The History Place - Irish Potato Famine: The Blight Begins (2024)

The Famine began quite mysteriously in September1845 as leaves on potato plants suddenly turned black and curled, thenrotted, seemingly the result of a fog that had wafted across the fieldsof Ireland. The cause was actually an airborne fungus (phytophthora infestans)originally transported in the holds of ships traveling from North Americato England.

Winds from southern England carried the fungusto the countryside around Dublin. The blight spread throughout the fieldsas fungal spores settled on the leaves of healthy potato plants, multipliedand were carried in the millions by cool breezes to surrounding plants.Under ideal moist conditions, a single infected potato plant could infectthousands more in just a few days.

The attacked plants fermented while providingthe nourishment the fungus needed to live, emitting a nauseous stench asthey blackened and withered in front of the disbelieving eyes of Irishpeasants. There had been crop failures in the past due to weather and otherdiseases, but this strange new failure was unlike anything ever seen. Potatoesdug out of the ground at first looked edible, but shriveled and rottedwithin days. The potatoes had been attacked by the same fungus that haddestroyed the plant leaves above ground.

By October 1845, news of the blight had reachedLondon. British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, quickly established aScientific Commission to examine the problem. After briefly studying thesituation, the Commission issued a gloomy report that over half of Ireland'spotato crop might perish due to 'wet rot.'

Meanwhile, the people of Ireland formulated theirown unscientific theories on the cause of the blight. Perhaps, it was thought,static electricity in the air resulting from the newly arrived locomotivetrains caused it. Others reasoned that 'mortiferous vapors' from volcanoesemanating from the center of the earth might have done it. Some Catholics viewed the crisis in religiousterms as Divine punishment for the "sins of the people" whileothers saw it as Judgment against abusive landlords and middlemen.

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In England, religious-minded social reformersviewed the blight as a heaven-sent 'blessing' that would finally providean opportunity to transform Ireland, ending the cycle of poverty resultingfrom the people's mistaken dependence on the potato.

With the threat of starvation looming, Prime MinisterPeel made a courageous political decision to advocate repeal of England'slong-standing Corn Laws. The protectionist laws had been enacted in 1815to artificially keep up the price of British-grown grain by imposing heavytariffs on all imported grain. Under the Corn Laws, the large amounts ofcheap foreign grain now needed for Ireland would be prohibitively expensive.However, English gentry and politicians reacted with outrage at the mereprospect of losing their long-cherished price protections. The politicalfuror in Britain surrounding Peel's decision quickly overshadowed any concernfor the consequences of the crop failure in Ireland.

Ireland's potato crop failures in the past hadalways been regional and short-lived with modest loss of life. Between1800 and 1845, sixteen food shortages had occurred in various parts ofIreland. However, during the Famine the crop failure became national forthe first time, affecting the entire country at once. British officialsbelieved the 1845 food shortage would likely end with next year's harvest.Thus they reacted to the current food shortage as they had in the pastby enacting temporary relief measures.

A Relief Commission was established in Dublinto set up local relief committees throughout Ireland composed of landowners,their agents, magistrates, clergy and notable residents. The local committeeswere supposed to help organize employment projects and distribute foodto the poor while raising money from landowners to cover part of the cost.The British government would then contribute a matching amount.

However, in remote rural areas, many of the reliefcommittees were taken over by poorly educated farmers who conducted disorganized,rowdy meetings. Local landowners, upon seeing who was on the committees,balked at donating any money. There were also a high number of absenteelandlords in the remote western areas with little first-hand knowledgeof what was occurring on their property. They also failed to donate.

Trevelyan Takes Over

The shaky Irish relief effort soon came underthe control of a 38-year-old English civil servant named Charles EdwardTrevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the British Treasury. Trevelyan was appointedby Prime Minister Peel to oversee relief operations in Ireland and wouldbecome the single most important British administrator during the Famineyears. He was a brilliant young man of unimpeachable integrity but wasalso stubborn, self-righteous, overly bureaucratic, and not given to afavorable opinion of the Irish.

Unwilling to delegate any authority in his day-to-dayduties, he managed every detail, no matter how small. All communicationsarriving from his administrators in Ireland were handed directly to him,unseen by anyone else. Important decisions were thus delayed as his workloadsteadily increased. He often remained at his office until 3 a.m. and demandedthe same kind of round-the-clock commitment from his subordinates.

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Trevelyan would visit Ireland just once duringall of the Famine years, venturing only as far as Dublin, far from thehard-hit west of Ireland. Remoteness from the suffering, he once stated,kept his judgment more acute than that of his administrators actually workingamong the people affected.

In the spring of 1846, under his control, theBritish attempted to implement a large-scale public works program for Ireland'sunemployed. Similar temporary programs had been successfully used in thepast. But this time, Trevelyan complicated the process via new bureaucraticprocedures that were supposed to be administered by a Board of Works locatedin Dublin. The understaffed Board was quickly swamped with work requestsfrom landowners. At the same time, local relief committees were besiegedby masses of unemployed men. The result was confusion and anger. Britishtroops had to be called in to quell several disturbances.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Peel came up with hisown solution to the food problem. Without informing his own Conservative(Tory) government, he secretly purchased two shipments of inexpensive Indiancorn (maize) directly from America to be distributed to the Irish. Butproblems arose as soon as the maize arrived in Ireland. It needed to beground into digestible corn meal and there weren't enough mills availableamid a nation of potato farmers. Mills that did process the maize discoveredthe pebble-like grain had to be ground twice.

To distribute the corn meal, a practical, business-likeplan was developed in which the Relief Commission sold the meal at costto local relief committees which in turn sold it at cost to the Irish atjustone penny per pound. But peasants soon ran out of money and most landownersfailed to contribute any money to maintain the relief effort.

The corn meal itself also caused problems. Normally,the Irish ate enormous meals of boiled potatoes three times a day. A workingman might eat up to fourteen pounds each day. They found Indian corn tobe an unsatisfying substitute. Peasants nicknamed the bright yellow substance'Peel's brimstone.' It was difficult to cook, hard to digest and causeddiarrhea. Most of all, it lacked the belly-fillingbulk of the potato. It also lacked Vitamin C and resulted in scurvy, acondition previously unknown in Ireland due to the normal consumption ofpotatoes rich in Vitamin C.

Out of necessity, the Irish grew accustomed tothe corn meal. But by June 1846 supplies were exhausted. The Relief Commissionestimated that four million Irish would need to be fed during the springand summer of 1846, since nearly £3million worth of potatoes had been lost in the first year of the Famine.But Peel had imported only about £100,000worth of Indian corn from America and Trevelyan made no effort to replenishthe limited supply.

Laissez-Faire

In deciding their course of action during theFamine, British government officials and administrators rigidly adheredto the popular theory of the day, known as laissez-faire (meaning let itbe), which advocated a hands-off policy in the belief that all problemswould eventually be solved on their own through 'natural means.'

Great efforts were thus made to sidestep socialproblems and avoid any interference with private enterprise or the rightsof property owners. Throughout the entire Famine period, the British governmentwould never provide massive food aid to Ireland under the assumption thatEnglish landowners and private businesses would have been unfairly harmedby resulting food price fluctuations.

In adhering to laissez-faire, the British governmentalso did not interfere with the English-controlled export business in Irish-growngrains. Throughout the Famine years, large quantities of native-grown wheat,barley, oats and oatmeal sailed out of places such as Limerick and Waterfordfor England, even though local Irish were dying of starvation. Irish farmers,desperate for cash, routinely sold the grain to the British in order topay the rent on their farms and thus avoid eviction.

In the first year of the Famine, deaths from starvationwere kept down due to the imports of Indian corn and survival of abouthalf the original potato crop. Poor Irish survived the first year by sellingoff their livestock and pawning their meager possessions whenever necessaryto buy food. Some borrowed money at high interest from petty money-lenders,known as gombeen men. They also fell behind on their rents.

The potato crop in Ireland had never failed fortwo consecutive years. Everyone was counting on the next harvest to beblight-free. But the blight was here to stay and three of the followingfour years would be potato crop disasters, with catastrophic consequencesfor Ireland.

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