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History See other History Articles Title: Leaving Ireland In 1169 the English invaded Ireland and thus began an era in Irish history that did not end until the Irish independence in 1922. During this era Ireland was ruled by England against the will of its people, there was hence much hatred for the English and the conditions they were in. In 1801 England passed the Act of Union which officially made Ireland part of England, dissolving the already power starved Irish Parliament. This was an effort to bring Ireland under more careful British control. The act was motivated by the Irish rebellion of 1798 (which was led by my ancestor Robert Emmet). The Irish realized their plight and attempted to repeal the union in 1843. Immense pressure from the Irish people to repeal the union almost resulted in a massacre of Irish demonstrators. It is important to know this brief history because we must understand the great hatred that the Irish had for the state of their country. Furthermore, we must understand the state of the Irish people up to the potato famine. Between sixty and seventy years before the famine the population of Ireland increased at a rate previously unseen in Europe. The reason for this is still a mystery; there are not enough recorded births to find an answer. However, it is known that between the years 1779 and 1841 the Irish population grew an astonishing 172%. In an 1841 census, the population was listed as 8,175,124. The population of Ireland now is listed as about 3,803,000. We can already see the impact of the famine just from the difference in population. Previous to the famine, there was a land crisis in Ireland. There were so many poor peasants with so little money that could not afford to buy any of the land that was already so expensive from the inflated population. These peasants were loaned land in a deal known as a conacre. Essentially, a landlord would loan a small plot of land to a family with which they might grow just enough to potatoes to feed themselves. This made life difficult enough before the famine, many families were just getting by on a small crop and relied almost entirely on the potato for nutrition. A potato field in Ireland.This one is large as fields in Ireland go, it would have many hired workers. This reliance on the potato was very dangerous as the potato is a fickle crop. Ireland had already experienced many minor potato failings. Minor blights and crop failings were recorded from 1728 to the most recent before the famine in 1839. These failings would frequently doom entire families. Because of this, potato blights were not even a matter of discussion in the far off English parliament. There were failings in 1844, perhaps the precursor to the blight that would hit Ireland Hard in 1845. The blight was sudden and drastic, entire crops were lost. The failings were throughout Ireland and there seemed to be no way to stop them. Once the potato sickness appeared, the whole crop was as good as dead. Soon there were starving people everywhere; all those who relied on the potato, especially those families who were engaged in a conacre were soon starving. Starving Irish with no food or money were evicted from their conacres. Families took to the streets, begging. However, there was no money to be found. The government responded by creating soup kitchens where the many homeless could eat, but there was not enough food to feed everybody. It became clear that the English cared little for the starving Irish people. There were few efforts by the English government to help. Evictions were reported daily, almost overnight millions of people were without a home or food. England seemed content to let the Irish, who they saw as inferior, die out. They sent soldiers to contain the rioting people. This is a rendering of a famine starved family that has been evicted and is now living in a ditch. The millions of starving and homeless Irish had no choice but to flee the country. Ireland was in a state of complete disaster and poverty; the desperate masses had no choice but to flee the country. Stories of a new world full of opportunity and the liberty that that had lacked for hundreds of years under British rule attracted the Irish. Droves of desperate Irish scraped together what money they could in order to pay for their voyage to America, and usually New York.
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