The Great Famine

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What does the great famine reveal about the geography in Ireland in the mid 19th century

William A Donald can be quoted as saying, “national factors cause crop failure but human beings cause famine”. Over the centuries there have been many famines across the world, of which the Irish famine deathtolls pale in comparison. In China, for example, the death tolls of the famine of 1958-61 reached 30 million people. However, due to the population and physical size of Ireland, it is true to say that the Irish Famine was a major famine, by world historical standards. This essay will examine what the great famine reveal about the geography in Ireland in the mid 19th century.

 The proximate cause of the Great Irish Famine was the fungus phythophtera infestans, which reached Ireland in the fall of 1845. The fungus destroyed about one-third of that year's crop, and nearly all that of 1846/7. The areas most affected are shown in the map below

One of the main causes of the famine was population growth. Clarkson estimates Ireland population in 1821 to be 6.8 million. However, by 1841 the census showed it had risen to 8.2 million. Although Dublin city contained a population of 125,000, most of Irelands population were rural based. Some of the factors responsible for this growth were proto industrialisation, the incorporation of women and children as wage earners and the boom in Irish agriculture. Thus, these factors were an explosive mixture and produced a mighty burst of population growth. Pre famine fertility trends showed that levels of marriage were quite high. In the South East counties of Wexford and Waterford, the figure for unmarried women had fallen to 7 per cent. Although infant mortality was quite high (Mokyr estimated it to be around 224 per 1000), it was common for families to have up to 7 or 8 children. As the 19th century progressed, the most significant gains were made in Ulster and Connacht as growth rates in these areas exceeded 2 per cent per annum. This growth in population placed a massive strain on the economy.

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According to Daly, in pre famine Ireland, the Irish population had basically reached the physical capacity of the Irish economy. The collapse of a largely home-based textile industry, due to the advent of a factory based textile industry, exacerbated the situation in some rural areas, particularly in north Connacht and south Ulster. In Kerry and Cork, small holdings, which had been rented as part industrial, were now reduced to depending exclusively on farming. Perhaps the greatest problem concerns the number of days worked by the average labourer. The Poor Inquiry Report estimated that the number of people unemployed for ...

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