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What is
the Irish Potato Famine
What is the Irish potato famine history? Around the year 1840 Ireland
suffered a terrible period of famine. It
happened due to the destruction of the potato crop for successive years
from late blight which is a potato crop disease that destroys both the
edible root and the leaves.
The whole Europe had been affected in 1840 by potato blight. But
nowhere was the effect more
prevailing than in Ireland. This
was because a third of the population
was entirely dependent on the crop for food and the rest of the
population also ate large quantities of potato. And people depended
only on one or two major varieties, reducing the genetic variety.
Ireland anyway was one of the poorest European nations at that time and
almost entirely dependent on cultivation. The famine as a result had
devastating effects. It killed more than a million of people and
resulted in the biggest exodus of modern times with over two million
people immigrating to mostly North America. In 1845 water mold
or
Phytophthora infestans, which is the reason for the disease was
accidentally transported to Ireland.
The same year Ireland had an
exceptionally cool and moist weather which helped the disease thrive.
Most of the crop rotted in the fields.
 This was followed by successive
years of more devastating crop failures from 1846 to 1849. The disease
rotted the leaves in no time providing the fungus with food. Even the
potatoes rotted in a few days. The fungus that originally came in the
holds of ship coming from North America spread with the breeze very
rapidly with each infected plant infecting up to a thousand nearby
plants in a day.
The British government tried to
alleviate the famine but their actions weren’t enough. Between 1845 and
1846 the Prime Minister of England abolished the Corn Laws to help
solve what is the Irish potato famine. But reaction from the English
elite was
furious and the effect was not achieved. Subsequent measures provided
little relief and the famine grew into a nationwide disaster. There
were many kitchens set up that provided free soups but these were
hardly enough. Besides these the British set up special programs where
the Irish were provided jobs in road building and other public sectors.
Cornmeal
imported from America averted the situation a bit. But it was
strongly disliked and led to nutritional deficiencies especially scurvy
as it had poor Vitamin C.
During this period Irish farms were forced to
export a lot of their products as the Irish had no money to purchase.
During the famine, the British adopted the laissez-faire or let it be
policy which assumes at its basis that all problems are solved
naturally with time. But in reality it was done to avoid harming the
interest of the English rich and to prevent the increase of prices in
England. Also as most of the landowners in Ireland were English nothing
was done that hampered their interests and the landowners did little or
nothing for the relief of the peasants.
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