Why were so many people pushed from Ireland in 1847?

About 30% to 40% of the Irish population depended on their potato crop to live. Successive crop mailures in 1845 and 1846 because of the potato blight meant that approximately 3.5 million out of 8.2 million people were at risk. Eviction (throwing people off farms for not paying rent) meant that half a million people were forced on to the roads, had nowhere to live and no money to buy food. By 1847, so many were malnourished (badly fed) for so long that hundreds of thousands died. Famine, possibly the largest disaster in 19th century Europe, had struck. People facing death migrated if they could.

History, what we write about the past, is a debate about interpreting that past. The Irish Famine has been debated ever since the 1840’s. Some maintain that the Famine was a natural disaster that reduced the food supply so much that the economic and political structures were overwhelmed. Others claim that areas such as the Scottish Highlands also faced this problem but without the massive deaths that occurred in Ireland. Many argue that the Irish political and economic structure imposed by England were part of the problem in 1847. Therefore, the economic and political structures helped a major environmental problem to become a demographic (number of births & deaths) disaster.

In 1847, Ireland exported wheat and cattle while hundreds of thousand of people starved to death. The Nobel prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen states that famines are not just a shortage of food but a problem of poverty and a political inability to demand the food that is there. The Irish poor were unable to buy Irish-grown food that was being sold under armed guard to England for the higher prices it could fetch there.

The political debate rages on today. Some argue that Ireland was like India and other parts of the British Empire that also faced famine. This view asserts that the Irish were reluctant subjects of the English, rather than equal citizens with the same right to government care as English citizens. Others argue that the government was misguided, ill informed and indifferent because British governments, in the spirit of the times, had a similar outlook towards factory children, working women, orphans, public health, and slums in a Britain that included Ireland.

Another complicating factor is that the history of these times was written by emigrants who were understandably bitter as they had seen many of their people die and felt they had been forced from their homeland. British government action was limited, but it was not non-existent. To begin with, the government did not have large numbers of men or ships ready to transport food. Ministers used public money to get private operators to get food to the right place, or keep it in the right place. As a result of government efforts and private sector activity combined, food exports from Ireland fell from 472 000 per year in 1845 to 146 000 tons in 1847. The food not being exported was being eaten in Ireland. In addition, imports of food in 1847-8 were three times greater than exports from Ireland. This part of the story is rarely recalled.

Weigh the evidence. Were they unlucky people pushed out by an environmental natural disaster? Was the Famine a product of a callous Empire and were the Irish unfortunate refugees forced out by an alien, colonial-style regime? Britain was the richest, most advanced country in the 19th century world, yet no other European government allowed so many to starve so close to so much wealth and food. On the other hand, 19th century Britain was industrializing, had millions of poverty-stricken people and was more like today’s developing countries than a developed country such as Canada. Should we criticize the Britain of 1847 for mishandling the Famine when their resources were, in fact, less than the resources of many developing countries today? Even today, many developed countries have difficulty helping their people in times of natural disasters, such as the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. Debate these viewpoints in your mind as you weigh the evidence in this website.