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In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Irish people were growing and consuming the potato – an abundant and healthy food which yielded more per acre than any other grain crop. It was an ideal crop as it enabled farmers to produce grain purely as a cash crop and charge higher rents, nor did they need to pay laborers, they were satisfied with a patch of ground on which to grow potatoes for themselves.

Those who managed to possess sizable portions were able to sub-let portions of land, fathers subdivided holdings to provide for their sons. Even landless men benefited as they reclaimed mountain land and bog and sowed the hardy potato. The population boomed, from five million in 1800 to over eight million in 1841. However this rapidly increasing population was insecure, only seven per cent of holdings were over thirty acres and forty-five per cent were under five. In addition, over two-thirds of the population were dependent on agriculture for a living, their survival depended on the continued prosperity of the potato. The potato cannot be stored like grain, so if anything were to happen to the harvest there would follow immediate disaster.

In 1845, a potato blight began to spread across Ireland, by 1846 the blight was throughout the country. To compound the problem, the British authorities did not provide widespread relief nor did they bear any of the costs. In addition the winter of 1846 was one of the worst in living memory. Hungry mobs roamed the countryside, pouring into the over-crowded relief works. By February 1847, the country was in complete chaos, covered in snow, bombarded by mighty gales, the hungry masses being ravaged by a fever epidemic. People began to leave the country in their droves, boarding the over-crowded ‘coffin-ships’ bound for America, Canada and England. By 1851, one million had emigrated and another million had perished.

By: Russell Shortt

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