The Irish Potato Famine

[MsAmerica]

This would have been better in a history forum, but failing that, I'll try Politics. Interesting article - a book review, really.

What Made the Irish Famine So Deadly
The Great Hunger was a modern event, shaped by the belief that the poor are the authors of their own misery and that the market must be obeyed at all costs.
By Fintan O’Toole

There have been, in absolute terms, many deadlier famines, but as Amartya Sen, the eminent Indian scholar of the subject, concluded, in “no other famine in the world [was] the proportion of people killed . . . as large as in the Irish famines in the 1840s.” The pathogen that caused it was a fungus-like water mold called Phytophthora infestans. Its effect on the potato gives “Rot,” a vigorous and engaging new study of the Irish famine by the historian Padraic X. Scanlan, its title. The blight began to infect the crop across much of western and northern Europe in the summer of 1845. In the Netherlands, about sixty thousand people died in the consequent famine—a terrible loss, but a fraction of the mortality rate in Ireland. It is, oddly, easier to form a mental picture of what it might have been like to witness the Dutch tragedy than to truly convey the magnitude of the suffering in Ireland...

Even before the potato blight, there was a degree of hunger among the Irish rural underclass that seemed like an ugly remnant of a receding past. In 1837, two years after Alexis de Tocqueville published the first volume of “Democracy in America,” his lifelong collaborator, Gustave de Beaumont, went to Ireland, a country the two men had previously visited together. The book de Beaumont produced in 1839, “L’Irlande: Sociale, Politique et Religieuse,” was a grim companion piece to his friend’s largely optimistic vision of the future that was taking shape on the far side of the Atlantic. De Beaumont, a grandson by marriage of the Marquis de Lafayette, understood that, while the United States his ancestor had helped to create was a vigorous outgrowth of the British political traditions he and de Tocqueville so admired, Ireland was their poisoned fruit. America, he wrote, was “the land where destitution is the exception,” Ireland “the country where misery is the common rule.”

The problem was not that the land was barren: Scanlan records that, “in 1846, 3.3 million acres were planted with grain, and Irish farms raised more than 2.5 million cattle, 2.2 million sheep and 600,000 pigs.” But almost none of this food was available for consumption by the people who produced it. It was intended primarily for export to the burgeoning industrial cities of England. Thus, even Irish farmers who held ten or more acres and who would therefore have been regarded as well off, ate meat only at Christmas. “If an Irish family slaughtered their own pig, they would sell even the intestines and other offal,” Scanlan writes. He quotes the testimony of a farmer to a parliamentary commission, in 1836, that “he knew other leaseholders who had not eaten even an egg in six months. ‘We sell them now,’ he explained.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/17/rot-padraic-x-scanlan-book-review

Tell me why then, I am listening, at least I will be, but I'm out for a few hours. If someone can genuinely explain why the term "potato famine" is offensive I will stop using it. But genuinely, not a made up reading into the words.

I think ‘potato famine’ does sound a bit like they didn’t consider eating or growing anything else.

My great great great grandmother was born in Leitrim in about 1844. She and her family moved to England in about 1850. It must have been horrific for them and of course other Irish people.

I don’t think it does-to me it implies that the primary food crop failed, not that they didn’t grow anything else. And at that time, many communities were entirely dependent on one crop or food source for their nutrition.

Which suggests 'the Irish were dependent on potatoes for nutrition and the potato crop failed so they starved' which ignores the fact that the country had lots of food and they shouldn't have starved but that food all went to England.

It wasn't a crop failure that caused the starvation, it was the removal of the rest of the food.

My parents lived in London in the 60's and remember the signs. I have no reason to doubt them, particularly as they told me about them before the late 80's.

Nobody is suggesting you call it the great famine when referring to famines generally. They are saying that that is the term used in Ireland. Obviously if you are referring to it in general terms you would refer to it as the great Irish Famine (the Irish Famine is not sufficient as there were multiple famines) or the Irish Famine in the 1840's. Your claim that the potato famine is an accurate name is nonsense as there were multiple famines in Ireland where the potato crop failed. There were also famines in other parts of Europe where the potato crop failed.

Quite aside from anything else, there were multiple famines in Ireland where the potato crop failed so your point makes no sense. There was no single "potato famine" in Ireland. There were also "potato famines" in other parts of Europe so again, the term is not an accurate descriptor.

The correct term is the Great Famine, as translated from Irish. This distinguishes it from An Gorta Beag (the small hunger/famine of the 1870's). Obviously you would include "in Ireland" or "Irish" if referring to it generally.

In my experience there’s still so much emotion surrounding this topic that it’s almost impossible to discuss it in Ireland in a dispassionate academic way .

Yes, all the stupid Irish people wishing for their history to be discussed in respectful terms and their language around it to be acknowledged and accepted.

Not what I said .

It's been explained to you by many pp why the term potato famine is offensive and disingenuous. I will endeavour to explain it to you again in a historically grounded way (as you teach this subject)

1. It reduces a genocide and systemic injustice to a crop failure.
Calling it a potato famine implies the tragedy was the result of a natural disaster. There was an abundance of food in Ireland during the times of an gorta mór/famine/ great hunger* In reality the British government of the day continued to export, under armed guard, grain, meat, dairy produce to the UK and its colonies, while Irish people starved. Irish people who attempted to prevent or steal exports were shot and killed.

2. It eases British colonial responsibilities. The term downplays or erases the role of the British government and landlords, who controlled Ireland at the time. Their actions — such as forced evictions, continued exports, and refusal to close ports or provide meaningful aid — exacerbated the suffering and turned a mass crop failure into mass death.

3. Punishing the poor. Relief was tied to the disease ridden workhouses. What little food or land you had, had to be forfeited.

1. Evictions & Landlord cruelty. Largely absentee landlords evicted starving tennants in their 1000's.

Whole villages were burned and, or torn down leaving it's inhabitants homeless and starving.

Point 2 provides a segue to discuss that great benefactor to the Irish, Charles Trevelyan, that senior civil servant put in charge of famine relief during an gorta mór/ famine/great hunger. He advised the government "the market will sort itself out. The government shouldn't interfere" and " the judgement of God sent a calamity to teach the Irish a lesson". He closes good depots at the height of an gorta mór/famine/great hunger. He refused large scale government ais as it would interfere with the market. He supported evictions and workhouse rules which punished the poor during an gorta mór/famine/ great hunger

*More accurate terms for the misleading inaccurate and disrespectful"potato" famine

I know and I accept I was sarcastic which isn't very pleasant.

But I think there are micro aggressions apparent on this thread that continue to display, in a much more subtle way, the attitudes towards Irish people that led to the famine happening. That's what I've been objecting to on this thread. I think it's the undercurrent of that subtle attitude that can make it difficult to have conversations about the famine without people getting defensive - particularly when people insist that their language is correct against all arguments put forward.

I wouldn’t use ChatGPT as a way to rebut anyone’s opinions…

This famine was caused by the failure of the potato crop. Had the crop not failed, there would not have been famine. I don’t think that referring to it as the potato famine is inaccurate- note that doesn’t stop me from understanding that the term causes offence.

It is true that food was exported from Ireland during the famine years, but it is not true to say that, had Ireland not exported food there would not have been a famine. Would it have been less severe? Perhaps, but I think less than the equivalent of 1/10th of the potato crop was exported. Being able to paint a picture of starving Irish whilst the country’s bounty was exported was a good narrative for a nationalist agenda at the time but doesn’t reflect that not exporting food would not have saved the country.If you have an academic account, you might find this article interesting:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/60000023

None of the above detracts or changes any of the misrule or politics that contributed to the severity of the Famine, but it does give context.

I think that a lot of the discussion and tension around the famine hinges on Ireland not having autonomy in the situation at all. An independent Ireland would have been no more able to stop the emergence of the potato blight and resulting crop failure, but would at least have been more able to act appropriately.

It wasn’t. It was the wholesale export of all other crops that set it off.

As John Mitchel said: "an artificial famine. Potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine".

I mean, I think John Mitchel is probably not who I would want to hold up as a beacon of ethics and morals but he phrased this well.

I’ve never fully understood why there isn’t a stronger sense of historical injustice in the English working class.

We have a very strong sense of class-based political and social injustice. It is not historical though, it is still going on now. We don't need to look into the past to see fat cats getting fatter whilst the poor don't get a look in because of their accent or table manners or lack of 'connections'.

This wasn't the case. Yes, there were food exports, but no they weren't enough to make the difference between starvation and survival for most of the country.

It's one of the reasons why potatoes were so successful and important to Ireland - at that time, they were the only crop able to support the population. When it failed, even the best year in any and all other crops wouldn't touch the sides in keeping the population alive.

Em, this feels like gaslighting.

There were mountains of food being exported while Irish people died of starvation. Food exports increased during the famine years.

It is gaslighting of the highest order.

And the reason the potato was the only food able to feed the population was because of small size of plots available to the population. The reason for the small plots was British policy enacted via the penal laws.

It is not gaslighting just because you don't like it.

Food was exported from Ireland during the famine. Was the volume of food exported sufficient to make a difference to the Irish population's survival? No. Cormac O Grada goes into a bit of detail about this in his book about the Famine.

Yes, exactly - note that Ulster was exempt form some of the restrictions that enforced small plot sizes.

Are people using British to also mean the Anglo-Irish aristocracy here?

Yes, mostly at least.

It’s gaslighting because it’s untrue.

Yes. They would have described themselves as British I would have thought.