With the Irish Famine Commemoration Day last month in Ireland and the South Florida Commemoration Mass - Sunday, May 30 at the Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood, this is a good time to remember the victims of the Great Irish Famine (in Irish; An Gorta Mór: meaning "the great hunger"). The potato famine lasted from 1845-1851 and despite it being over 150 years ago, it still bears a huge relevance to the Irish-American immigrants of the US and their descendants. With over 36 million Americans claiming Irish ancestry (almost 12% of the population - not including the earlier settlers who claim to be Scotch-Irish, bringing the total to over 44 million), the Irish Famine changed the demographics of the US forever, bringing an estimated 5 million to the US alone with that again emigrating to Britain, Australia, Canada and elsewhere. Refered to as the Irish diaspora (Irish: Diaspóra na nGael), this exodus from Ireland resulted in over 80 million people worldwide claiming Irish ancestry - over 13 times the current population of the island!
So many of you may wonder how a nation of millions depended entirely on potatoes for sustenance? Why did the Irish not grow or eat something else? Some background; In 1845, a fungus attacked Ireland's potato crop, destroying it within a year. For millions potatoes were the only significant source of food. More than a million people died from starvation in the famine period alone. However, many people do not know that, at the same time, Irish farms were producing plenty of other foods including corn, wheat, barley and beef. This food was exported past the starving millions and taken to England. At the time, Ireland was an English colony and plantation with all of the farmland being owned by English protestant landlords who rented the land to the Irish catholic tenant farmers. Many protestant church missions in England tried to take advantage of this situation by attempting to "proselytize" the starving catholics, asking them to renounce their catholic faith in return for food. In essence, many of the victims of the famine were martyrs for the catholic faith.
This situation stemmed from the British penal laws enacted in the 1600s and 1700s, prohibiting Irish catholics from owning or leasing land, voting, holding political office, from living in or within five miles of a corporate town, from obtaining education, entering a profession or practicing their faith. Following the Act of Emancipation (circa. 1800) these laws had mainly been reformed but their legacy remained. English "absentee landlords" owned most of the land from abroad and paid the impoverished Irish catholic tenant farmer minimal wages to work it and export all of the crops and livestock. These farms were sub-divided into such small divisions (24% were from one to five acres, with 40% five to fifteen acres), potatoes were the only crop that would suffice to feed the tenant families. Furthermore, high rents and mandatory exports (and the low compensation for them) meant that the tenant farmers worked just for food for their families, which soon became a stable diet of potatoes.
In 1844 Irish newspapers carried reports of the potato blight attacking American crops and the following year had infested 50% of the Irish crop, carried to Ireland by ships coming from America. By 1846 75% was destroyed with rampant starvation and unemployment. Tragically, Irish exports of calves, livestock, bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. However, the poor had no money to buy food and the predominantly Anglo-Irish government then did not ban exports.
1947 saw mass evictions of the starving and impoverished tenant farmers, unable to pay rents or feed their families, emigration was for many the only answer.
Conditions on the migrant ships were horrific with little or no food or clean water. Mortality rates on board were about 30% despite the fare being too expensive for many. These ships taking passengers to England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States soon became known as coffin ships. By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, Irish populations became prevalent in some American mining communities. These starving and destitute immigrants were treated with contempt wherever they went with "No Irish Need Apply" signs greeting them where they looked for work. Many early Irish immigrants also enlisted in the military, subsequently fighting in the civil war and ultimately earning a place in American society and a respect and vindication from the racism they faced before. Many others took the back-breaking work of building the railroads and infrastructure of the fledgling nation.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lz-yS_a-3k&feature=player_embedded#!)
It is not known how many people died during the period of the Famine, although it is believed more died from diseases than from starvation. Many Irish songs are about the Great Irish Famine and the infamous coffin ships, none of which is more famous than "The Fields of Athenry". So next time you join us for a cup of potato soup, a pint of Guinness and a few verses of "The Fields of Athenry", spare a thought for our ancestors who sacrificed so much so that we could enjoy such freedoms.
SLÁINTE!
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