Impact of The Great Famine on Irelands Society, Economy and Politics

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JOHN SMYTH

HISTORY

EXAMINE THE IMPACT OF THE GREAT FAMINE ON IRELAND’S SOCIETY, ECONOMY AND POLITICS

Kinnealy (1995, p167) commented that “The number of people who died during the famine years (1845-51) is not known”. There have been many arguments on how many people actually perished during the Irish famine, the answer is we do not actually know. What is certain is that the Great Famine had a tremendous impact on Ireland; socially, economically and politically. Socially the famine changed Ireland with smaller families and people marrying later in life. Whilst some social impacts were devastating such as culture collapse, one positive impact was the fact that standards of living improved, with less people in poverty as there was a decrease in people living off the land. Although it should be noted that emigration was not exactly a new phenomenon in Ireland in the years before the famine, it could be argued that the famine acted as a catalyst for the increased numbers emigrating. Ireland’s politics were altered greatly after the famine with widespread bitterness felt by the survivors, who distrusted the British government and landlords for standing idly by whilst they starved. In order to understand how Ireland politically was impacted it is of interest to look at Britan and the middle class in Ireland’s attitude to the Irish poor and how their involvement (or lack of) left many people angry and bitter. Some Irish people viewed landlords as their enemy and maintained ownership of land was vital if another famine was to be prevented. Others believed that there was only solution to ensure that a famine would never happen again In Ireland and that was for Ireland to rule itself.

    One of the Social impacts of the famine was that people had smaller families. This was largely due to perceptions at the time that more people meant an extra person to feed. People were reluctant to have large families and in some areas a culture emerged that refrained from having sex as a means of controlling the size of their family- this was because of poverty – the famine proved that a big family was a burden at a time when resources were stretched.

     After the famine Ireland experienced a culture collapse – less people were speaking the Irish language as their first language, as many of the people who spoke it died as a result of hunger and disease. Statistics from Wesley Johnston (2008) show that 30% of people in Ireland spoke the Irish language but by 1961 this had decreased to 24%. It should be noted that the famine was not fully responsible for the culture collapse – the process was already underway by the time the famine hit Ireland, as people learned the English language as a means of bettering themselves. The Famine however did accelerate the collapse of the language as those who died or emigrated in the famine were disproportionately Irish speakers, mainly because the famine hit rural areas hardest and that is where Irish had survived the longest.

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  In the years before and during the famine, Irish people relied heavily on the potato crop as a means of life. The fact that the potato blight was so easily spread, made Ireland an ideal location for the blight to prosper, given the climate and weather, as Mary E, Daly depicts in ‘The Famine in Ireland’ (1986, p53)   ‘The blight itself was caused by phythopthera infestans, a fungus which multiplies in hot damp weather and can be quickly disseminated by wind or mist’ For many people the potato was a staple part of their diet and a blight ...

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