The Irish Famine
Part 1
- What does source A tell us about the Great Famine?
Source A tells us that the Great Famine was dreadful and according to Sir Robert Peel a past British Prime Minister the cabinet was considering not giving the public any food and allowing their diarrhoea, blood flux and dysentery to carry on until near death.
- Identify in Source B the following:
- A statement of fact
- An example of the authors opinion
This is a statement of fact “Deaths, I regret to say, innumerable for starvation are occurring every day.” Through this he is saying, many people are dying of starvation every day.
An opinion of his would be ‘removed as they are from these scenes of heart rending distress, can have no idea of them and don’t appear to dive themselves much trouble about them’
- Source C is part of a speech made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. Does it mean that it is reliable?
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This is a statement of fact “Deaths, I regret to say, innumerable for starvation are occurring every day.” Through this he is saying, many people are dying of starvation every day.
An opinion of his would be ‘removed as they are from these scenes of heart rending distress, can have no idea of them and don’t appear to dive themselves much trouble about them’
- Source C is part of a speech made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. Does it mean that it is reliable?
It is bound to be considerably more reliable than various other sources because the
Prime Minister would not be permitted to twist the truth too much so there must be some reliable historical content within it.
- Does Source D confirm or contradict Source B?
Source D confirms what Source B is saying completely for example B talks about the ‘pampered officials…. while every day starvation is occurring….. and the bonds of society are almost dissolved’ and Source D is talking about how the money was going to the lower classes rather than to the completely impoverished and for the purpose of fighting off absolute starvation.
- In what ways is Source E useful to a historian?
Source E is useful because it shows the attire that was worn in the 19th century and also gives evidence to the fact that Irish people were trying to escape misery and death by emigrating. About seventy five per cent of emigrants went to the United States mainly New York and others went to Canada, unfortunately the environment aboard ship was so bad that many did not survive the journey. A significant number of the Irish feel that the famine could well have been avoided one of them was James Fintan Lalor and he said: ‘A people, whose land and lives are [...] in the keeping and custody of others instead of their own, are not in a position of common safety. The Irish Famine of 46 is example and proof. The corn crops were sufficient to feed the island. But the landlords would have their rents in spite of the famine, and in defiance of fever. They took the whole harvest and left hunger to those who raised it. Had the people of Ireland been the landlords of Ireland, not a single human creature would have died of hunger.’
Part 2
- Using the sources and your background knowledge, could the Great Famine have been averted?
Yes the famine could have been averted if the landlords weren’t so insistent on squeezing every last penny out of their tenants for rent who were by no means able to afford it so that resulted in many evictions, which really did not help the landlords anyway. Under the constant threat of such evictions, tenants were obligated to sell their grain crops and livestock in an attempt to satisfy their masters. Within forty years the population exploded and slowly it became worse simply because the smaller tenants could not grow enough crops or raise sufficient animals for sale to please their landlords greed. As a result these tenants with their crops and animals gone turned out to be completely reliant on the potato crop for nourishment and every meal consisted of potato as it was not hard to grow the climate was ideal and it could be grown on small bits of land.
The beginning of the famine that would devastate Ireland for the next few years and would make a catastrophic effect. There had been famines before and everyone suffered immensely but those were nothing in contrast with the pain they went through from 1845 – 1848. A recent disease named Phytophtora Infestans infected the potato in autumn of that year and within a few weeks most of the potatoes were wasted. Phytophtora Infestans was a microscopic fungus never seen in Ireland before and at that time there was no cure. It wrecked the potato by turning the stalks black and the tubers rotted in the ground.