The Great Hunger of Ireland: Natural Disaster or Man-Made Genocide?
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What was the Great Hunger in Ireland?
In early 1847, Irish illustrator James Mahoney is at work on a grim assignment. His country is in the throes of a devastating potato famine, and Mahoney is traveling through desperation and death to report on it for a London newspaper. Mahoney draws and writes about many ghastly scenes, but it's one of the less showy incidents that speaks the loudest about the British role in the catastrophe.
Who was James Mahoney and what did he witness?
In Skull, a village on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, Mahoney and his team come upon a huge crowd of women in the street, at least 300. They're all there for the same reason, to buy cornmeal for their starving families. One woman tells Mahoney that she's been there since dawn. The cornmeal everyone is waiting for arrives in the local port with a military escort. Without the protection, desperate locals might have tried to steal the food. Now, a government official is meeting out small portions at exorbitant prices. But even with these tiny rations, some of these women will return to their hungry families empty-handed. welcome to conspiracy theories a spotify podcast i'm carter roy new episodes come out every wednesday you can listen to the audio everywhere and watch the video only on spotify and be sure to check us out on instagram at the conspiracy pod we'd like to give a special thanks to listener cameron mcdonald for suggesting today's story stay with us
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How did British policies affect the Irish potato crop?
From 1845 to 1852, potatoes in Ireland suffered a series of blights or diseases that the country has yet to fully recover from to this day. Three million people either died or fled Ireland. And even more than 150 years later, historians are asking, how could this have happened? In order to really understand the potato famine, we have to understand the context in which it occurred. In 1801, Great Britain and Ireland merge under an agreement called the Act of Union. Don't let the paperwork fool you into thinking this is a partnership. At this time, Ireland is a British colony exploited for its farmland. By the 1840s, exported Irish grain feeds about 2 million Brits a year, a crop output Britain could never hope to produce itself.
British landlords own virtually all of the productive Irish farmland. Many of them manage it remotely from England, leaving desperately poor native Irish laborers to work the land. In addition to working on their landlord's parcel, most of these Irish farmers also rent small plots, feeding their families with the crops they grow. With very few exceptions, they all grow one thing. The Irish lumper potato. The Irish lumper has a lot to offer the peasant farmer. One, it provides a high yield, even on a small square footage. See, the land available to farmers is limited to begin with. And as Irish families grow and pass down land to younger generations, those rental plots get divided up and become smaller and smaller.
But luckily, even though the average Irish male eats about 12 pounds of potatoes a day, just one acre of potatoes can feed his family of six for a year. The other benefit of potatoes is their nutrition. In a book about the famine entitled Their Graves Are Walking, author John Kelly explains that potatoes provide two to four times more calories per acre than grain. That's why Irish farmers rely on it so heavily. They can feed their loved ones well. Potatoes are credited with allowing Irish families to grow and stay healthy. Irish folks aren't the only ones benefiting from the potato. Historians say the crop contributed to the population boom across all of Europe between 1750 and 1950. All that manpower allows many countries, including Great Britain, to industrialize. That means a more modern and international economy that trades in manufactured goods as well as raw materials and crops. But remember, Ireland is basically Great Britain's pantry.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What was the Great Hunger in Ireland?
0:04–0:32
2
Who was James Mahoney and what did he witness?
0:32–2:25
3
How did British policies affect the Irish potato crop?
2:25–6:40
4
What were the consequences of the potato blight?
6:40–12:47
5
How did the British government respond to the crisis?
12:47–17:12
6
What role did landlords play during the famine?
17:12–21:31
7
What were the implications of evictions during the famine?
21:31–33:39
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Conspiracy Theories
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