British Handling of the Irish Potato Famine
England began colonizing Ireland in the 12th century. In succeeding centuries, the colonists exploited the island, dispossessed the natives of the best lands, and literally lorded it over the locals. By the 19th century Ireland was an agricultural nation, populated by about eight million people who were amongst the poorest in the Western World. Most Irish were illiterate, life expectancy was short, and infant mortality was high.
A predominately Protestant Anglo-Irish hereditary ruling caste owned most of the land, which had been confiscated over the years from the native Irish Catholics. Most landowners were absentee landlords who seldom visited their estates, but simply lived off their rents, often quite lavishly, in London or Europe. Their tenants were poor Catholic farmers who scratched a subsistence living from plots that kept shrinking over the generations.
The potato became an appealing crop to such subsistence level farmers because it was hardy, nutritious, calorie-rich, and easy to grow on Irish soil. It became a staple crop, and by the 1840s, about half the Irish population, and especially the poor farmers, had come to rely almost exclusively on potatoes for their diet. That left them vulnerable to catastrophe should the potato crop fail, which it did in 1845 when a blight caused much of that year’s crop to rot in the field. It was followed by even worse blights in subsequent years, and famine ensued.
While the Potato Famine was not caused by Britain, British policies and reactions ensured that it became far more deadly than it otherwise would have been. The British government’s response ranged from inadequate to outright incompetent. Among other things, its Conservative government continued to allow the export of grain from Ireland to mainland Britain, even as starvation loomed over millions of Irish. A Liberal government replaced the Conservatives in 1846, and continued its predecessor’s policies of allowing grain exports from a starving Ireland to a well-fed Britain.
The authorities in London also adopted a hands off laissez-faire approach towards the starving Irish. The burden of relief efforts was shifted to local Irish resources, mainly in the form of local poor relief paid for by the landlords. However, because the starving peasants were unable to pay the rents, the landlords soon ran out of money to pay the taxes for poor relief.
Additionally, the British imposed work requirements on the indigent and starving Irish in need of relief, which backfired spectacularly as many were too debilitated by hunger to work. Additionally, many of those who managed to get some form of food relief were given cornmeal that Irish stomachs were unaccustomed to, and that was nutritionally deficient, anyhow.
As a result, about a million Irish starved to death during the Potato Famine, and another million were forced to emigrate from Ireland, reducing the island’s population within a few years by 25%. The famine became a watershed in Ireland’s history, greatly altering its demographics, politics, and culture, and boosting Irish nationalism and republicanism in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora. The population continued to decline due to emigration in subsequent decades, and the by the time Ireland became independent in 1921, its population was only half of what it had been in the 1840s.