time)

Claims of potato dependency

Jeremy Rifkin, in his book Beyond Beef, writes "The Celtic grazing lands of...Ireland had been used to pasture cows for centuries. The British colonized...the Irish, transforming much of their countryside into an extended grazing land to raise cattle for a hungry consumer market at home.... The British taste for beef had a devastating impact on the impoverished and disenfranchised people of...Ireland.... Pushed off the best pasture land and forced to farm smaller plots of marginal land, the Irish turned to the potato, a crop that could be grown abundantly in less favorable soil. Eventually, cows took over much of Ireland, leaving the native population virtually dependent on the potato for survival (pp. 56,57)." Jeremy Rifkin. ...

Death toll

No one knows how many people died during the period of the Famine, although more died from diseases than from starvation.^[19] State registration of births, marriages or deaths had not yet begun, while records kept by the Roman Catholic Church are incomplete.^[20] Eye witness accounts have helped medical historians to identify both the ailments and effects of famine, and have helped to evaluate and explain in greater detail features of the famine. Quaker, William Bennett in Mayo wrote of

Revd Dr Traill Hall, a Church of Ireland rector in Schull, described

Marasmic children also left a permanent image on Quaker Joseph Crosfield who in 1846 witnessed a ^[23]

William Forster wrote in Carrick-on-Shannon that

One possible estimate has been reached by comparing the expected population with the eventual numbers in the 1850s (see Irish Population Analysis). Earlier predictions expected that by 1851 Ireland would have a population of eight to nine million. A census taken in 1841 revealed a population of slightly over 8 million. ^[12] A census immediately after the famine in 1851 counted 6,552,385, a drop of almost 1,500,000 in ten years. ^[25] Modern historian R.J. Foster estimates that 'at least 775,000 died, mostly through disease, including cholera in the latter stages of the holocaust'. He further notes that 'a recent sophisticated computation estimates excess deaths from 1846 to 1851 as between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000...; after a careful critique of this, other statisticians arrive at a figure of 1,000,000.' ^[26][27] In addition, in excess of one million Irish emigrated to Great Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, while more than one million emigrated over following decades. Motto: none Anthem: Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldiers Song) Capital Dublin Largest city Dublin Official language(s) Irish, English Government Republic  - President Mary McAleese  - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern Independence From United Kingdom   - Declared 21 January 1919   - Recognised 6 December 1922  Accession to EU January 1, 1973 Area    - Total 70...

Detailed statistics of the population of Ireland since 1841 are available at Irish Population Analysis. Motto: none Anthem: Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldiers Song) Capital Dublin Largest city Dublin Official language(s) Irish, English Government Republic  - President Mary McAleese  - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern Independence From United Kingdom   - Declared 21 January 1919   - Recognised 6 December 1922  Accession to EU January 1, 1973 Area    - Total 70...

Perhaps the best-known estimates of deaths at a county level are those by Joel Mokyr. ^[28] The range of Mokyr’s mortality figures goes from 1.1 million to 1.5 million Famine deaths in Ireland between 1846 and 1851. Mokyr produced two sets of data which contained an upper-bound and lower-bound estimate, which showed not much difference in regional patterns. ^[29] Because of such anomalies, Cormac Ó Gráda, revisited the work of S. H. Cousen’s. ^[30] Cousen's ^[31] estimates of mortality was to rely heavily on retrospective information contained in the 1851 census. The death tables, contained in the 1851 census^[32] have been rightly criticized, as under-estimating the true extent of mortality, Cousen’s mortality of 800,000 is now regarded as much too low. ^[33] There were a number of reasons for this, because the information was gathered from the surviving householders and others and having to look back over the previous ten years, it underestimates the true extent of disease and mortality. Death and emigration had also cleared away entire families, leaving few or no survivors to answer the questions on the census. Another area of uncertainty lies in the descriptions of disease given by tenants as to the cause of their relatives’ deaths. ^[34] Though Wilde’s work has been rightly criticized as under-estimating the true extents of mortality it does provide a framework for the medical history of the Great Famine. ^{[35] [36]} The diseases that badly affected the population fell into two categories,^[37] famine induced diseases and diseases of nutritional deficiency. Of the nutritional deficiency diseases the most commonly experienced were starvation and marasmus, as well as condition called at the time dropsy. Dropsy was a popular name given for the symptoms of several diseases, one of which, kwashiorkor, is associated with starvation. ^[38] The greatest mortality, however, was not from nutritional deficiency diseases, but from famine induced ailments. ^{[39] [40]} The malnourished are very vulnerable to infections; therefore, they were more severe when they occurred. Measles, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, most respiratory infections, whooping cough, many intestinal parasites, and cholera were all strongly conditioned by nutritional status. Potentially lethal diseases, such as smallpox and influenza, were so virulent that their spread was independent of nutrition. ^[41] A significant cause spreading disease during the Famine was “social dislocation.” The best example of this phenomenon was fever, which exacted the greatest toll of death. In the popular mind, as well as among much medical opinion, fever and famine are closely related. ^[42] This view was not wholly mistaken, but the most critical connection was the congregating of the hungry at soup kitchens, food depots, overcrowded work houses where conditions were ideal for spreading infectious diseases such as typhus, typhoid and relapsing fever. ^{[43] [44]} As to the diarrheal diseases, their presence was the result of poor hygiene, bad sanitation and dietary changes. The concluding attack on a population incapacitated by famine was delivered by Asiatic cholera. Cholera had visited Ireland, briefly in the 1830’s. But in the following decade it spread uncontrollably across Asia, through Europe, and into Britain and finally reached Ireland in 1849. ^[45]

On the 1851 census both Cormac Ó Gráda & Joel Mokry would also describe it as a famous but flawed source. They would contend that the combination of institutional and individuals figures gives “an incomplete and biased count” of fatalities during the famine. ^[46] Ó Gráda referencing the work of W. A. MacArthur, ^[47]writes, specialists have long known the Irish death tables left a lot to be desired in terms of accuracy. ^[48] As a result Ó Gráda says to take the Tables of Death at face value would be a grave mistake, as they seriously undercount the number of deaths both before and during the famine. ^[49]

In 1851, the census commissioners collected information on the number who died in each family since 1841, the cause, season and year of death. Its disputed findings were as follows: 21,770 total deaths from starvation in the previous decade, and 400,720 deaths from disease. Listed diseases were fever, dysentery, cholera, smallpox and influenza; the first two being the main killers (222,021 and 93,232). The commissioners acknowledged that their figures were incomplete and that the true number of deaths was probably higher: "The greater the amount of destitution of mortality...the less will be the amount of recorded deaths derived through any household form; - for not only were whole families swept away by disease...but whole villages were effaced from off the land." A later historian has this to say: “In 1851, the Census Commissioners attempted to produce a table of mortality for each year since 1841… The statistics provided were flawed and probably under-estimated the level of mortality…” ^{[50] [51]}

Reactions

John Mitchel

As early as 1844, John Mitchel, one of the leading political writers of Young Ireland, raised the issue of the "Potato Disease" in The Nation; he noted how powerful an agent hunger had been in certain revolutions.^[52] Mitchel again in The Nation on 14 February 1846, put forward his views on "the wretched way in which the famine was being trifled with”, and asked, had not the Government even yet any conception that there might be soon "millions of human beings in Ireland having nothing to eat." ^[53] On 28 February, writing on the Coercion Bill which was then going through the House of Lords, he writes, Image File history File links Size of this preview: 373 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (577 × 928 pixel, file size: 100 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Image source John Mitchels Jail Journel first published 1861 This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 373 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (577 × 928 pixel, file size: 100 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Image source John Mitchels Jail Journel first published 1861 This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States... John Mitchel John Mitchel (Irish: Seán Uí Mistéil; b. ... John Mitchel John Mitchel (Irish: Seán Uí Mistéil; b. ... Young Ireland was an Irish nationalist revolutionary movement, active in the mid-nineteenth century. ... The Nation was an Irish nationalist newspaper, published in the 19th century, co-founded by Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy, its first editor. ... is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1846 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

In an article on "English Rule" on 7 March, Mitchel wrote: is the 66th day of the year (67th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Mitchel because of his writings was charged with sedition, but this charge was dropped, and he was convicted under a new law purposefully enacted of Treason Felony Act and sentenced to 14 years transportation. Sedition is a term of law which refers to covert conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. ... The Treason Felony Act 1848, which remains unrepealed into the 21st century, is law in the United Kingdom apparently protecting the Queen and the The Crown. ...

1848 rebellion

Main article: Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 The Young Irelander Rebellion or Famine Rebellion of 1848 was a failed uprising of the Young Ireland political movement, which took place on July 29, 1848 in the village of Ballingarry in the Republic of Ireland. ...

William Smith O'Brien

In 1847 William Smith O'Brien, the leader of the Young Ireland party, became one of the founding members of the Irish Confederation^[56] to campaign for a Repeal of the Act of Union, and called for the export of grain to be stopped and the ports closed.^[57] The following year he organised the resistance of landless farmers in County Tipperary against the landowners and their agents. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 507 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1095 × 1295 pixel, file size: 94 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) http://gutenberg. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 507 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1095 × 1295 pixel, file size: 94 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) http://gutenberg. ... William Smith OBrien (born Dromoland, Ireland, October 17, 1803; died Bangor, Wales, June 18, 1864) was an Irish Nationalist and MP and leader of the Young Ireland movement. ... William Smith OBrien (born Dromoland, Ireland, October 17, 1803; died Bangor, Wales, June 18, 1864) was an Irish Nationalist and MP and leader of the Young Ireland movement. ... Young Ireland was an Irish nationalist revolutionary movement, active in the mid-nineteenth century. ... The Irish Confederation was an Irish nationalist independence movement, established on January 13, 1847 by members of the Young Ireland movement who had seceded from the Repeal Association. ... Act of Union can mean: United Kingdom The Act of Union is a name given to several acts passed by the English, Scottish and British Parliaments from 1536 onwards. ... Statistics Province: Munster County Town: North: Nenagh South: Clonmel Code: North: TN South: TS Area: 4,303 km² Population (2006) 149,040[[1]] County Tipperary (Contae Thiobraid Árann in Irish) is a county in the Republic of Ireland, and situated in the province of Munster. ...

Government response

F.S.L. Lyons characterized the initial response of the British government to the early less severe phase of the famine as "prompt and relatively successful."^[58] Confronted by widespread crop failure in the autumn of 1845, Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel purchased £100,000 worth of Indian corn and corn meal secretly from America. Baring Bros & Co had to act as agents for the government. The government hoped that they would not “stifle private enterprise” or that their actions act as a disincentive to local relief efforts. Due to weather conditions, the first shipment did not arrive in Ireland and until the beginning of February 1846. ^[59] This corn was then re-sold for a penny a pound. ^[60] The corn when it arrived had not been ground and was inedible, and this task involved a long and complicated process if it was to be done correctly and it was unlikely to be carried out locally. In addition, before the Indian meal could be consumed, it had to be ‘very much’ cooked again, or eating it could result in severe bowel complaints. ^[61] Because of maize's yellow colour, and the fact that it had to be ground twice, it became known in Ireland as 'Peel's brimstone'. In 1846 Peel then moved to repeal the Corn Laws, tariffs on grain which kept the price of bread artificially high. The famine situation worsened during 1846 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in that year did little to help the starving Irish; the measure split the Conservative Party, leading to the fall of Peel's ministry. ^[62] This fall came on the 25 June, when he was defeated in the House of Commons on a motion that the Irish Coercion Bill be read a second time. According to Michael Doheny, the majority against him was seventy-three, and it was made of the “Whig party, the extreme Conservatives, the ultra-Radicals and Irish Repealers.” Ten days after, Lord John Russell assumed the seals of office. ^[63] F. S. L. Lyons (1923 - 1983) was one of Irelands premier historians. ... The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, in practice, the political leader of the United Kingdom. ... For other people named Robert Peel, see Robert Peel (disambiguation). ... The Corn Laws, in force between 1815 and 1846, were import tariffs ostensibly designed to protect British farmers and landowners against competition from cheap foreign grain imports. ... Tax rates around the world Tax revenue as % of GDP Economic policy Monetary policy Central bank   Money supply Fiscal policy Spending   Deficit   Debt Trade policy Tariff   Trade agreement Finance Financial market Financial market participants Corporate   Personal Public   Banking   Regulation        For other uses of this word, see tariff (disambiguation). ...

The measures undertaken by Peel's successor, Lord John Russell, proved comparatively "inadequate" as the crisis deepened. Russell's ministry introduced public works projects, which by December 1846 employed some half million Irish and proved impossible to administer. ^[64] The Public Works done were “strictly ordered” to be unproductive—that is, they would create no fund to repay their own expenses. Many hundreds of thousands of “feeble and starving men” according to John Mitchel, were kept digging holes, and breaking up roads, which was doing no service. ^[65] In January the government abandoned these projects and turned to mixture of "indoor" and "outdoor" direct relief; the former administered in work-houses through the Poor Law, the latter through soup kitchens. The costs of the Poor Law fell primarily on the local landlords, who in turn attempted to reduce their liability by evicting their tenants. ^[66] This was then facilitated through the “Cheap Ejectment Acts.” ^[67] In addition the "Gregory clause" of the Poor Law prohibited anyone who held at least a quarter of an acre from receiving relief. ^[68] Which in practice meant, that if farmer, having sold all his produce to pay the rent, duties, rates and taxes, should be reduced, as many thousands of them were, on apply for public out-door relief, he should not get it, until he had first delivered up all his land to the landlord. Of this Law Mitchel was to write, it is the able-bodied idler only who is to be fed—if he attempted to till but one rood of ground, he dies, This simple method of ejectment was called ‘‘passing paupers through the workhouse “— a man went in, a pauper came out. ^[69] These factors combined to drive thousands of people off the land: 90,000 in 1849, and 104,000 in 1850.^[70] John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. ...

Charity

On 8 December, Daniel O’Connell, in the Repeal Association, proposed the following remedies to the pending disaster: is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Daniel OConnell Daniel OConnell (August 6, 1776 – May 15, 1847), known as The Liberator or The Emancipator, was Irelands predominant politician in the first half of the nineteenth century. ...

Mitchel writes that in the latter part of O’Connell’s speech after pointing out the means used by the Belgian legislature during the same season—“shutting the ports against export of provisions, but opening them to import, and the like,” O’Connell continued:

William Smith O’Brien, speeking on the subject of charity in a speech to the Repeal Association February 1845 was to say:

Mitchel wrote in his The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps), on the same subject, that no one from Ireland ever asked for charity during this period, and that it was England who sought charity on Ireland’s behalf, and, having received it, was also responsible for administering it. He stated:

The Nation according to Charles Gavan Duffy, insisted, that the one remedy, was that which the rest of Europe had adopted which even the parliaments of the Pale had adopted in periods distress, which was to retain in the country the food raised by her people till the people were fed. ^[75] The following poem was carried in the The Nation who was one of the best known and most popular authors.^[76] The Nation was an Irish nationalist newspaper, published in the 19th century, co-founded by Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy, its first editor. ... Charles Gavan Duffy Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, KBE, KCMG (12 April 1816 - 9 February 1903) Irish nationalist and Australian colonial politician, was the 8th Premier of Victoria and one of the most colourful figures in Victorian political history. ... The Pale or the English Pale comprised a region in a radius of twenty miles around Dublin which the English in Ireland gradually fortified against incursion from Gaels. ... The Nation was an Irish nationalist newspaper, published in the 19th century, co-founded by Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy, its first editor. ...

The response from Ireland was that the Corporation of Dublin sent a memorial to the Queen, “praying her” to call Parliament together early (Parliament was at this time prorogued), and to recommend the requisition of some public money for public works, especially railways in Ireland. The Town Council of Belfast met and made similar suggestions to those of Dublin, but neither body asked charity, according to Mitchel. “They demanded that, if Ireland was indeed an Integral part of the realm, the common exchequer of both islands should be used—not to give alms, but to provide employment on public works of general utility.” It was Mitchel’s opinion that “if Yorkshire and Lancashire had sustained a like calamity in England, there is no doubt such measures as these would have been taken, promptly and liberally.” ^[79] A deputation from the citizens of Dublin, which including the Duke of Leister, the Lord Mayor, Lord Cloncurry, and Daniel O’Connell, went to the Lord Lieutenant (Lord Heytesbury), and offer suggestions, such as opening the ports to foreign corn for a time, to stopping distillation from grain, or providing public works, that this was extremely urgent, as millions of people would shortly be without food. Lord Haytesbury told them they “were premature,” and told them not to be alarmed, that learned men (Playfair and Lindley) had been sent from England to enquire into all those matters; and that the Inspectors of Constabulary and Stipendiary Magistrates were charged with making constant reports from their districts; and there was no “immediate pressure on the market.” ^[80] Of these reports from Lord Haytesbury, Peel in a latter to Sir James Graham was to say that he found the accounts “very alarming”, though he reminded him that there was, according to Woodham-Smith “always a tendency to exaggeration in Irish news.” ^[81]

Large sums of money were donated by charities; Calcutta is credited with making the first donation of £14,000. The money was raised by Irish soldiers serving there and Irish people employed by the East India Company. Pope Pius IX sent funds, Queen Victoria donated £2,000 while the Choctaw Indians themselves victims of the genocidal Trail of Tears famously sent $170 (although many articles say the original amount was $710 after a misprint in Angi Debo's "The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Nation") and grain, an act of generosity still remembered to this day, and publicly commemorated by President Mary Robinson on the 150th anniversary of the famine. This article is on Calcutta/Kolkata, the city. ... The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as John Company, was the first joint-stock company (the Dutch East India Company was the first to issue public stock). ... Pope Pius IX (May 13, 1792 – February 7, 1878), born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from his election in June 16, 1846, until his death more than 31 years later in 1878. ... Queen Victoria redirects here. ... The Choctaws are a Native American group who, in times past, lived in the land occupied by the southeast United States, using the trail that is now known as the Natchez Trace as a trade route to the north. ... For the Norwegian musical group, see Trail of Tears (band). ... For the poet, see Mary Robinson (poet). ...

Aftermath

Main article: Irish potato famine (legacy)

A graph of the populations of Ireland and Europe indexed against 1750 showing the disastrous consequence of the 1845—49 potato famine.

Consequently, later mini-famines made only minimal effect and are generally forgotten, except by historians. By the 1911 census, the island of Ireland's population had fallen to 4.4 million, about the same as the population in 1800 and 2000 and only a half of its peak population.^[12] // Political reaction resulted from the Famine, because of the extremely limited franchise that existed at the time. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 551 pixelsFull resolution (1294 × 892 pixel, file size: 41 KB, MIME type: image/png) A graph showing the indexed population Ireland (the island) and Europe since 1750. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 551 pixelsFull resolution (1294 × 892 pixel, file size: 41 KB, MIME type: image/png) A graph showing the indexed population Ireland (the island) and Europe since 1750. ...

Emigration

See also: Irish diaspora // The Irish diaspora consists of Irish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and states of the Caribbean and continental Europe. ...

Projected population loss due to famine, using long-term mean ratio of Irish population against that of England and Wales.

While the famine was responsible for a significant increase in emigration from Ireland, of anywhere from 45% to nearly 85%, depending on the year and the county it was not the sole cause. Nor was it even the era when mass emigration from Ireland commenced. That can be traced to the 1814-1815 post-Napoleon world when cereal crops and linen -- Ireland's two primary exports -- which had commanded high prices during the war years, collapsed with the advent of peace in Europe. From the defeat of Napoleon to the beginning of the famine "at least 1,000,000 and possibly 1,500,000 emigrated"^[82] During the worst of the famine emigration reached somewhere around 250,000 per year, with far more emigrants coming from western Ireland than any other part. As a rule, families en masse did not emigrate, younger members of it did. So much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigration throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrant started a new life in a new land, sent remittances "reached £1,404,000 by 1851"^[83] back to his/her family in Ireland which, in turn, allowed another member of the family to emigrate. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 552 pixelsFull resolution (1298 × 895 pixel, file size: 41 KB, MIME type: image/png) Population decline caused by Irish potato famine against projected population. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 552 pixelsFull resolution (1298 × 895 pixel, file size: 41 KB, MIME type: image/png) Population decline caused by Irish potato famine against projected population. ...

Generally speaking, emigration during the famine years of 1845 to 1850 was to England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, and Australia. ^[84]

By 1854, between 1½ and 2 million Irish left their country due to evictions, starvation, and harsh living conditions. In America, most Irish became city-dwellers: with little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships they came on landed in. By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, Irish populations became prevalent in some American mining communities.

The 1851 census reported that more than half the inhabitants of Toronto, Ontario were Irish, and in 1847 alone, 38,000 famine Irish flooded a city with less than 20,000 citizens. Other Canadian cities such as Saint John, New Brunswick; Quebec City and Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa, Kingston and Hamilton, Ontario also received large numbers of Famine Irish since Canada, as part of the British Empire, could not close its ports to Irish ships (unlike the United States), and they could get passage cheaply (or free in the case of tenant evictions) in returning empty lumber holds. However fearing nationalist insurgencies the British government placed harsh restrictions on Irish immigration to Canada after 1847 resulting in larger influxes to the United States. The largest Famine grave site outside of Ireland is at Grosse-Île, Quebec, an island in the St. Lawrence River used to quarantine ships near Quebec City. In 1851, about a quarter of Liverpool's population was Irish-born.

The famine marked the beginning of the steep depopulation of Ireland in the 19th century. Population had increased by 13–14% in the first three decades of the 19th century. Between 1831 and 1841 population grew by 5%. Application of Thomas Malthus's idea of population expanding geometrically while resources increase arithmetically was popular during the famines of 1817 and 1822. However by the 1830s, a decade before the potato famine, they were seen as overly simplistic and Ireland's problems were seen "less as an excess of population than as a lack of capital investment."^[85] The population of Ireland was increasing no faster than that of England, which suffered no equivalent catastrophe. Thomas Robert Malthus, FRS (13th February, 1766 – 29th December, 1834), was an English demographer and political economist. ...

The mass exodus in the years following the famine must^{[citation needed]} be seen in the context of industrial stagnation, concentration of land ownership, religious discrimination, declining agricultural employment and inadequate diet. These factors were already combining to reduce population growth by the 1830s.^{[citation needed]}

Judgement of the government's handling of the Famine

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Contemporaries

Contemporary opinion was sharply critical of the Russell government's response to and management of the crisis. From the start, there were accusations that the government failed to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. Sir James Graham, who had served as Home Secretary in Sir Robert Peel's late government, wrote to Peel that, in his opinion, "the real extent and magnitude of the Irish difficulty are underestimated by the Government, and cannot be met by measures within the strict rule of economical science." ^[86] Sir James Robert George Graham, 2nd Baronet (1 June 1792 - 25 October 1861) was a British statesman. ... The Secretary of State for the Home Department (the Home Secretary) is the chief United Kingdom government minister responsible for law and order in England and Wales; his or her remit includes policing, the criminal justice system, the prison service, internal security, and matters of citizenship and immigration. ... For other people named Robert Peel, see Robert Peel (disambiguation). ...

This criticism was not confined to outside critics. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Clarendon, wrote a letter to Russell on April 26, 1849, urging that the government propose additional relief measures: "I do not think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of extermination." ^[19] Also in 1849 the Chief Poor Law Commissioner, Edward Twistleton, resigned in protest over the Rate-in-Aid Act, which provided additional funds for the Poor Law through a 6p in the pound levy on all rateable properties in Ireland.^[87] Twisleton testified that "comparatively trifling sums were required for Britain to spare itself the deep disgrace of permitting its miserable fellow subjects to die of starvation." According to Peter Gray, in his book The Irish Famine, the government spent seven million pounds for relief in Ireland between 1845 and 1850, "representing less than half of one percent of the British gross national product over five years. Contemporaries noted the sharp contrast with the 20 million Pounds compensation given to West Indian slave-owners in the 1830s." ^[88] George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (January 12, 1800 - June 27, 1870), was an English diplomat and statesman. ... is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1849 (MDCCCXLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Peter Gray is Professor of Modern Irish History at Queens University Belfast. ...

Other critics maintained that even after the government recognized the scope of the crisis, it failed to take sufficient steps to address it. John Mitchel, one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Movement, wrote the following in 1860: "I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call the famine a 'dispensation of Providence;' and ascribe it entirely to the blight on potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud - second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine." ^[89]

Still other critics saw reflected in the government's response the government's attitude to the so-called "Irish Question." Nassau Senior, an economics professor at Oxford University, wrote that the Famine "would not kill more than one million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do any good." ^[90] In 1848, Denis Shine Lawlor suggested that Russell was a student of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, who had calculated "how far English colonization and English policy might be most effectively carried out by Irish starvation." ^[91] Charles Trevelyan, the civil servant with most direct responsibility for the government's handling of the famine, described it in 1848 as "a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence", which laid bare "the deep and inveterate root of social evil"; the Famine, he affirmed, was "the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected. God grant that the generation to which this opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part..." ^[92] Nassau William Senior (September 26, 1790 - June 4, 1864), English economist, was born at Compton, Berks, the eldest son of the Rev. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Historians

Christine Kinealy expresses the consensus of historians when she states that "the major tragedy of the Irish Famine of 1845-52 marked a watershed in modern Irish history. Its occurrence, however, was neither inevitable nor unavoidable." ^[93] The underlying factors which combined to cause the famine were aggravated by an inadequate government response. As Kinealy notes, "the government had to do something to help alleviate the suffering, the particular nature of the actual response, especially following 1846, suggests a more covert agenda and motivation. As the Famine progressed, it became apparent that the government was using its information not merely to help it formulate its relief policies, but also as an opportunity to facilitate various long-desired changes within Ireland. These included population control and the consolidation of property through various means, including emigration... Despite the overwhelming evidence of prolonged distress caused by successive years of potato blight, the underlying philosophy of the relief efforts was that they should be kept to a minimalist level; in fact they actually decreased as the Famine progressed."^[94]

Several writers single out the decision of the government to permit the continued export of food from Ireland as suggestive of the policy-makers attitude. Leon Uris suggested that "there was ample food within Ireland", while all the Irish-bred cattle were being shipped off to England.^[95] The following exchange appeared in Act IV of George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman: Leon Uris (August 3, 1924 - June 21, 2003) was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. ... George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was a world-renowned Irish author. ... Man and Superman is a 1903 play in four acts by G. Bernard Shaw. ...

MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better on disappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay you think that sordid; but I know what I'm talking about. My father died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you've heard of it.

VIOLET. The Famine?

MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, the starvation. When a country is full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My father was starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother's arms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keep Ireland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we'll buy the best of it. I want no middle class properties and no middle class women for Hector. That's straightforward isn't it, like yourself?^[96]

Critics of British imperialism point to the structure of empire as a contributing factor. J. A. Froude wrote that "England governed Ireland for what she deemed her own interest, making her calculations on the gross balance of her trade ledgers, and leaving moral obligations aside, as if right and wrong had been blotted out of the statute book of the Universe."^[97] Dennis Clark, an Irish-American historian, claimed that the famine was "the culmination of generations of neglect, misrule and repression. It was an epic of English colonial cruelty and inadequacy. For the landless cabin dwellers it meant emigration or extinction..."^[98] James Anthony Froude (April 23, 1818 - October 20, 1894) was an English historian, the brother of William Froude, the engineer and naval architect. ...

Suggestions of Genocide

"Ireland's Holocaust" mural in The Falls, Belfast. "An Gorta Mór, Britain's genocide by starvation, Ireland's holocaust 1845-1849."

• Dr Dan Ritschel of the University of Maryland quotes a 1996 report commissioned by the New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee, written by F.A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which concluded that: "Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic and racial group commonly known as the Irish People.... Therefore, during the years 1845 to 1850 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland that constituted acts of genocide against the Irish people within the meaning of Article II (c) of the 1948 [Hague] Genocide Convention."^[99]

• However, Ritschel adds that "although this account has long been the orthodoxy of Irish nationalism in both the 19th and 20th centuries, only one modern Irish historian, Cecil Woodham-Smith, can be said to have endorsed this position. Most historians find it impossible to sustain the charge of deliberate genocide, since there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the famine was planned or deliberately prolonged by the British with the intent of destroying the Irish population".^[100]

• In an article in the Washington Post newspaper on 17 September 1997 Timothy Guinnane, associate professor of economics at Yale, wrote: “Several states have mandated that the Great Irish Famine of 1845—1850 be taught in their high schools as an example of genocide.”^[101]

• In the U.S., on the 150th anniversary of the Famine, the Governor of New York, George Pataki, signed a Bill which would legally require high school students to study the Great Famine. History teaches us, he said, “that the Great Hunger was not the result of a massive Irish crop failure, but rather a deliberate campaign by the British to deny the Irish people the food they needed to survive.” ^[102]

• Robert Kee, author, journalist, and documentary maker, suggests that the Famine is still seen as “comparable” in its force on “popular national consciousness to that of the ‘final solution’ on the Jews,” and that it is not “infrequently” thought that the Famine was something very like, “a form of genocide engineered by the English against the Irish people.” According to Kee, “the story of what happened in Ireland in those years is deeply disturbing.” ^[103] This particular view has been enunciated by reputable scholars such as A. J. P. Taylor, the distinguished historian. In his Essays in English History, under the title “Genocide,” he described the country during the Famine and wrote “all Ireland was a Belsen". “The English governing class ran true to form, he said, “they had killed two million Irish people.” That the death toll during the Famine was not higher, Taylor remarked that it “was not for the want of trying.” ^[104]

• Professor Peter Gray a Cambridge-educated and Belfast-born historian, in his book Ideology and the Famine says "It is difficult to refute the indictment made by one humanitarian English observer in the later stages of the Famine, that amidst 'an abundance of cheap food...very many have been done to death by pure tyranny'. The charge of culpable neglect of the consequences of policies leading to mass starvation is indisputable. That a conscious choice to pursue moral or economic objectives at the expense of human life was made by several ministers is also demonstrable, but he concluded, that British government's policy "was not a policy of deliberate genocide", but a dogmatic refusal to admit the policy was wrong and "amounted to a sentence of death to many thousands." ^[105]

• Professor James Donnelly, a historian at the University of Wisconsin, wrote in his work Landlord and Tenant in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, "I would draw the following broad conclusion: at a fairly early stage of the Great Famine the government's abject failure to stop or even slow down the clearances (evictions) contributed in a major way to enshrining the idea of English state-sponsored genocide in Irish popular mind. Or perhaps one should say in the Irish mind, for this was a notion that appealed to many educated and discriminating men and women, and not only to the revolutionary minority...And it is also my contention that while genocide was not in fact committed, what happened during and as a result of the clearances had the look of genocide to a great many Irish..."^[106]

• Irish historian Cormac O'Grada disagrees that the famine was genocide on two grounds: firstly, he claims, "genocide includes murderous intent and it must be said that not even the most bigoted and racist commentators of the day sought the extermination of the Irish" and secondly, that most people in Whitehall "hoped for better times in Ireland" and thirdly he claims that the belief that it was genocide overlooks "the enormous challenges facing relief efforts, both central, local, public and private". O'Grada thinks that a case of neglect is easier to sustain than that of genocide^[107]

• Noted professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, Francis A. Boyle, finding that the British violated sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the CPPCG and committed genocide, issued a formal legal opinion to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on May 2, 1996, stating that "Clearly, during [the Famine] years [of] 1845 to 1850 the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, and racial group commonly known as the Irish People." ^[108][109] Prominent international law professor Charles E. Rice of Notre Dame likewise issued a formal opinion, also based on Article 2, that the British had committed genocide.^[110]

Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 785 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1396 × 1066 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 785 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1396 × 1066 pixel, file size: 1. ... is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... Robert Kee (born 1919) is a British journalist and writer, known for his historical works on World War II and on Ireland. ... A Corner of Main Quad The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, or simply Illinois), is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious campus in the University of Illinois system. ... Francis Anthony Boyle, is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. ... The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. ... May 2 is the 122nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (123rd in leap years). ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Charles Edward Rice (born August 7, 1931), is an American legal scholar, Catholic apologist, and author of several books. ... The University of Notre Dame IPA: is a Catholic[4] institution located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated section of St. ...

Memorials to the famine

The Great Famine is still remembered in many locations throughout Ireland, especially in those regions that suffered the greatest losses, and also in cities overseas with large populations descended from Irish immigrants.

In Ireland

Famine Memorial in Dublin

"Famine" by Edward Delaney, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin

• Strokestown Park Famine Museum, Ireland
• Custom House Quays, Dublin, Ireland. Painfully thin sculptural figures, by artist Rowan Gillespie, stand as if walking towards the emigration ships on the Dublin Quayside.
• Murrisk, County Mayo, Ireland. This sculpture of a famine ship, near the foot of Croagh Patrick, depicts the refugees it carries as dead souls hanging from the sides.
• Donaghmore Famine Museum - set in Donaghmore Workhouse in County Laois.
• Doolough, County Mayo. A memorial commemorates famine victims who walked from Louisburgh along the mountain road to Delphi Lodge to seek relief from the Poor Board who were meeting there. Returning after their request was refused, many of them died at this point.
• Doagh Island, Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland. Doagh Visitor Centre and Famine Museum has exhibits and memorial on the effects of the potato famine in Inishowen, Donegal. [2]
• Ennistymon, County Clare, Ireland. This was the first memorial in Ireland to honour those who suffered and were lost during the Great Famine. It is erected across the street from an abandoned workhouse where an estimated 20,000 Irish died and a mass graveyard for children who perished and were buried without coffins.^[111]
• Sligo, County Sligo, has three memorial sculptures erected by the Sligo Famine Commemoration Committee^[112]. One is at the quayside, of a family comforting each other, where 30,000 people emigrated between 1847 and 1851. The other two are the gates of a famine graveyard and of a tree (called Faoin Sceach) in the grounds of the graveyard, where approximately 2,000 famine victims are buried.

Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 221 KB) Summary taken by me in 2006 Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 221 KB) Summary taken by me in 2006 Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2592 × 1944 pixel, file size: 2. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2592 × 1944 pixel, file size: 2. ... Strokestown (Béal na mBuillí in Irish) is a town in County Roscommon, Ireland. ... Rowan Gillespie is an Irish artist. ... Murrisk (Muraisc in Irish) is a village in County Mayo, on the south side of Clew Bay, about 6km west of Westport. ... Statistics Province: Connacht County Town: Castlebar Code: MO Area: 5,397 km² Population (2006) 123,648 Website: www. ... Croagh patrick is a 764 m (2,510 ft) mountain in the west of Ireland and an important site of pilgrimage. ... Donaghmore is a small village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, about five kilometres northwest of Dungannon. ... Louisburgh (Cluain Cearbán in Irish) is a small town on the southwest corner of Clew Bay. ... Ennistimon or Ennistymon (Irish: Inis Diomáin) is a village in County Clare, Republic of Ireland, near the west coast of Ireland. ... County Clare (Contae an Chláir in Irish) is in the Irish province of Munster. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Irish Grid Reference G685354 Statistics Province: Connacht County: Elevation: 13 m Population (2006)  - Town:  - Rural:   17,892 [1]  24,096[1] Website: www. ... Statistics Province: Connacht County Town: Sligo Code: SO Area: 1,837 km² Population (2006) 60,894[1] Website: www. ...

In England

• Liverpool, England. A memorial is in the grounds of St Luke's Church on Leece Street, itself a memorial to the victims of the Blitz. It recalls that from 1849–1852 1,241,410 Irish immigrants arrived in the city and that from Liverpool they dispersed to locations around the world. Many died despite the help they received within the city, some 7000 in the city perished within one year. There is also a plaque on the gates to Clarence Dock. Unveiled in 2000, the plaque inscription reads in Gaelic and English: "Through these gates passed most of the 1,300,000 Irish migrants who fled from the Great Famine and 'took the ship' to Liverpool in the years 1845–52" The Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool has an exhibition regarding the Irish Migration, showing models of ships, documentation and other facts on Liverpool's history.

• Newcastle and Tyneside saw the Irish population rise to over 8% of overall population between the census years 1841-1851, mainly migrants arriving from Ulster via Cumbria seeking out manual employment in the coal mines and shipyards, while the women worked in mills and potteries.

For other uses, see Liverpool (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Luke the Evangelist (Greek Λουκας Loukas) is said by tradition to be the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the third and fifth books of the New Testament. ... For other uses, see Blitz. ... ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... This article is about a city in the United Kingdom. ... For the 1885–1918 parliamentary constituency, see Tyneside (UK Parliament constituency). ...

In Wales

• Cardiff, Wales. A Celtic Cross made of Irish limestone on a base of Welsh stone stands in the city's Cathays Cemetery. The cross was unveiled in 1999 as the high point in the work of the Wales Famine Forum, remembering the 150th Anniversary of the famine. The memorial is dedicated to every person of Irish origin, without distinction on grounds of class, politics, allegiance or religious belief, who has died in Wales.

This article is about the capital city of Wales. ... This article is about the country. ...

In Scotland

• Carfin, Motherwell, North Lanarkshire. A Celtic Cross memorial unveiled by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in the early 21st century.

Carfin is a small town the place where cha scott grew up. ... , For the former parliamentary constituency, see Motherwell (UK Parliament constituency). ... Bartholomew Bertie Ahern (Irish: ;[1] born 12 September 1951) is an Irish politician who, since 26 June 1997, has served as the tenth Taoiseach of Ireland. ...

In North America

Irish Hunger Memorial, New York.

Irish Famine Memorial, Éireann Quay, Toronto.

Irish Hills Michigan "An Gorta Mor" top.

Irish Hills Michigan "An Gorta Mor" base.

• In Boston, Massachusetts, a bronze statue located at the corner of Washington and School Streets on the Freedom Trail depicts a starving woman, looking up to the heavens as if to ask "Why?", while her children cling to her. A second sculpture shows the figures hopeful as they land in Boston.^[113]
• Buffalo, New York has a stone memorial on its waterfront.
• Cambridge, Massachusetts has a memorial to the famine on its Common.
• Chicago, Illinois
• Cleveland, Ohio A 12 foot high stone Celtic cross, located on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River.
• In Fairfield, Connecticut a memorial to the Famine victims stands in the chapel of Fairfield University.
• Grosse-Île, Quebec, Canada, the largest famine grave site outside of Ireland. A large Celtic cross, erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, stands in remembrance overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The island is a Canadian national historic site.
• In Hamden, Connecticut, a collection of art and literature from the Great Famine is on display in the Lender Family Special Collection Room of the Arnold Bernhard Library at Quinnipiac University.
• Irish Hills, Michigan — The Ancient Order of Hibernian's An Gorta Mor Memorial is located on the grounds of St. Joseph's Shrine in the Irish Hills district of Lenawee County, Michigan. There are thirty-two black stones as the platform, one for each county. The grounds are surrounded with a stone wall. The Lintel is a step from Penrose Quay in Cork Harbor. The project was the result of several years of fundraising by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Lenewee County. It was dedicated in 2004 by AOH Divisional President, Patrick Maguire, and many political and Irish figures from around the state of Michigan.
• Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 12-foot limestone cross donated by the government of Ireland in 1997
• Keansburg, NJ has a Hunger Memorial in Friendship Park on Main Street.
• Kingston, Ontario, Canada, has three monuments. Celtic cross at An Gorta Mor Park on the waterfront. Another is located at Skeleton (McBurney) Park (formerly Kingston Upper Cemetery). Angel of Resurrection monument, first dedicated in 1894 at St. Mary's cemetery.
• Maidstone, Ontario, Canada, has a nine foot stone Celtic Cross at the cemetery outside St. Mary's Church
• Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the "Boulder Stone" in Pointe-Saint-Charles
• New York, New York has the Irish Hunger Memorial which looks like a sloping hillside with low stone walls and a roofless cabin on one side and a polished wall with lit (or white) lines on the other three sides. The memorial is in Battery Park City, a short walk west from the World Trade Center site. See [3]. Another memorial exists in V.E. Macy Park in Ardsley, New York about 32 km north of Manhattan.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Phoenix, Arizona has a famine memorial in the form of a dolmen at the Irish Cultural Center.
• Toronto, Ontario Four bronze statues arriving at the Toronto wharves, at Ireland Park on Bathurst Quay, modeled after the Dublin Departure Memorial. List of names of those who died of typhus in the Toronto fever sheds shortly after their arrival. Current memorial plaque at Metro Hall. Also a pieta statue outside St. Paul's Catholic Basilica in memory of the famine victims and Bishop Michael Power, who died tending to the sick.^[114]
• Hackensack New Jersey has a large stone located on the front corner of the Bergen County Government Court House on Main Street, honoring all of those who perished in the famine. Every year in October, numerous Irish-American organizations from northern New Jersey hold a ceremony to remember all of those who perished.

Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2592x1944, 798 KB) Summary The author of this photograph is me, David Shankbone. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2592x1944, 798 KB) Summary The author of this photograph is me, David Shankbone. ... Irish Hunger Memorial The Irish Hunger Memorial, designed by Brian Tolle and a collaborative team of architects and designers, is located on a one-quarter acre site at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City (USA... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata AnGortaMor_MI.jpg Summary The An Gorta Mor memorial in the Irish Hills, near Adrian and Brooklyn Michigan was the result of several years of fundraising by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Lenawee County. ... Image File history File linksMetadata AnGortaMor_MI.jpg Summary The An Gorta Mor memorial in the Irish Hills, near Adrian and Brooklyn Michigan was the result of several years of fundraising by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Lenawee County. ... Image File history File linksMetadata AnGortaMor_Memorialbowl. ... Image File history File linksMetadata AnGortaMor_Memorialbowl. ... Boston redirects here. ... Bostons Freedom Trail is a red (mostly brick) path through downtown Boston which leads to sixteen significant historical sites. ... Nickname: Location of Buffalo in New York State Coordinates: , Country State County Erie Government  - Mayor Byron Brown (D) Area  - City 52. ... This article is about the state. ... Location in Middlesex County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Middlesex Settled 1630 Incorporated 1636 Government  - Type Mayor-City Council  - Mayor Kenneth Reeves (D) Area  - Total 7. ... Commons redirects here. ... 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Irish Hunger Memorial The Irish Hunger Memorial, designed by Brian Tolle and a collaborative team of architects and designers, is located on a one-quarter acre site at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City (USA... The promenade of Battery Park City. ... The World Trade Center site destruction, 2001 The World Trade Center site is the 16 acre (65,000 m²) real estate on which the WTC complex stood in New York until the September 11, 2001 attacks. ... Map of Ardsley, New York Ardsley is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. ... For other uses, see Manhattan (disambiguation). ... Nickname: City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Quaker City Motto: Philadelphia maneto (Let brotherly love continue) Location in Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States State Pennsylvania County Philadelphia Founded October 27, 1682 Incorporated October 25, 1701 Mayor John F. Street (D) Area    - City 369. ... 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In Australia

• Sydney, Australia. The Australian Monument to the Great Irish Famine^[115] is located in the courtyard wall of the Hyde Park Barracks, Macquarie Street Sydney. It symbolises the experiences of young Irishwomen fleeing the Great Irish Famine of 1845–49,^[116] and was sculpted by Angela and Hossein Valamanesh.^[117]

This article is about the metropolitan area in Australia. ...

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Irish potato famine

• Great Irish Famine (1740-1741)
• Irish potato famine (legacy) (continuation of this article)
• Highland Potato Famine (1846 - 1857) (agrarian crisis in Scotland at the same time)
• European Potato Famine (the wider agrarian crisis in Europe at the same time)
• List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
• "Fields of Athenry," a popular song about the famine
• List of famines
• Holodomor

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... The Irish Famine of 1740-41 (or The Potatocaust) was perhaps of similar magnitude to the better-known Great Famine of 1847-49. ... // Political reaction resulted from the Famine, because of the extremely limited franchise that existed at the time. ... In the Highlands of Scotland, in the mid 19th century, most croftters were very dependent on potatoes as a source of food. ... A blighted potato tuber The European Potato Famine was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern Europe in the mid-1840s. ... This is a list of natural disasters in the United Kingdom. ... The Fields of Athenry is a song about the Irish Famine of the late 1840s, which was composed in the 1980s by Pete St. ... This is an incomplete list of major famines, ordered by date. ... Child victim of the Holodomor Map of Ukrainian SRR in 1932-1933 (7 Oblast`s (Regions) + Moldavian ASSR) administrative borders given in light grey The Ukrainian famine (1932-1933), or Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор), was one of the largest national catastrophes of the Ukrainian nation in modern history with direct loss of...

Additional reading

• Mary E. Daly, The Famine in Ireland
• R. Dudley Edwards and T. Desmond Williams (eds.), The Great Famine: Studies in Irish history 1845-52
• Peter Gray, The Irish Famine
• Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea
• Cormac Ó Gráda, An Economic History of Ireland
• Cormac O Grada, Black '47 and Beyond
• Robert Kee, Ireland: A History (ISBN 0349106789)
• Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845 - 1852[4]
• John Mitchel, The Last Conquest of Ireland (1861) (University College Dublin Press reprint, 2005 paperback) ISBN I-904558-36-4
• Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, 1845-49 (Penguin, 1991 edition)
• Marita Conlon-McKenna, Under the Hawthorn Tree
• Thomas Gallagher, Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred
• Canon John O'Rourke, The Great Irish Famine (ISBN 1853900494 Hardback) (ISBN 185390130X Paperback) Veritas Publications 1989. First published in 1874.
• Liam O'Flaherty, Famine
• Colm Tóibín and Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Famine, ISBN 1-86197-249-0 / 9781861972491 (first edition, hardback)
• Several books by Young Irelanders make reference to the Great Irish Famine

Peter Gray is Professor of Modern Irish History at Queens University Belfast. ... Joseph Victor OConnor (born September 20, 1963) is an Irish novelist and brother of singer Sinéad OConnor. ... Robert Kee (born 1919) is a British journalist and writer, known for his historical works on World War II and on Ireland. ... John Mitchel John Mitchel (Irish: Seán Uí Mistéil; b. ... Cecil Woodham-Smith Cecil Blanche Woodham-Smith (née Fitzgerald) (April 29, 1896 - March 16, 1977) was an acclaimed British historian and biographer. ... Marita Conlon-McKenna (b. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Thomas Gallagher (1883–March 14, 1967), served as Mayor of Pittsburgh during the transition year of1959. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... The Irish Famine is a book co-authored by Diarmaid Ferriter and Colm Tóibín in 2001. ... Young Ireland was an Irish nationalist revolutionary movement, active in the mid-nineteenth century. ...

Notes

Memorial to Lady Wilde and her husband located in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin Jane Francesca Agnes, Lady Wilde (1826 - 3 February 1896)[1] (née Jane Francesca Elgee) was an Irish poet and supporter of the nationalist movement; she was the wife of Sir William Wilde and mother of Oscar... Sir William Robert Willis Wilde (1815 - April 19, 1876), today best known for being the father of Oscar Wilde, was a man of prominence in his own day. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 306th day of the year (307th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

Norman Gash was the sole biographer of Sir Robert Peel, he published two volumes of his life; the first was entitled Mr Secretary Peel and followed his life up until 1830. ... Cecil Woodham-Smith Cecil Blanche Woodham-Smith (née Fitzgerald) (April 29, 1896 - March 16, 1977) was an acclaimed British historian and biographer. ...

External links

• New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education 1996
• The History of the Irish Famine by Rev. John O'Rourke
• Irish National Archives information on the Famine
• Quinnipiac University's An Gorta Mor site - includes etexts
• Ireland's Great Famine (Cormac Ó Gráda) from EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History
• Irish Holocaust
• History
• Newspaper Reports on the Famine
• Ireland: The hunger years 1845-1851
• Local History Website on the Famine
• Kids History Website about the Famine
• Cork Multitext Project article on the Famine, by Donnchadh Ó Corráin
• For more on the pathogen see http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/mar2001.html
• Karp, Ivan. Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations. [5]
• Irish Holocaust
• Seamus P. Metress, Richard A. Rajner. The Great Starvation: An Irish Holocaust. [6]
• [7]

v • d • e Modern Irish famines

First Great Irish Famine (An Gorta Mór), 1740–1741 · Second Great Irish Famine (An Gorta Mór), 1845–1849 · Second Great Famine legacy · Irish Famine (An Gorta Beag), 1879 The Irish Famine of 1740-41 (or The Potatocaust) was perhaps of similar magnitude to the better-known Great Famine of 1847-49. ... // Political reaction resulted from the Famine, because of the extremely limited franchise that existed at the time. ... The Irish famine of 1879 was the last main Irish famine. ...

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