Great Irish Famine of 1845-1850 killed about 1 million Irish people and caused millions more to leave Ireland. The famine began after a plant disease called blight destroyed potato crops, the chief food of the poor. Most historians agree, though, that British mishandling of the food shortage turned it into a tragedy.
England had dominated Ireland for centuries. In the 1500’s and 1600’s, the English monarchy fought to eliminate Roman Catholicism from Ireland. In what is known as the plantation of Ireland, the government took land from the Irish, who were mostly Catholic, and gave it to English and Scottish Protestants. The Penal Laws tried to force Catholics to renounce their faith. The laws later decreed that no Catholic, and therefore few Irish people, could purchase land, vote, or hold public office. In 1800, the British passed the Act of Union, ending Ireland’s parliament and making Ireland part of the United Kingdom.
As a result of the plantation and the Penal Laws, Protestants owned most of the land in Ireland. Some of the Irish were tenant farmers, who paid as rent most of the crops and animals they raised. But many of the Irish were landless laborers who worked the fields in exchange for a small plot on which to grow potatoes. Most Irish families lived on potatoes and little else.
The potato blight struck in 1845, but with limited effect. It struck harder in 1846 and again in 1848. As the famine continued, many of the poor sold their animals and other possessions to buy food. Farmers and laborers could no longer feed themselves. Landlords evicted hundreds of thousands of people. Some paid for their tenants’ passage on “coffin ships” bound for England, Canada, or the United States. Many passengers perished from disease, either on board ship or soon after arrival.
Despite the blight, other crops thrived in Ireland. But the food was shipped elsewhere to be sold. In 1847, the worst year of the starvation, nearly 4,000 shiploads of food left famine-stricken areas in Ireland for English and Scottish ports.
The British government set up public works to employ people so they could buy food. But the wages were too low to feed a family. Charity—and government—operated soup kitchens could not feed all the starving. Diseases, including typhus and cholera, overwhelmed the malnourished people and wiped out large numbers. Many died by the roads or in ramshackle homes. Many of the dead were buried without coffins in mass graves.
The potato blight began to disappear in 1848, and by 1850 the harvest was good in most of Ireland. Rates of death and disease remained high for several years, however. By 1900, continued emigration reduced the country’s population to about 4 million, half its size before the famine. Many left Ireland full of bitterness, blaming the British government for their suffering. In 1997, British Prime Minister Tony Blair formally apologized for British negligence during the famine.
