We had such a great special week about Spuds and Spurs, and it intrigued me to learn more about the food staple we all grew up on. It’s my go-to starchy vegetable.
One part of history particular intrigued me. The Great Irish Famine of the mid-1800’s.
Here are some of the facts and how the “famine” changed not only Britain but the United States.
- Biases in favor of the landlords caused Ireland to teeter on the brink of disaster. The “middleman system” was introduced to manage land. The effectiveness of a middleman was judged by the amount of money he could extract from the landlords. The law was heavily unfair to the landowners as they dominated Irish representation in Britain. With the population of the island rapidly increasing, widespread unemployment among laborers, caused the majority of the people to live in poverty. Ireland was on the verge of a disaster.
- The middlemen split up the land into smaller parts to increase the amount of rent they could extract from the tenants. By the time the famine struck, about 1/4th of the Irish farms were between one and five acres, with as little as 40% being between five and fifteen acres. As the holdings grew smaller and smaller, only potatoes were sufficient enough to feed the tenant families. Poverty was so widespread that 1/3rd of the tenants were not able to pay rent or support their families.
- Since Britain held a huge market on the beef industry, more and more of the land was used for grazing, the Irish turned to potatoes since no other crop could be grown abundantly in such unfavorable soil. By the 18th century, potatoes became the staple food of the farmers, such as it is today in our country. Of interest, an Irish worker ate ten pounds of potatoes every day. No typo here … ten pounds per day.
- A potato disease commonly known as the Potato Blight destroyed potato crops across Europe which led to the Irish Potatoes Famine. In 1845 from 1/3 to 1/2 of the cultivated potato crops were lost. The destruction continued the following year when 3/4 of the crops were destroyed the first report of starvation death came into existence. The effect of the failure of potato crops was felt throughout Europe but it was devastating in Ireland in particular since over three million Irish people were totally dependent on potatoes for food. Fortunately, what caused the fungus that created the blight is now totally eradicated. I’d show you some pictures of what the blight did to the potatoes, but they would have to be blurred out because they are so ghastly. It wasn’t until 2013 that the true strain of the virus that caused the crop failure was identified. It was HERB-1.
- By the time the famine ended in 1851, approximately 1 million people had died in Ireland due to starvation or disease. This was about 1/8th of the island’s population. By 1855 about 2 million people had fled from Ireland. Overcrowded and poorly managed vessels which were called “coffin ships” caused numerous deaths of emigrating Irish people. Even today, more than 150 years later, Ireland’s population has still not recovered from its pre-famine level.
- I am not going into the political issues, but the Great Famine created a permanent change to the island’s demographics, political and cultural landscape.
- The Great Famine is memorialized in numerous locations not only in Ireland but also in other parts of the world where large populations have descended from Irish immigrants. In the 1990’s Ireland commemorated the 150th Anniversary of the Great Famine.
Can you imagine having to live on potatoes as your main food source … and eating ten pounds a day?
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