When a million Irish died ...

Siegfried Hagl

Between 1845 and 1848 a million Irish people starved to death or died as a result of epidemics. A further one and a half million emigrated because of the unbearable living conditions and the country was depopulated. Yet effective aid from wealthy England failed to materialise. How did this drama come about? On closer examina- tion, the “potato famine” was partly caused by a dreadful human tendency: the tendency to place principles before human life. Here is a lesson for the present day.

Today we rarely think of the fact that in the past hunger was part of the experience of almost every generation.

My mother lived through two food shortage crises, which remained a living memory for her – particularly the first occasion during and after the First World War – right into very old age.

War, pest infestation, plant diseases, bad weather, drought, floods have all brought crop failures and food short- ages in almost every century. Although the shortages were mostly regional, the means of transport were often insufficient to balance out the plight of one region with the surplus in another.

If you stand in a supermarket today with shelves overflowing with all manner of foodstuffs, then it seems that such times of shortage have finally been overcome. Beside these discount stores, you sometimes find posters which call for donations to reduce the hunger in the poorer countries of the “third world”. These appeals to humanity really are neces- sary, because the suffering of strangers living far away often does not touch us. Just how far this indif- ference can go in a Christian country which is proud of its history, its old democratic traditions and its human- ity, with its economic theories point- ing the way ahead, can be seen in the drastic historical example.

An exploited, neglected country

In the 19th century, Ireland – then a part of Great Britain – was an unfortu- nate country. Stimulated by the French Revolution, various, partly violent struggles for independence had taken place. Since the hoped-for support of French troops failed to materialise, these efforts came to nothing and simply aggravated the already impov- erished situation of Ireland.

After the victory over Napoleonic France, Great Britain rose to become the leading world power. Three quarters of the Emerald Isle belonged to the protestant English landowners, who had it cultivated by catholic Irish tenants.

The situation of the tenant farmers was wretched. Their parcels of land were small and the rents were high, so that they could hardly support their families. The farmers had no money to change their situation for the better, and the landowners were not interested in any such improvements. There was hardly any hope for the future of any tenant except the goal of emigrating to the USA, for which their money was usually not enough.

The people of Ireland became apathetic; the men became aggressive drinkers, the women indifferent and slovenly, their children sickly.

Irish agriculture became dependent to a large extent upon one product: potatoes. Crop rotation, mixed culti- vation, variety of species, controlled fertilising: such stabilising measures were not taken – either for lack of money or out of ignorance. How long could this dependence upon a monoculture continue?

Monocultures have held risks ever since there has been agriculture. In Ireland at the time, all potatoes culti- vated were derived from the same types cultivated in Central America, which therefore provided a narrow genetic base. If diseases or pests succeed in breaking through the protective barriers of this monocul- ture, then there is no escape from disaster, the harvest of the whole country is endangered.

In this connection, it appears remarkable that today’s consolidated companies involved with gene technology want to fully industrialise seed production and thereby – despite the dramatic experiences gained in the past – consciously adopt the risk that we may end up with too narrow a genetic base. These companies rely on the supposition, that science would always be one step ahead of pests and plant diseases, so that we need not fear a crop failure of possibly global dimen- sions of an important food plant.

The American potato pest

In 1844, a hitherto unknown plant disease destroyed a large part of the potato crop in the USA. Although this news spread to England, no importance was attached to it. Let the unloved Americans try to cope with the rotting of potato tuber and haulm.

In Ireland, little or nothing was known of this problem in faraway America; people continued to cultivate predominantly potatoes as ever before and apparently with great success, because even in the summer of 1845 everything pointed to a bumper harvest. It had rained at the right time and sufficiently, also it was dry and hot afterwards; the potatoes flourished splendidly. Then, however, the notorious caprices of the Irish weather lived up to their bad reputation once again. Fog and cold enveloped the land, followed by incessant rain. Fields were flooded, animals became sick, people suffered. The “potato blight” infested the potato plants almost everywhere and they began to rot.

According to present knowledge, the cause of the potato pest is a fungal spore, a water mold (Phytophtora infestans), which can spread rapidly in humid conditions. It was probably brought in with a shipload from America. At the time, no one in Ireland knew what to do against the blight; people sought the cause in the cold and in the rainy summer ... and did not initially take any action.

Angry grain farmers versus starving Irish In the autumn of 1845, it could no longer be overlooked that famine was imminent in Ireland. Newspapers reported the dramatic crop failures. Traditionally, we speak of a crisis in foodstuffs when 50 percent of the harvest fails, in Ireland at the time, however, 90 percent of the potatoes had rotted!

The situation was even debated in the Parliament in Westminster. Prime Minister Robert Peel initiated an emergency programme to be directed by Charles Trevelyan. Corn and oats were bought for the sum of £185,000, food depots were set up and foodstuffs were passed on at market prices (but never for free). This helped to alleviate starvation and halt the dreaded explosion of food prices.

In the Cabinet in London there was dispute about these relief supplies. Attempts to facilitate the introduction of grain into emergency areas excited the rage of the English grain farmers; the government was split and Peel offered his resignation. August 1846 brought a change in government. The liberal Whig government under Prime Minister Lord John Russell abhorred interference in the free market and wanted to avoid that “the Irish would rely in the long term upon the help of the English government”.

The rich leave the country, and the poor starve

In Ireland, 1846 became a year of disaster. Torrential rains flooded the country, the potato blight struck anew and the harvest failed almost completely. The rich landowners had long since left Ireland and the poor tenant farmers had no money.

The unemployed could earn the bare minimum through public work programmes. Yet even these well- intentioned government programmes only helped a part of those in need. The bureaucracy was slow and cumbersome, the already low wages were often paid out late and not all the needy could be considered. Tenants who farmed more than a quarter acre were excluded from these sources of income. They had to sell their meagre grain harvest to be able to pay the rent, because a tenant who did not pay up had to leave his plot immediately and thereby also lost his modest dwelling. Thus in 1846, at the height of the famine, many thousands of tons of grain were exported from Ireland. When the Irish wanted to stop the grain exports, free trade fetishist Trevelyan decided that an export ban was out of the question, because “free trade” was the right way! Mind you, this dogma of “free trade” served at the same time to justify the opium war (fought in the 19th century with the aim of forcing the Chinese to allow free trade, particularly in opium).

Finally, the authorities were compelled to give away foodstuffs for free and to set up soup kitchens. At the height of the “potato famine”, over three million people were dependent upon public work programmes or soup kitchens, which saved hundreds of thousands from starvation, but which could only alleviate the catastrophe.

Famine supervened by typhus and cholera

The following year, 1847, was called “Black 47” by the Irish. The summer began well, but then came pesti- lences: typhus and dysentery snatched away thousands of those already weakened by hunger. Whole regions were depopulated. Hundreds of thousands scraped together their last savings and tried to escape to the USA; on the emigrant ships, catas- trophic conditions prevailed.

Those staying at home often could not pay the rent. In 1847 alone, a half million tenants lost their plots. Even today, you can still find the ruins of abandoned houses from that time.

In 1848, there were isolated upris- ings, and yet a revolution such as in other European countries failed to materialise – the Irish were far too exhausted for serious resistance. Then things became even worse: Presum- ably passed on by an infected seaman, Asiatic cholera was introduced to the country. It served the authorities as a welcome excuse, that further help was now no longer possible.

Only in the middle of 1849 did the cholera epidemic abate and in the autumn of this year the potato harvest was finally good once again, even if no one knew why. In Europe of the modern times the worst famine in peacetime came to an end.

Ireland had seen one or more food crises in almost every century. About 300,000 people starved between 1739 and 1740, 65,000 from 1816 to 1818. But there had never been a famine disaster of such proportions as in the years 1845 to 1848.

A million Irish starve, and the country is deserted

Out of well over 8 million inhabi- tants, more than a million people had starved to death or died from epidemics. A further 1.5 million people had emigrated. Large parts of Ireland were depopulated. Stricter immigration regulations in the USA, which excluded people with illnesses, for example, slowed down the wave of emigration. Yet Ireland remained a land of emigrants, a country which was deserted by at least 5 million of its inhabitants in the decades that followed. Ireland is the only European country which today has fewer inhabitants (approx. 3.9 million) than it did around the year 1840 (approx. 8.2 million).

The at any rate very strained relationship between the English and the Irish had further deteriorated because of the famine and it took Ireland decades to recover. The hatred towards the politicians who were responsible for the fact that the aid had been withheld, has still not died away. From the Irish perspec- tive, the government of the richest country in the world refused to help starving fellow human beings in their own state, and all this had happened at the time when a global economy started to develop, when there were steamships and railways and the “Bank of England” had almost unlimited resources at its disposal.

In Ireland, the “potato famine” still lives on in folk customs and legends.

Deliberate genocide or inhumane utopian schemes?

Various historians have insinuated that the British government is answerable for serious transgressions, which left millions of Irish starving to death. Allegedly, politicians refused the necessary aid, because they hated the Irish; even comparisons with Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp north of Celle in the Lueneburg Heath were made.

In order to denounce the insufficient assistance of a hesitant govern- ment, it helps to have a look at the costs – a comparison which today is exactly as topical as in the 19th century: The British contribution to famine relief amounted to only £7 million – this was less than the Irish themselves raised. In contrast, the defence spending of Great Britain per year amounted to £16 million; the Crimean War (1854-1856) cost £69.3 million. (Source: W E Vaughan, A New History of Ireland, Vol. V, Clarendon, Oxford 1989, page 328).

Presumably, it would be going too far to imply that those responsible intentionally committed genocide. However, in a summary assessment of the events, historians have reached a conclusion from which lessons for the present time can be drawn. In the book “A New History of Ireland” by W. E. Vaughan it reads: “Russell [note: Lord John Russell, 1792-1878, Prime Minister from 1846-1852], Wood [note: Sir Charles Wood, 1800- 1885, Treasurer from 1846-1852] and Trevelyan [note: Charles Trevelyan, 1807-1886, Deputy Prime Minister] were indeed conscientious men of responsibility, although hopelessly misguided in their economic beliefs. They were gripped by the worst and most widespread of all human diseases: the belief that principles and doctrines are more important than human life. They thought that rules devised by economists were just as real as the potato blight.” (Source: W. E. Vaughan, A New History of Ireland, Vol. V, Clarendon, Oxford Press 1989, page 330).

Such ideological bondage often determines historic decisions – from the crusades to globalisation. In the 20th century, it were the inhumane utopias of Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism, and Maoism, which radically sacrificed many millions of human lives to their political programmes.

Today, I fear that our politicians are once again gripped by this “worst and most widespread of human diseases”, when they say that globalisation, privatisation, deregulation, free movement of goods and circulation of money, and so on will bring economic growth, freedom and prosperity for everyone, with the reliability of natural laws. They are thereby committing themselves to the next utopia, the next large scale exper- iment with questionable results.