Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

What was life like in Ireland prior to the Famine?

  • 18-03-2015 10:32pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,154 ✭✭✭


    Just looking for some insight into what life was like in Ireland before the Famine.

    Ive become quite interested in the Famine again recently, always find it interesting to work out what Ireland would be like today had the population not collapsed and instead of 6.4m people we had a population of 20m or more (potentially)
    • Basically, what I was wondering was, what was the country like? I had this notion that with a population of some 9m people there were dozens of medium to large towns. However, I was amazed to read that in 1841 only 15% (or about 1.2m of the 8.2m) of the country lived in 'urban areas' compared to approx 45% in England. My surprise was compounded by the fact I subsequently read that an urban area was defined as a settlement of 1,500 people or more. Some accounts I had read of the period suggest that most of the countrys 'settlements' consisted of some really poor make shift huts in the middle of nowhere, with no amenities, no shops, no nothing, and people routinely had to walk 40 mile round trips to the nearest town to get even the most basic of provisions. Could this be accurate? Nearly 7m people living in settlements consisting of little huts and shanty towns dotted up and down the country?

    • The next question I had was around why Ireland had become so utterly poor. Once again, a vague presumption of mine is that after the act of union, Irish industry lost whatever trade protection it had against British industry and was crushed as a result. Further, as most British landlords were absentee landlords and resided in Britain, when crops were sold from Ireland the money would be transferred out of Ireland to the landlords in Britain and thus the money wouldnt circulate in the Irish economy. Another side effect of this was that there was no coinage throughout large parts of the country.

    If anyone has any insights or opinion, or any sources that discuss and describe living conditions in Ireland prior to the Famine, that would be great!
    • As a final question, something I find myself wondering about when I do think about that period is, do you think the Famine/collapse in population would have been so bad (or indeed, happened at all) had we still had our own domestic parliament?

    As mentioned, this is something Ive found a great interest in again and have just been reading from various sites and online resources. Completely open to correction on any of the above if Im way off the mark on anything and would appreciate any info!
    Thanks


«13

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 80,799 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn


    What famine?


  • Registered Users Posts: 634 ✭✭✭Maoltuile


    Flex wrote: »
    The next question I had was around why Ireland had become so utterly poor.

    I'd imagine that the landlord system and the Penal Laws go quite a way towards explaining how things got to such a desperate pass.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    More to the point, what Irish industry?

    Mainland United Kingdom had had the Industrial Revolution. The island of Ireland had nothing like that - it was basically an agricultural economy where little had changed, or been allowed to change, since the 1600's. By 1840 mainland UK had a huge rail network connecting centres of major industries of all kind - London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Tyneside. Ireland did not.

    The big island had huge reserves of coal for fuel, and the huge labouring population to extract it - Ireland did not.

    The Irish canals built in anticipation of growing industrial need languished into silt.

    Where were all the Irish workers at the time, just as in the previous near-century?

    In England, building railways.

    tac


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Depends on what you mean by "before the Famine".

    For example, in 1782 "dependence" on Britain was repealed and for 15 golden years Ireland didn't have tariffs and taxes on exports to Britain, and was legally able to export to Europe and the Americas. Commerce boomed and it was a brief age of prosperity, ended by the Act of Union in 1800, when all political influence, along with its normal adjunct of bourgeois industry, left the country for London.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,639 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Nationalist history would mention that the economic of Ireland was disadvantaged by being tied to that of Britain from the turn of that century. While the economic boom for certain stakeholders that resulted from increased demand during the Napolonic wars would have brought some property the crash afterwards would have hit hard.
    In terms of ordinary rural life, a ruling class with different language/religion would not have been unknown. However the lack of certainty in land tenure would have contributed to the Agrarian violence.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    Manach wrote: »
    However the lack of certainty in land tenure would have contributed to the Agrarian violence.

    Most of the agrarian violence during the nineteenth century was the result of attacks by landless labourers against Irish Catholic tenant farmers over the price of provisions, the cost of conacre, the export of food out of local districts and wages.


  • Registered Users Posts: 300 ✭✭kildarejohn


    Most of the agrarian violence during the nineteenth century was the result of attacks by landless labourers against Irish Catholic tenant farmers over the price of provisions, the cost of conacre, the export of food out of local districts and wages.
    I had always thought the attacks by Whiteboys, Ribbonmen etc were more against the landlords and their agents rather than against larger tenant farmers. Perhaps your right about particular parts of the country at particular times, but hardly true for whole 19th century?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,363 ✭✭✭KingBrian2


    Depends on what you mean by "before the Famine".

    For example, in 1782 "dependence" on Britain was repealed and for 15 golden years Ireland didn't have tariffs and taxes on exports to Britain, and was legally able to export to Europe and the Americas. Commerce boomed and it was a brief age of prosperity, ended by the Act of Union in 1800, when all political influence, along with its normal adjunct of bourgeois industry, left the country for London.

    That period allowed the growth of an Irish commercial class. O' Connell Street heralds from that era.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    I had always thought the attacks by Whiteboys, Ribbonmen etc were more against the landlords and their agents rather than against larger tenant farmers. Perhaps your right about particular parts of the country at particular times, but hardly true for whole 19th century?

    The Caravat V Shanavest conflict of 1808-1816 was a direct conflict between the landless labourers and the tenant farmers.

    The Rockite Rebellion 1819-1824 was primarily a conflict between the landless labourers and tenant farmers. The resurgence of the rebellion in 1825 was more a conflict between the tenant farmers and the landlords.

    The Terry Alt Uprising of 1831 was a direct conflict between the landless labourers and the tenant farmers.

    The agrarian conflict of the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s (and particularly during the famine) was primarily the result of tensions between the landless labourers and tenant farmers - indeed, during the famine many landlords were more sympathetic to the plight of the labourers than the tenant farmers (who made a financial killing from the crisis).

    The Land War was primarily a conflict between the tenant farmers and the landlords, with the labourers playing an auxiliary role of support on the promise that the farmers would look after the labourers once they got tenure. Of course once the land issue moved towards resolution the farmers turned and shafted the labourers leading to renewed conflict over the Labourers Cottages Act in the 1890s.

    The conflict between rural workers and the farmers continued during the War of Independence and the Civil War and into the 1920s when the CnanG government hired a bunch of fascist thugs known as the Special Infantry Corps to suppress strikes by farm labourers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Most of the agrarian violence during the nineteenth century was the result of attacks by landless labourers against Irish Catholic tenant farmers over the price of provisions, the cost of conacre, the export of food out of local districts and wages.

    That is incorrect and is a sweeping generalisation to suit your oft-propounded and biased political beliefs.

    Most of the violence in Ireland was internecine and – other than a few high-profile cases - was small farmer against slightly bigger farmer. I’m talking about the cottier who farmed 3 acres fighting the one who farmed 6 acres, or the guy with no sheep stealing from the guy with one sheep.
    Look at the figures – for example, read the Petty Sessions cases, look at some of the transportation figures for petty crime.

    Look at the numbers in the county gaols. Clare, Limerick and Tipperary were the most lawless counties in Ireland, where robberies of arms accounted for 75 per cent of the total for all the robberies of arms in Ireland; in Limerick they were 42 per cent of the total, in a county that had a population of only 4 per cent of the entire population of Ireland. These were labourers against a grouping that was - notionally - marginally better off. By no means do they qualify for the misleading description of "Irish Catholic tenant farmers".

    Look at the 1841 census for descriptions of housing: - the housing stock in Co Tipperary showed that 34% of all houses were of the poorest type; the figure for Clare was 51% and Limerick 46%. These were mud huts, hovels, not houses. Literacy levels for the same counties were 30%, 25% and 34%

    The industrial revolution in England devastated not only their own small industries but also the cottage industries in Ireland, especially weaving and spinning, and many hundreds of thousands were left without employment. Investment in the Irish economy was low, and therefore productivity was low. The poor had nothing to invest, and those who had money invested it elsewhere because there was nothing in which to invest in Ireland. By British standards Ireland was poor, and the Irish poor constituted two-thirds of the population. Ireland was a basket-case, and a famine, or a similar disaster (perhaps like the contemporaneous cholera outbreaks in England) was an event that inevitably would happen.

    Apart from the vote, the Penal Laws were over decades before, and had little impact, just as Dev’s economic protectionism/isolationism of the 1930’s was redundant by the 1960’s of Lemass.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    That is incorrect and is a sweeping generalisation to suit your oft-propounded and biased political beliefs.
    And again we have the typical derogatory swipe from you. I have made no secret that I approach historiography from a certain persepctive. However, every historical claim that I make is based on extensive research that I have conducted, including spending many hours in the National Archives researching Police Reports and Outrage Reports from the nineteenth century, plus month after month researching local newspapers from the nineteenth century.

    Now maybe you can indicate the research you have personally conducted on nineteenth century agrarian outrages rather than demonstrating that you can google.
    Most of the violence in Ireland was internecine and – other than a few high-profile cases - was small farmer against slightly bigger farmer. I’m talking about the cottier who farmed 3 acres fighting the one who farmed 6 acres, or the guy with no sheep stealing from the guy with one sheep.
    Look at the figures – for example, read the Petty Sessions cases, look at some of the transportation figures for petty crime.
    The interesting thing is that nothing you post here (in terms of factual information rather than your false interpretation) contradicts my assertions - this is demonstrated by the link you posted to the Clare Library website. So - from this page -
    A very high proportion of those sentenced to transportation at the assizes were from the labouring class.

    Look at the numbers in the county gaols. Clare, Limerick and Tipperary were the most lawless counties in Ireland, where robberies of arms accounted for 75 per cent of the total for all the robberies of arms in Ireland; in Limerick they were 42 per cent of the total, in a county that had a population of only 4 per cent of the entire population of Ireland. These were labourers against a grouping that was - notionally - marginally better off. By no means do they qualify for the misleading description of "Irish Catholic tenant farmers".
    And what evidence do you have for this assertion - specifically - you are asserting that the people I am describing as 'labourers' were 'marginally better off' and could not be described as "Irish Catholic tenant farmers".

    This comment is utterly confused both in its assertion and in your interpretation of my claims.

    Look at the 1841 census for descriptions of housing: - the housing stock in Co Tipperary showed that 34% of all houses were of the poorest type; the figure for Clare was 51% and Limerick 46%. These were mud huts, hovels, not houses. Literacy levels for the same counties were 30%, 25% and 34%
    Even though you dont realise it - your argument here actually reinforces my assertions . Yes the landless labourers (not the Irish Catholic tenant farmers) lived in mud huts, hovels, not houses
    The industrial revolution in England devastated not only their own small industries but also the cottage industries in Ireland, especially weaving and spinning, and many hundreds of thousands were left without employment. Investment in the Irish economy was low, and therefore productivity was low. The poor had nothing to invest, and those who had money invested it elsewhere because there was nothing in which to invest in Ireland.
    The people primarily impacted by these developments were the landless labourers and the small cottiers (not the Irish Catholic tenant farmers).
    By British standards Ireland was poor, and the Irish poor constituted two-thirds of the population.
    Again reinforcing my assertion - the tow thirds of the population that were 'Irish poor' were (primarily) the landless labourers and the small cottiers - not the Irish Catholic tenant farmers.
    Ireland was a basket-case, and a famine, or a similar disaster (perhaps like the contemporaneous cholera outbreaks in England) was an event that inevitably would happen.
    The famine happened because of a reliance by the landless labourers and the cottiers on the potato as a source of food for their families - their holdings were so small that they were unable to grow any other crop that would produce sufficient food to feed a family. The famine struck when blight hit the crop. During the famine Irish Catholic tenant farmers survived with little difficulty (by possessing 10+ acres) and made a financial killing from the crisis (by possessing 20+ acres) as a result of hoarding food and then selling it in the cities markets at high prices. Most of the outrages during the famine were perpetrated by the labourers and cottiers and were targeted at the Irish Catholic tenant farmers for hoarding provisions, driving up prices and selling the food out of local districts.

    The landless labourers dropped from 1.2million in 1841 to 600,000 in 1851 and continuted to drop right up until the 1930s when they numbered about 100,000.

    The section of the population classed as 'farmers' dropped from 850,000 in 1841 to 450,000 in 1851 - but this drop was almost exclusively the result of the decimation of the cottiers (most of whom possessed 2 acres or less) who were driven into the landless class as a result of clearences (many instigated by the Irish Catholic tenant farmers who were the main providers of cottier land and conacre). The numbers of farmers in the country stablised after the famine and actually experienced a small growth in numbers in 1861.
    Apart from the vote, the Penal Laws were over decades before, and had little impact, just as Dev’s economic protectionism/isolationism of the 1930’s was redundant by the 1960’s of Lemass.
    This is not relevent - and as regards the 'vote' - that was a stitch-up by O'Connell who secured the vote for wealthy Catholics but shafted the 40s freeholders and dramatically reduced the voting population by the 'deal' he did with the British government for Emancipation.

    If you really want to learn somthing about the class tensions of this period you could do worse than read this from the Clare Library website
    http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/poverty/poverty_before_famine_index.htm


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    'The industrial revolution in England devastated not only their own small industries but also the cottage industries in Ireland, especially weaving and spinning, and many hundreds of thousands were left without employment. Investment in the Irish economy was low, and therefore productivity was low. The poor had nothing to invest, and those who had money invested it elsewhere because there was nothing in which to invest in Ireland. By British standards Ireland was poor, and the Irish poor constituted two-thirds of the population. Ireland was a basket-case, and a famine, or a similar disaster (perhaps like the contemporaneous cholera outbreaks in England) was an event that inevitably would happen.'

    Nailed it.

    tac


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    And again we have the typical derogatory swipe from you. I have made no secret that I approach historiography from a certain persepctive.
    My comment was not intended as derogatory, it is a comment on the issue I have with any slant/bias used to interpret data in an attempt to justify a political belief. If you want to propound your politics, there is a forum for that. To classify a tenant farmer with 9 acres living in a hovel as “an Irish Catholic Tenant Farmer” and an exploiter the masses is inaccurate. Ireland had huge economic problems, to try to simplify it to your view of a "downtrodden proletariat" is a nonsense.
    Now maybe you can indicate the research you have personally conducted on nineteenth century agrarian outrages rather than demonstrating that you can google.
    Rather childish comment from you, I expected better……I too have spent hundreds of hours on researching pre and post Famine-era events surrounding several branches of my ancestry and also their impact on the area in which I live. I’ve also made a comprehensive study of several trials that took place as a result of the Coercion Act of 1847– one high profile Limerick case that comes to mind is the murder of a misfortunate named Kelly who took the 3 acres of an evictee (Ryan) to add to his own 9 to help provide the means of survival for a large family. Ryan Senior had been killed in a faction fight and despite having several adult sons they had not paid rent for years. (And, BTW, the evictor landlord in question was not “an Irish Catholic Tenant Farmer”.) I’ve also studied advowsons and the Tithe wars, and am familiar with the work of many on that topic (for e.g. Noreen Higgins-McHugh of UCC)
    And what evidence do you have for this assertion - specifically - you are asserting that the people I am describing as 'labourers' were 'marginally better off' and could not be described as "Irish Catholic tenant farmers"…………This comment is utterly confused both in its assertion and in your interpretation of my claims. …………..Yes the landless labourers (not the Irish Catholic tenant farmers) lived in mud huts, hovels, not houses.
    It should not be confusing. I said a holder of less than ten acres had only marginally better circumstances than a labourer with one or two. Both lived in primitive conditions (look at the Census returns for ’41 I quoted earlier) , both were dependent on the potato, and the ten-acre owner also needed the potato for animal feed, so the failure of the staple diet affected both dramatically. To suggest that a ten-acre man is to be blamed for what happened to the labourer is not correct.
    The landless labourers dropped from 1.2million in 1841 to 600,000 in 1851 and continuted to drop right up until the 1930s when they numbered about 100,000.
    I never contested otherwise – numbers fell due to death (mainly by disease) and emigration. However, your argument is again specious and shows bias by extending to the 1930’s and omitting to mention the Land Acts of the 1890’s to 1903 and the post Free State Land Commission, which made landowners out of thousands of tenant farmers. (But I suppose they should be ignored as they had joined the bourgeoisie!)
    The section of the population classed as 'farmers' dropped from 850,000 in 1841 to 450,000 in 1851 - but this drop was almost exclusively the result of the decimation of the cottiers (most of whom possessed 2 acres or less) who were driven into the landless class as a result of clearences (many instigated by the Irish Catholic tenant farmers who were the main providers of cottier land and conacre).
    “Clearances” is hardly the correct word to apply to a small tenant farmer refusing to renew conacre for one or two landless labourers living at the end of his field. The farmer’s back was to the wall as he had to pay his rent and provide for his family. Sub-division and subdivision of subdivisions of smallholdings made the unit size totally uneconomic. I repeat what I said earlier – Ireland was a basket-case, over-populated and overdependant on the potato. (I’m quite prepared to go into an argument on the nutritional aspects of the potato, yield rates, etc. but see little point at this stage, as we both accept its role in the downfall.) Many of the smallholders surrendered their holdings under the ‘Gregory clause’ in the Relief Act of 1847. Many others surrendered to avail of assisted emigration – look at several of the big estates in Kerry, Sligo, Mayo, etc. and the thousands who were evicted or whose ‘leaving’ was financed by big absentee landlords To cite just one big landlord eviction, the Times of London protested vigorously against the treatment and eviction of 300 tenants from the estate of Mrs Gerrard at Ballinglass, Co. Galway, on 13 March 1846:-
    ‘How often are we to be told that the common law of England sanctions injustice and furnishes the weapons of oppression? How long shall the rights of property in Ireland continue to be the wrongs of poverty and the advancement of the rich be the destruction of the poor?’ [Times, 31 March 1846]

    As for “forced emigration” generally there always was a steady stream of emigrants from Ireland to England and an average annual figure in the pre-famine era amounted to about 100,000. This number doubled with the onset of the Famine and a total of almost two million Irish arriving at Liverpool, in the eight year period between 1847–54, about a third of them classed as paupers. (Source: Frank Neal, Black ’47: Britain and the famine Irish (Basingstoke & New York 1998 pg61)

    Long before the Famine, Ireland was in abject poverty - the French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont visited Ireland in 1835 and wrote:
    "I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."
    (Gustave de Beaumont. Ireland: Social, Political, and Religious. ed. William Cooke Taylor, Tom Garvin, and Andreas Hess. (Cambridge (Mass.): Belknap Press, 2006), pg130)

    Hermann Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, on his visit to Athenry, Co. Galway in 1828 wrote :

    This bathing-place, Athenrye, is also one of the curiosities of Ireland. From what I have already said, you will conclude that no Polish village can have a more wretched aspect. The cluster of cabins is on a bare hill rising out of the bog, without tree or bush, without an inn, without any convenience, inhabited only by ragged beggars, and by the few invalids who bring with them everything they want, and must send for even the most trifling article of food to Galway, a distance of twelve miles. Once it was otherwise; and it saddens one to see at the further extremity of this wretched village the proud ruins of better times. .........I visited these ruins with a most numerous company: I do not exaggerate when I say that at least two hundred half-naked beings, two-thirds of whom were children, had collected round my carriage at a very early hour in the morning, doing nothing: they now thronged round me, all begging, and shouting, ‘Long life to your honour!’ Every individual among them stuck faithfully by me, leaping over stones and brambles. The strangest compliment now and then resounded from the midst of the crowd: at last some called out, ‘Long life to the King!’ On my return I threw two or three handfuls of copper among them; and in a minute half of them, old and young, lay prostrate in the sand, while the others ran with all speed into a whiskey-shop, fighting furiously all the way.

    Such is Ireland! Neglected or oppressed by the government, debased by the stupid intolerance of the English priesthood, and marked by poverty and the poison of whiskey, for the abode of naked beggars!—


    The poverty and poor quality of housing were not limited to the rural poor; the cities were just as wretched: an account of the Dublin slums of the Liberties area in the early 1800s illustrates the contemporary housing situation:
    “In the ancient parts of this city, the streets are, with a few exceptions, generally narrow, the houses crowded together, and the rears, or back-yards, of very small extent. Of these streets, a few are the residence of the upper class of shop-keepers, and others engaged in trade; but a far greater proportion of them, with their numerous lanes and alleys, are occupied by working manufacturers, by petty shop-keepers, the labouring poor, and beggars, crowded together, to a degree distressing to humanity. A single apartment, in one of these truly wretched habitations, rates from one to two shillings per week; and, to lighten this rent, two, three, and even four families, become joint tenants. As I was usually out at very early hours on the streets, I have frequently surprised from ten to sixteen persons, of all ages and sexes, in a room, not fifteen feet square, stretched on a wad of filthy straw, swarming with vermin, and without any covering, save the wretched rags that constituted their wearing apparel … The crowded population, wherever it obtains, is almost universally accompanied by a very serious evil; a degree of filth and stench inconceivable, except by those who have visited those scenes of wretchedness.”
    (Whitelaw, J, An Essay on the Population of Dublin (Dublin, Graisberry & Campbell, 1805), pp 50–52.)

    Your assertion
    Most of the agrarian violence during the nineteenth century was the result of attacks by landless labourers against Irish Catholic tenant farmers over the price of provisions, the cost of conacre, the export of food out of local districts and wages.
    simply does not meet normal proof criteria and your answer to Kildare John on Whiteboy offences ignores what happened at their inception – refresh your mind on the Ascendancy landlords and Fr. Sheehy.;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Manach wrote: »
    ............ However the lack of certainty in land tenure would have contributed to the Agrarian violence.
    Probably, but in general it did not pay a landlord to get the name as an 'evicter' as he then would not get the 'better' sort of tenant and this would decrease the value of his estate. It was far better to nurse along a tenant who was known to be 'good' but who had suffered a bad year. That is why abatements were quite common. The position in Ulster was considerably different / more peaceful because the 30 year lease was common, and a holding could be transferred with some benefit for inputs accruing to the transferor.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,363 ✭✭✭KingBrian2


    pedroeibar1 There was a fair bit of anti Irish sentiment back then by just about everyone. Disgusting, arrogant, self righteous attitude concerning the Native Irish.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    KingBrian2 wrote: »
    pedroeibar1 There was a fair bit of anti Irish sentiment back then by just about everyone. Disgusting, arrogant, self righteous attitude concerning the Native Irish.
    Course there was. Also rabid racism, anti-semitism, etc., etc. but that has nothing to the JRG's argument.:)


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,549 ✭✭✭enfant terrible


    Watched a good documentary about the Famine here
    "Ireland - A Television History - Part 4 of 13 - Famine"



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    If you'd like a portrait of country life before the Famine, OP, read the devastating pamphlet The Landlord's Friend by Mary Leadbeater - you can download it as an ebook here:

    http://heatseekers.blogspot.ie/2012/12/the-landlords-friend-free-ebook.html

    Leadbeater was a postmistress in the Quaker village of Ballitore, and wrote various instructive pamphlets; this particular one is aimed at Anglo-Irish landlords. The vision of how they lived, how their tenants lived, and the offered alternative of how the people living near the Quakers fared, is very instructive.

    The pamphlet was published in 1813, just 34 years before the beginning of the Famine.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    Another book worth reading is Daniel Corkery's The Hidden Ireland. You'll get it in the library, though they may have to bring it up out of the basement.

    One of the things Corkery mentions is a problem that's in danger of repeating itself in Ireland today - a divided society, with wealthy people and poor people, but no moderating middle class.
    …the impression of a land of extraordinary slatternliness - slatternliness and recklessness: while sorrowing, one could not help laughing… And it was a striking slatternliness, as common to the rich as to the poor: the typical Big House was as ill cared for as the cabin – as untidy in its half-cut woods, its trampled avenues, its moss-grown parks, its fallen piers, its shattered chimney-stacks, as the cabin with its dung-pit steaming at the door, its few sorry beasts gathered within doors for the night, its swarms of scarce-clad children running wild on the earthen floor. The slatternliness of the Big House was barbaric; there was wealth without refinement and power without responsibility.


  • Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭ChicagoJoe


    tac foley wrote: »
    More to the point, what Irish industry?

    Mainland United Kingdom had had the Industrial Revolution. The island of Ireland had nothing like that - it was basically an agricultural economy where little had changed, or been allowed to change, since the 1600's. By 1840 mainland UK had a huge rail network connecting centres of major industries of all kind - London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Tyneside. Ireland did not.

    The big island had huge reserves of coal for fuel, and the huge labouring population to extract it - Ireland did not.

    The Irish canals built in anticipation of growing industrial need languished into silt.

    Where were all the Irish workers at the time, just as in the previous near-century?

    In England, building railways.

    tac
    tac foley wrote: »
    'The industrial revolution in England devastated not only their own small industries but also the cottage industries in Ireland, especially weaving and spinning, and many hundreds of thousands were left without employment. Investment in the Irish economy was low, and therefore productivity was low. The poor had nothing to invest, and those who had money invested it elsewhere because there was nothing in which to invest in Ireland. By British standards Ireland was poor, and the Irish poor constituted two-thirds of the population. Ireland was a basket-case, and a famine, or a similar disaster (perhaps like the contemporaneous cholera outbreaks in England) was an event that inevitably would happen.'

    Nailed it.

    tac
    No tac, you got it ar$eways as usual :) For centuries the economy of Ireland was held back by laws imposed by Britain. Such as the Cattle Acts that prevented the export of Irish beef because it would pose competition to the English beef exports; Wool Acts that essentially closed down the Irish wool trade for the same reason- all these resulted in Irish farmers having to turn to tillage to make a living. As a result of acts as such as these, there was very little industrial development by the early nineteenth century and an almost total dependence on tillage farming.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭ChicagoJoe


    What famine?
    The indirect effect of the Scottish famines are often overlooked whit tens of thousands of Scottish peasants having to flee and seek refuge in Ireland. So much for Britain the benevolent provider to it's loyal citizens -

    " The majority of British tenants on the Plantation were Scottish and were attracted to Ireland for economic reasons. Many were living in poverty in their home areas as an expanding population, rising prices and increased unemployment led to serious economic problems in Scotland, particularly in the 1630s when the numbers of Scottish people coming to Ireland soared. Migration to Ireland offered the possibility of immediate escape from dire poverty and the prospect of future prosperity. "

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/planters/es06.shtml
    Manach wrote: »
    Nationalist history would mention that the economic of Ireland was disadvantaged by being tied to that of Britain from the turn of that century. While the economic boom for certain stakeholders that resulted from increased demand during the Napolonic wars would have brought some property the crash afterwards would have hit hard.
    In terms of ordinary rural life, a ruling class with different language/religion would not have been unknown. However the lack of certainty in land tenure would have contributed to the Agrarian violence.
    So what your saying is that apart from the exception of a major war like the Napoleonic wars, the economy of Ireland was disadvantaged by being tied to that of Britain from the turn of that century :rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    ChicagoJoe wrote: »
    For centuries the economy of Ireland was held back by laws imposed by Britain. Such as the Cattle Acts that prevented the export of Irish beef because it would pose competition to the English beef exports; Wool Acts that essentially closed down the Irish wool trade for the same reason- all these resulted in Irish farmers having to turn to tillage to make a living. As a result of acts as such as these, there was very little industrial development by the early nineteenth century and an almost total dependence on tillage farming.

    More uninformed comment. Tillage? To make a living? Irish farmers/cottiers were using tillage to survive, by growing potatoes. Most did not have enough land to graze an animal, let alone grow an economically-sized crop! If you bothered to read the earlier posts on this thread you would see that the Jolly Red person is blaming the graziers! Have you any idea of Ireland's economy pre-Famine? Have you any notion of the supply of capital? Could you please explain how "Cattle Acts" and "Wool Acts" impacted on industrial development? :confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,325 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    But why did ulster have different tenancies than the rest of Ireland, in ulster leases and tenancies could be sold.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,525 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    mariaalice wrote: »
    But why did ulster have different tenancies than the rest of Ireland, in ulster leases and tenancies could be sold.
    The native Irish were easier to exploit so did not have rights such as existed in the Ulster Custom. Or, as this mentality is conveyed in an exchange which Maureen Wall's Penal Laws book made famous:

    Cornelius Nary’s Case of the Roman Catholics of Ireland (1724) includes a report of a conversation between Lord Galway and Lord Drogheda, the former seeking support for a stringent anti-Catholic bill. When the latter objects that if the papists are driven out there will be none to hew wood and draw water, the former promises to bring in thirty thousand Protestant families in three months after. Lord Drogheda’s answer: ‘For that very reason,’ rejoined the Earl, ‘I will be against the Bill; for there is not one of them but wears a sword and thinks himself as good a gentleman as I am; and possibly would offer to fight me, should I find fault with him.’


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    ChicagoJoe wrote: »
    No tac, you got it ar$eways as usual :) For centuries the economy of Ireland was held back by laws imposed by Britain. Such as the Cattle Acts that prevented the export of Irish beef because it would pose competition to the English beef exports; Wool Acts that essentially closed down the Irish wool trade for the same reason- all these resulted in Irish farmers having to turn to tillage to make a living. As a result of acts as such as these, there was very little industrial development by the early nineteenth century and an almost total dependence on tillage farming.

    Hey, I didn't write that post, I simply agreed with it. You really do looking for trouble here, don't you?

    I wonder what, if anything, you do for a living?

    tac


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    gaiscioch wrote: »
    The native Irish were easier to exploit so did not have rights such as existed in the Ulster Custom. Or, as this mentality is conveyed in an exchange which Maureen Wall's Penal Laws book made famous...
    Incorrect and irrelevant. It was "custom" and not "rights". We are discussing the years before the Famine, not the Penal Laws that were introduced 150 years before and a soundbite from 1720! Clearly you are unfamiliar with Maureen Wall’s book as its main thrust is to show how ineffective the Penal Laws were and why they were not widely enforced! Go look at what she says about RC ordinations, priests, bishops, etc.

    @MariaAlice - As I said in #15 for Ulster the “Custom” was more to be recompensed from the incoming tenant on transfer of ‘tenant right’ rather than ‘sell’ the lease. Land tenure depended on a huge number of factors, but County, estate, landlord, agent, absentee/resident, location and the size of the plot and length of leasehold. Absentee landlords generally were the worst, although there were some notable exceptions.

    Leases generally were for ‘lives’ i.e. a 31 year lease was common for bigger rentals until the late 1700’s but the periods became shorter, particularly for smaller plots. The whole system of land management also changed in the late 1700’s with the role of the professional land agent becoming more common and 'hands on' rather than bi-annual rent collection from a firm of city solicitors.

    The people who were most affected by the Famine (in terms of physical survival) were the marginalised, the landless day labourers and those who eked out a borderline existence on one acre. Those people never were far from starvation, even when there was no famine. Leaving aside the morality of throwing somebody out, simply those people had no hope of survival, no skills, no capital, and no future other than a fresh start elsewhere unless the size of their landholding was increased to an economic size.. An evicting landlord depreciated the value of his estate if he evicted the larger tenants, because of lost income and agrarian unrest/violence. The marginalised got moved so that their little plots could be added to others to make economic-sized units, which is what happened (and led to violent crimes, as the new occupier often was attacked by the evicted one.)

    Contrary to common belief Ulster did not escape the Famine, the Census figures show a drop in population of 340,000 between 1841 and 1851, which is a fall of 15.7% compared with the figure 19.8% for the whole of Ireland.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    I thought we were talking about Ireland *before* the Famine here? Interesting though the Famine-related posts are, what about the years before 1847.

    One point: there were earlier famines, like the devastating 1740/1 famine (just a century earlier) that's estimated to have killed almost four in every ten people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_(1740–41)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    I thought we were talking about Ireland *before* the Famine here? Interesting though the Famine-related posts are, what about the years before 1847.

    One point: there were earlier famines, like the devastating 1740/1 famine (just a century earlier) that's estimated to have killed almost four in every ten people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_(1740–41)

    In fairness the Opening Post was Famine centred, although the initial poster has not resurfaced to comment! The difference between the Famine of 1741 and that of the 1840’s is the weather, as grain also failed in 1741.

    During the few decades before the 1840's Famine (i.e. from the end of the Napoleonic Wars) Ireland changed little in terms of poverty, but the eventual calamity was growing in magnitude due to increasing total dependence on the potato. In those decades the population did grow but what often is ignored/not realised is that land reclamation grew at about the same pace and Ireland actually had more land per person than England.

    There was huge disparity in incomes, the tiny number in the top 5% had average incomes of £100, the national average was £10 but the vast majority, the poor households, had incomes of less than £5 (rounded figures, that’s how I remember them!). About two thirds of the population survived on less than 5 acres. I also mentioned earlier the collapse of the cottage industries in the pre-famine era, from memory there was a drop of about 90% in the spinning industry in 1815-40.

    Malthus in the early 1800’s said that Ireland was overpopulated and a great number should be “swept from the soil” due to dependence on the potato and the danger of famine, although he later recanted and said that Ireland could surpass England in income. Apart from O’Grada, Mokyr has also written extensively on the subject, both well worth reading.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    You're right, there, Pedro, though another problem in the 1840s was the increased entanglement of poverty and debt. The tenant farmers scraping a diet out of a field or two of spuds were also scraping a livelihood by fattening a pig or two and milking a cow and raising a calf, and growing a couple of fields of corn (ie wheat), rye, oats or barley to pay the rent.
    The obvious thing, when the potato crop that was providing their food failed, would have been to cancel the rent. But that rent depended on an interlocking series of agents and sub-agents, often leading up to the main leech in London. None of these could afford to do without their income.
    As the famine went on year after year, worse and worse, the poor rates were raised in counties that were famine-struck; the relatively well off were now hit with taxes growing so high that many of them abandoned their diminished livelihood and emigrated, causing the rates to have to be raised again…
    Then there were the diseases that accompanied the starvation: cholera, typhus, typhoid, tuberculosis and the always endemic smallpox. At times even the animals died in the field…
    But wait, we're back at the Famine, rather than pre-Famine.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,525 ✭✭✭gaiscioch


    Incorrect and irrelevant. It was "custom" and not "rights". We are discussing the years before the Famine, not the Penal Laws that were introduced 150 years before and a soundbite from 1720! Clearly you are unfamiliar with Maureen Wall’s book...

    Try that again, this time without trying to put down a new participant or their contribution simply because you don't share it. I notice acerbic posts are a pattern in your numerous contributions, and that this forum is unfortunately not as busy as one would expect an Irish history forum to be. I sense, too, that you're a bit fundamentalist in your views, and have plenty of time to spend being so, so I'll just find out how to put you on ignore rather than allowing you to drag me down to your level where you'll beat me by experience. Oh, and you're wrong about practically everything there. Goodbye.


Advertisement