Conditions in Ireland in 1850 could not have been worse. The famine of 1845-1849 which resulted from three successive failures of the potato crop, caused five years of starvation and disease and was a major turning point in Irish history.

England's refusal to prohibit the export of food-grains while the very people who produced the wheat, barley and oats starved to death because they had no money to buy back the fruits of their labour, did more to embitter Anglo-Irish relations than any other single event in the nineteenth century.

There was little or no industry. 90% of the population depended on casual farm work. 75% of the working people were unemployed and victims of absentee English landlords; there was a complete lack of economic planning.

The average small holding (the farms had been divided and sub-divided) was less than one-acre. The people never ate meat and were dependent on potatoes grown from this small patch of land and eked out with meal. Starvation came in the summer when the old potato crop was eaten and the new crop was not yet ready. With no money to buy the meal which was imported from overseas and had to be purchased with cash, the Irishman had to borrow against his pay in the fall when the potatoes were harvested on the farms of the big landlords.

Every village had it's "gombeen man" or money lender, who would lend at 25% interest and collect directly from the landlord. Consequently, very few workers ever saw the money they earned in a 15-hour day in the fields at a wage of one shilling a day.

Before 1850 the population of Ireland was close to 8 million people. During the "bad times" it fell almost to half and even today is just beginning to rise over 4 million. Over a million people starvedd to death or died from disease resulting from the man-made famine. Woodham-Smith in his book, The Great Hunger, refused to call it a famine saying there was no lack of food.Countless others emigrated, over a million to America (Canada and United States).

The fare to New York or Quebec was seven pounds. The emigrants sailed in "coffin ships" which were ancient, leaking, overcrowded and badly provisioned. Provisions of seven pounds per week per person was arranged but passengers rarely received it. Ships licensed to carry 200 passengers would squeeze 400 aboard. They slept on floors and there were no proper sanitary arrangements. The voyage across the Atlantic could take from six to eight weeks depending on the weather and hundreds died of cholera, dysentry, exposure and malnutrition.

Previous: Preface
Next: Canada - 1861