Short History Of... - The Irish Potato Famine

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland suffered an appalling famine after the repeated failure of the potato crop, its national staple. But though caused by a natural blight, a combination of ancient prejudices, simmering tensions and political short-termism turned a national emergency into a disaster for the ages. So why did the authorities in Westminster seem to wash their hands of Ireland during its time of need? How did the Irish people respond to their adversity? And how did this story of betrayal and exploitation shape Ireland’s future, right down to the present day? This is a Short History of the Irish Potato Famine. Written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Kristina Kinealy, Director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Friday the 22nd of January, 1847. A bleak day, the wind gusting cold and wet. A doctor, Daniel Donovan, is at home in Skibbereen, a small town in West Cork in Ireland. There is a rap at his door, but these days visitors rarely bring good news. As he wearily opens up, on the threshold before him is a bedraggled woman he knows, Mrs. Keating. She's gaunt and pale, a skin tinged yellow. Despite the winter weather, beads of sweat gather at her brow. She has somehow dragged herself the two miles from home to beg for help. Her seven-year-old son died eleven days ago, she says, only a couple of days after her husband. Now she and her two surviving children have what she calls the sickness.

No one will come even to give them a drink of water for fear of the contagion. This morning she managed to drag her son's body out of the house, placing him in a ditch. But she fears that the dogs will come and get him. Though it pains him to do it, Donovan takes a step back. He produces a shilling coin from his pocket and gives it to her on condition that she leave at once. She doesn't even have the strength to argue. The doctor dreads moments such as these. strength to argue. The doctor dreads moments such as these. He is a compassionate man, but it does not take much medical training to see that on top of the malnutrition,

she is gravely ill, even if the precise cause is uncertain. Perhaps it's cholera, or typhus, or dysentery. It hardly matters. The result will be the same. As she disappears into the distance, Donovan sighs. Though he has a moral duty to protect himself from illness, so as not to spread it to his other patients, he can't merely abandon her to her fate. He pulls on his coat and walks up the path to his friend Crowley, the apothecary. These days there are no children playing tag or singing songs on the dirt road, only emaciated wraiths staring vacantly through him. One woman sits wailing in grief, another holds out her hands, begging him for arms. As he nears the Apothecary's house,

two dogs chase round his feet and bark playfully at each other. Across the road, he sees a pig snuffling through the detritus on the street. The animals round here are growing plump from the corpses they find in shallow graves, or simply left out in the open like the Keating boy. He knocks at Crowley's door and relates Mrs. Keating's tale of woe. As he had hoped, the apothecary doesn't need asking twice. He pulls on a pair of boots and wraps himself in a thick coat. Then the pair set out for the stricken family's home. When they arrive, the grieving mother clings to the doorframe and weeps for relief.

Behind her, the home is exactly as the men expected. A small wooden hut, once proudly clean, but now reduced to a hovel. The mud floor is layered with muck and filth. The children huddle in a corner, little more than immobile skeletons. When the two men politely refuse to enter, she comes out to show them where her child lies on the ground outside. They find a shovel and get to work. When the hole is deep enough, they quickly lay the child to rest and say a few words over him while his mother looks on. Within a fortnight, Mrs. Keating and all her children are dead. Another Irish family, wiped out in what is called the Great Hunger.

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland suffered an appalling famine after the repeated failure of the potato crop, its national staple. An eighth of its population of eight and a half million perished. A million and a half more emigrated. In just seven years, the country's demographics were utterly reshaped. A human tragedy on an enormous scale became a defining moment, perhaps the defining moment, in Ireland's long history. To many, the famine is seen as the product of human actions. Specifically, it is the culmination of centuries of English colonization. actions. Specifically, it is the culmination of centuries of English colonization. In Ireland's greatest time of need, a combination of ancient prejudices, simmering tensions, turned a national

emergency into a disaster for the ages. But why did the authorities in Westminster seem to wash their hands of their responsibilities? And how did they justify their inaction? How did the Irish people respond to their adversity? And how did this story of betrayal and exploitation shape Ireland's future right down to the present day? I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of the Irish Potato Famine. The history of the Irish potato famine. The origins of the tragedy lie in Ireland's long and often strained relationship with Great Britain. The Anglo-Norman rulers of England invade Ireland back in the 12th century, creating what is often described as Britain's first colony.

Over the centuries, much of the country is claimed by English gentry. Living elsewhere, these absentee landlords are frequently ignorant of, or unsympathetic to, the needs of the Irish people. Among these landlords in the late 16th century is the explorer and statesman Sir Walter Raleigh, who has estates in the west of the country. He is widely considered to be responsible for the introduction of the potato to Ireland. The Anglo-Irish relationship undergoes a major change in 1800 with the Act of Union that creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Act of Union that creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. By acceding to the Act, the Parliament in Dublin reluctantly votes itself out of existence, and Ireland becomes governed directly from London. Britain's attitude to Ireland in this period is informed by a deep-rooted

religious intolerance. Christina Keneally is director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Britain was an overtly Protestant country. The monarch was the head of the Church of England, still to this day is the head of the Church of England. Catholics had not been allowed to sit in the British Parliament until 1829.

And there was also a belief that was very pervasive that Catholics would never be loyal to anybody except to their Pope in Rome. So Catholics could never be trusted. The British establishment makes no secret of considering the Irish inferior. The Times, for instance, openly bemoans the nature of the Irish people. Before our merciful intervention, it prints, the Irish nation were a wretched, indolent, half-starved tribe of savages. They have never approached the standard of the civilized world. To some, it seems that Ireland is little more than a vassal state.

Called Britain's breadbasket, it provides enormous volumes of food exports, particularly after the Corn Laws of the early 1800s block imports into Britain from foreign nations. The Anglo-Irish relationship towards the middle of the century is unbalanced to say the least, but just how imbalanced is about to become devastatingly apparent. By the 1840s, the majority of Ireland's population is excessively reliant on potatoes. When introduced by Raleigh, it was initially considered a food of the wealthy middle classes, but it proves exceptionally hardy, growing in the poorest soils and even in sand. By now, many of the absentee landlords have realized they can make more money by grazing

cattle for the British beef market on their land than letting it to poor, subsistence tenant farmers. Gradually, these farmers have been left with smaller and lower quality plots in which little other than the potato thrives. Still, while the crop does prosper, as it mostly does year after year, all is well. year after year, all is well. It is often thought that the poor living conditions of many ordinary people in Ireland left them particularly vulnerable. It's true that unemployment is high, housing rudimentary, and that the country has seen some of Europe's fastest population expansion

in the last hundred years. But the picture is more complicated. Ireland, in 1845, is in many ways robust. Even though Ireland is generally thought of in terms of its poverty and indeed in terms of material goods, the Irish people had very little. Ironically, in contrast to that, Irish people tend to be very healthy and because of the potato diet which was supplemented with buttermilk Irish people in fact had a very nutritious and healthy diet at the time. Irish people lived in small mud dwellings mud huts which in fact were again very healthy because

visitors who came to Ireland said well these Irish, they live with their pig in their house. Isn't this very dirty? But in fact, we know that pigs are very clean. And the pig performed a number of functions. But one of them was they would deet the dirt, the scraps, the germs from the floors of these little huts. So in fact, it was a very clean environment. And the other great things pigs did was they gave dung high-quality fertilizer that would fertilize the next crop of potatoes. Yet almost without anyone noticing, the conditions have grown ripe for catastrophe.

It's October 1845, in Tipperary, in the south of Ireland. Early morning. A farmer yawns, stretches and wipes the sleep from his eyes. Another early start. He is a tenant farmer, on a large landholding owned by an Englishman who is rarely here. With a wife and five children to feed, he must tend his crop of potatoes. But something is not right. Even as he eats the bowl of porridge at the table, he is aware of a smell, an odour of putrefaction and decay. When he steps out of his mud-roofed home, he sees that the rain has stopped pelting down for the first time in days. The wind has receded too, replaced by an almost ghostly stillness. But what makes him stop in his tracks is the thick blue fog hovering in the air.

Anxiously, he goes to inspect his small plot of land. The sight that greets him drains the color from his cheeks. Yesterday there had been a healthy crop. But now, though the stalks poking from the ground remain bright green, the leaves are scorched black. He scrabbles to dig up a potato. It is ruined, not even fit for the pigs. Then he hears a shout from one of his neighbors.

His crop has gone too, and those next to him. Not a single of the 30 plots has escaped the blight. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery.

It is a scene playing out on farms across the country. We now know that the blight affecting the potatoes is caused by a microorganism called Phytophthora infestans. The country's crop is dominated by a single variety called the Irish lumper, which proves to have no resistance against the organism. So it's thought that the blight, like potatoes, not indigenous to Ireland, but the blight probably had its origins in South America. It was transported to Europe probably on guano. And because of the developments in shipping, which made the transport across the Atlantic much quicker than it had been, it probably was able to survive the journey. The onset of the blight is certainly a crisis, but it is not yet a full-blown disaster.

Potatoes were very important. They were the subsistence crop of the poorer people. About 40% of people depended on potato for subsistence living. But people are resilient in Ireland. They've been used to periods of food shortages before. And there is a general belief that as in the past, yes, there would be one year of shortages, but that this blight would not appear again. The response from the government in London is initially promising, even if some efforts are

misplaced. Supplies of poorly ground Indian corn, for instance, cause an outbreak of diarrhea. Indian corn, for instance, cause an outbreak of diarrhea. In 1845, when the potato first failed, the government was led by Sir Robert Peel, who was a conservative leader. And interestingly, Sir Robert Peel, unlike many British politicians, had lived in Ireland. He'd lived in Ireland 1812 to 1817. So he was quite familiar with the country, with the system of government, etc. So he was quite familiar with the country, with the system of government, etc. And his government put in place a system of measures that were pretty effective and pretty diverse.

And so nobody died of starvation 1845 to 1846. Peel's government invests in emergency grain supplies from abroad. Public works are established to provide employment and income for those whose crops have failed. But his moves to repeal the Corn Laws to relieve the pressure on the Irish splits the party, and ultimately leads to his resignation. With all these provisions, though, Ireland might be able to weather a single-season crop failure. Unfortunately, as we know, the blight came back in 1846 more virulently. It destroyed 90 to 100% of the crop.

And then it came back for a further five years in varying degrees of lethalness. Dr Donovan is one of those who notes the progression of symptoms in victims of the Great Plague. When someone goes hungry for 24 hours, he reports, they suffer acute physical pain. But that soon gives way to a more profound sense of weakness and a sinking feeling in the upper abdomen, along with a desperate thirst. Then comes the deep, penetrating cold, creeping across the body. The face and limbs become emaciated, the mouth distended, the nose pinched. As Dr. Donovan examines those who come to him for help, he often encounters a glassy-eyed stare. Once a patient gives off a fetid smell and appears coated in a layer of yellowy-brown varnish, he knows their days are numbered.

and appears coated in a layer of yellowy-brown varnish, he knows their days are numbered. But hunger is only part of the problem. A far greater number die of disease. There is a saying in Ireland that fever follows famine. As the sick crowd together in insanitary conditions, contagion flourishes. Cholera, dysentery, typhoid and other highly infectious illnesses rip through communities, claiming thousands upon thousands of lives. Often the dead go unburied, the living too frightened to deal with the bodies for fear that they too will be infected. Unfortunately, in 1846, the failure of the potato crop combined with other circumstances that actually added to the misery of the Irish people. So in 1846, there was a poor corn harvest, which drove food prices up

and made demand for corn even higher in Britain than usual. And also there was an industrial recession in Britain and a major credit crunch. And this had an impact on some of the more industrialized parts of Ireland, particularly the areas outside Belfast in the northeast of Ireland, where people were either unemployed or on short-time contracts. And these people also depended on potatoes. But this combination of industrial recession, potato failure, corn failure, and then something that comes into the mixture is the weather. The winter of 1846-47 was the coldest for over 100 years. 1847 is so bad that it becomes known as Black 47. An artist from Cork, James Mahoney, reports on what he sees around him. He is walking through his hometown one morning,

its streets eerily quiet, when he spies a woman swaying her way up the road towards him. She holds something in her arms, but he cannot make out what it is. He can hear her anguished wails long before he can see her in any detail. But as she gets closer, he is stopped in his tracks for a second. In her arms is a child of good, strong build, but they are motionless. Not sick, he realizes, but dead. As he passes, the mother begs for a spare coin or two so that she might buy a coffin. Mahoney takes a coach from Cork to another nearby town, Dr. Donovan's Skibbereine. When he arrives, a famished crowd descends upon the vehicle, desperate for charity. Mahoney sees house after house filled with the dying, the living,

and the dead lying indiscriminately with each other. Not one home out of the 500 or so here is free of death or fever. In one property, a woman is collapsed on the ground, or fever. In one property, a woman is collapsed on the ground, her hands charred to a cinder. She had been trying to warm herself by the fire, but, weakened by sickness and hunger, had pitched straight into the flames. Mahoney peers into another hut without either door or window and sees it crammed. One fine, tall, stout lad, he discovers, had come in a few hours earlier on this piercingly cold day looking for shelter. Now he is dead. But how did it come to this, and what did local communities do to respond? this, and what did local communities do to respond? Under Ireland's poor law system,

those facing destitution can get relief in the form of a roof over their head and basic sustenance from one of the country's workhouses. This, though, is not an option to be undertaken lightly. Everyone is expected to earn their keep, and the conditions are often brutal. is expected to earn their keep, and the conditions are often brutal. On Christmas Day, 1847, a poor law inspector describes what he encounters in one such institution in Connemara, County Galway. Rain pours down the ventilation turrets into rooms that are horribly overcrowded, the air rank. With not enough clothing or bedding, inmates, for that is what they are, lie around in rags. There are not even enough night buckets to serve as the most basic of toilets. An ideal environment for infection, but not for humans. This is not to say that there aren't great efforts at charity in these dismal years.

The majority Catholic Church provides some relief, food, clothing and shelter, as do a number of Protestant organisations such as the Quakers. The international response to newspaper stories of the suffering of the Irish people is spectacular too. I think if there is any glimmer

of hope, of inspiration, it's that people heard what was happening in Ireland, people throughout the world, and there was a massive fundraising effort on behalf of Ireland. It was unprecedented in terms of its geographical spread. People who had no relationship with Ireland, some of whom themselves were poor, dispossessed, sent money to Ireland and it was some examples that come to mind. The Choctaw Nation in America, the Cherokees in America, who themselves had been removed from their land.

We know people in British India sent money to Ireland. The Sultan of Turkey sent money to Ireland. Queen Victoria even sent money to Ireland. And there's some unexpected people. A young lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sent money to Ireland. A young lawyer from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sent money to Ireland. So it's just incredible that people who had no direct association with Ireland felt compassion. In the afflicted land, though, people are desperate.

There are stories of neighbours stealing food from those with too little themselves. Attacks on those coming back with a hunk of bread from the soup kitchen to give to a loved one. Dr Donovan sees mothers snatching food from the hands of their starving children and a father and son who fight to the death over a potato. He tells of parents staring emotionless at the frail bodies of their dead children. The Quakers talk about the kindness of the charity of the Irish people despite what they're suffering, but there is also society breakdown. I think any famine must throw up moral dilemmas about if you have a small piece of food, do you share it with your family, your neighbours, your dog? Just outside of Rosca Berry in West Cork, Judith Donahue is busy in her kitchen.

Though she was widowed just a few weeks ago, there's no time to sit and grieve. With three children to feed, she's been making ends meet by feeding breakfasts to labourers. Two of her guests, Dennis Finn and his 12-year-old son Johnny, scrape up the last morsels from their bowls of food, then nod their thanks and head outside. They have a long day ahead, toiling on the public works in return for their poor relief. Judith clears away the dishes, then checks on her two youngest, before taking her 14-year-old son out on an errand. But when he returns home, he finds his six-year-old sister and four-year-old brother lying dead, their throats cut. A bag of

flour is missing along with a small loaf of freshly baked bread and a pair of shoes that belonged to his late father. Within a few days, the culprit is on trial. It is Johnny Finn, Within a few days, the culprit is on trial. It is Johnny Finn, not yet in his teens. His motive? To get his hands on that bag of flour to help feed his own family. Back in Westminster, the new Whig government, taking over from Peel's Conservatives, have approval ratings to consider. After a year in power, the Prime Minister, Lord Russell, knows that his minority government will soon face a general election. And if there's one thing that guarantees the support of the wealthy landowners in Parliament, it's cuts to public spending. In Ireland, this means a stricter system of poor relief.

If people needed relief, they had to prove it by working on these awful relief schemes, six days a week, 12 hours a day, doing hard physical labor, building, as we say in Ireland, roads that led nowhere, walls that surrounded nothing. Hungry, sick people are forced to slog away regardless of the weather. As the famine progresses, the roadsides fill with undernourished labourers, often without coats or even shoes, who literally expire on the way to or from these public works. There is even a new term for this brutal mode of death – road sickness. The British establishment displays at best a callous disregard for the plight of the Irish, and at worst, utter antipathy.

In January 1846, Prince George, a cousin of Queen Victoria, responds to news of the crop failures by advising that rotten potatoes mixed with seaweed or even grass can make a perfectly nutritious meal. Everyone knows, he says, that the Irishman can live upon anything. But perhaps most devastating of all is the contribution of a career civil servant by the name of Sir Charles Trevelyan. He spent time in India. We know he was personally very, very ambitious and was propelled because of his ambition to this position of great authority. Essentially, he was head of the treasury in Britain. And as a civil servant, even when the government changed, he remained in place. So from 1845 right through to 1852, he oversaw the distribution of funds relating to relief in Ireland.

He absolutely was the wrong person because one, as a treasury official, he was always more concerned with balancing the books and saving lives. That was his prism. That's what he did. But then his own personality, he really didn't like the Catholic religion. He felt it was superstitious. And also he was somebody who didn't like the Irish very much. He'd been to Ireland 1843 and just felt Ireland was a backward country. It is July 1847. Trevelyan, tall and distinguished-looking, in his waistcoat and jacket, closes the window

of his oak-panelled office, shutting out the din of carriages and traders outside. He needs peace and quiet to work. Pouring himself a stiff drink, he sits down at his plush, leather-topped desk. He checks the time on his pocket watch. The day is speeding along, and he has much paperwork left to do. There is a sharp knock at his door, and his secretary hurries in, a letter gripped in his hand. It has just been delivered with some urgency, the secretary explains. Trevelyan slits open the envelope. The note inside is from Sir Randolph Routh, an old military man and chairman of the Irish Famine Relief Commission The situation regarding the potato crop, he writes, is looking as bleak as ever

Trevelyan takes up his pen and dabs it into his pot of ink before rushing off a response in his distinctive sloping script If Ralph is expecting a commitment from the British government to do whatever is necessary, he is set for disappointment. Instead, Trevelyan senses opportunity in the tragedy. In line with the Prime Minister, he believes in laissez-faire policies, in which the government largely keeps out of economic affairs and lets the market take care of things. Moreover, he believes the Irish are in the grip of a calamity of their own making. The great evil, he recently wrote, is not the physical evil of the famine,

but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse, and turbulent character of the people. The British, he thinks, have done more than their fair share. The famine is acting as a curb on Ireland's spiralling population. When the country comes out the other side, it will be ready for the agricultural and commercial reforms it desperately needs. And of course, he must protect the British taxpayer. He gives the letter a final read-through. The only way, he writes to Ralph, to prevent the people from becoming

habitually dependent on government is to bring the food depots to a close. The uncertainty about the new crop only makes it more necessary. At their moment of greatest need, he is cutting back government help to its Irish subjects. He summons his secretary and dispatches him with a reply. Then, satisfied with his afternoon's work, he pours himself another drink. Perversely, while London withdraws help, there is no let-up in the rate that Britain is exporting food from Ireland, even as it starves. The amount of food that is being exported is shocking.

In 1846, we know the amount of cattle actually increases in terms of exports. Massive amounts of eggs, seafood, dairy product. We think approximately 90 million eggs every year were being exported to Britain. And then the other thing that people forget about is alcohol. Massive amounts of alcohol and porter, which is Guinness and whiskey, were being exported to every year of the famine. At one point, the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin asked the British government very early on the famine, can we stop the distillation of alcohol, even temporarily?

That had been done in previous famines. And the British government said, no, we'll leave it to free market forces. So massive amounts of alcohol were also being exported. All that grain, all that food could have been used to feed animals, could have been used to feed people, and it certainly would have stabilized food prices. So even if it hadn't been enough, I think there was enough food, if it had been kept in the country, it would have kept food prices low. Despite this, prominent figures in British society hold to their line that Ireland leeches from Britain.

At the beginning of 1847, the Times writes of the Irish filching from the English. Trevelyan, meanwhile, attacks the Irish gentry, whom he says expect Westminster to come up with a solution rather than trying to make their estates more efficient themselves. In July of 1847, the British government extends the Irish Poor Law, designed to provide assistance to those in most need. Where the existing Act grants help only to those in the workhouse, now, for the first time, aid is extended to people living in their own homes. A vital step forward, given that while the workhouses have capacity for perhaps 100,000 people, hundreds of thousands more are knocking on the door. But the extension comes with brutal conditions.

London decides the money for all this must come from Ireland itself. London decides the money for all this must come from Ireland itself. There were many checks and balances to make sure nobody defrauded the system. But the crucial thing about the Irish Poor Law, it was funded from local taxation. So what the British government effectively was saying after this in 1847 was even though you are part of a united kingdom, we are no longer going to subsidize your poverty and your starvation it has to be paid for from local Irish taxation which of course was disastrous. There are now one and a half million people relying on poor relief. The stricken

country's economy has already been devastated by lost agricultural revenues and a half million people relying on poor relief. The stricken country's economy has already been devastated by lost agricultural revenues and a depleted workforce. It's in no position to cover the costs. Ireland's landlords, many of them safely insulated from the horror while they live on their English estates, want no part in helping out. One of the other consequences of this transfer to poor law relief was there was an incentive to evict tenants because landlords had not received rent for two years and now they were paying an increased burden to cover the costs of the poor law. And so evictions increased massively after 1848 and after that time homelessness became as much of a problem as hunger in Ireland, and again with lethal consequences.

By getting rid of the poorest tenants, the landlords are able to reduce their tax liabilities. It is a recipe for disaster. The Poor Law extension ushers in a new humanitarian crisis. It's March, and the country is in the grip of the famine. Dawn has just broken in Ballinlass, County Galway, on the estate of Marcella Netterville-Gerard, a wealthy widow. Her lands are home to 67 well-kept dwellings, each with a kitchen garden, and home to almost 450 people. One of them, a family man who looks much older than his 30 years, is up early. He stands in his garden, a knot of worry tightening in his gut. The early morning peace is shattered by the noise of a dozen carts

trundling towards his home and those of his neighbors. Each cart is manned by bailiffs and laden with spades, pickaxes, and crowbars. As it comes closer, he sees the procession is accompanied by police and soldiers. Like farmers across the country, this man has struggled to cope with the impact of the famine. But he and the other tenants here have fared better than many others. Through hard work and good fortune, he has managed to make ends meet without claiming poor relief. He pays his rent to Mrs. Gerard in full and on time. But today, he will learn that's not enough. Mrs. Gerard knows she can make more money from her land by using it to fatten her cattle for export.

So she has sent the bailiffs to get rid of him and his friends and neighbors. As the cartwheels crunch up the lane, the man rushes from his home, rent in hand, and tries to stuff it into the pocket of a bailiff. But the money is flung straight back at him. He watches despairingly as the carts are unloaded of their tools. Other tenants come out, trying to argue their case, but it gets them nowhere. With tensions rising, his children run from their house and tug at his legs, crying. Holding their baby with one arm, his wife clings their house and tug at his legs, crying. Holding their baby with one arm, his wife clings to the doorpost until she is dragged away, screaming.

Then the destruction begins. Three burly men use great metal hooks to rip down the roof and walls of his home. His wife is barely out of the way when a beam comes crashing down just behind her. He watches powerlessly as his Spartan furniture is reduced to splinters and the family's few items of crockery are smashed on the floor. Before long, his wife and children join the throng being driven onto the road, where they seek shelter in ditches and huddle round bonfires. It has taken a mere few hours to destroy an entire community and condemn hundreds of people to homelessness and destitution.

Scenes such as these become ever more common after the Poor Law. Between 1847 and 1851, the eviction rate rises by nearly 1,000%. As many as half a million people are cast out from their homes. Often the dirty work is left to local enforcers, sometimes known as crowbar brigades or hut tumblers. They show little empathy for the suffering of their fellow citizens. It would be local people on the ground who were evicting their poorer neighbours etc. In the years before 1845 there had been some evictions but there had been secret societies in Ireland who had actually mobilised to try and stop the harshest of evictions, but there had been secret societies in Ireland who had actually mobilized

to try and stop the harshest of evictions. But during the famine, this system broke down, so people were too weak to resist being evicted. When families were evicted, often homes had straw roofs. They were burnt so that the family could not return to them. And it was actually illegal to return to a property once you'd been evicted. So a lot of these people, they just couldn't go in the workhouses. The workhouses were full. And so some of them just ended up wandering, living. We know examples of people living below bridges, living in hedges, again exposed to the elements.

And this is after three years of sustained continued famine. For millions the choice is stark. Remain in Ireland and face almost certain destitution and death or start afresh somewhere new. But trying to escape carries its own dangers. To leave Ireland in the mid-19th century entails a sea voyage. Plenty of emigrants head for England, Scotland and Wales. But it's a sign of the troubled Anglo-Irish relationship that many more opt to take their chances in North America, a four- to six-week crossing.

What's interesting about emigration during the famine years is that even though England is nearer and obviously cheaper, about 80% of immigrants chose to go to North America. In 1847, a number of American ports, because they didn't want these very sick people coming in, bringing disease with no skills, no money, etc. A number of American ports imposed embargoes on the number of people landing. So in 1847, during that year, more Irish emigrants went to Canada. Several thousand even braved the month's long trip to Australia. Such journeys are an expensive business. People would pawn, sell, whatever they could. But some, maybe as much as 10% of the people who emigrated were paid for by their landlords. And for them, that was a good

investment because they got rid of what they saw as deadwood permanently. And then after 1847, some of the workhouses, the Board of Guardians were allowed to help some of their inmates to emigrate. And again, their rationale was, well, once they've gone, it's actually cheaper to buy a passage to America than it is to keep people in a workhouse for six months. And then the early generation of emigrants sent money back home, which funded the next level of emigrants. But there is no guarantee that such a trip would be safe, let alone comfortable.

Falling ill is an accepted risk. Outbreaks of typhoid and cholera are commonplace. On some voyages, a third of passengers perish. The exact numbers are impossible to know, as captains dump the bodies overboard, undocumented and without ceremony. It is a matter of mere luck whether an emigrant finds themselves aboard one of these so-called coffin ships or not. Because people were so desperate to leave, ships that were really not very seaworthy or had been decommissioned were really marshaled into use as ships to take people across the Atlantic. Some of them were ships that were bringing corn or wood from North America to Britain. And so these Irish passengers were ballast. The conditions on board were not very suitable.

Even if people escaped Ireland and survived the coffin ships, once they reached their destination, a large number of them died. And even those who survived, their health was weakened. We know their lifespan was shortened as a result of what they went through. It is coming up to 4am on the 29th of April 1849 in the wide expanse of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, somewhere between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. The Hanna, a 150-ton double-masted ship, is almost four weeks into her voyage, from Newry in Ireland to Quebec in Canada. But she still has many days sailing until landfall. She carries some 180 passengers and a dozen or so crew. Most of these are below decks, asleep, or at least trying to sleep, against the noise of a howling gale and relentless sleet.

Up on deck, a young seaman is keeping watch. All things considered, the voyage has gone about as well as could be hoped, until now. There has been the odd squall and the Hannah has encountered some floating ice these last few days, but nothing too daunting. A few passengers have died of the fever, too, but that is to be expected. It is said that sharks in these parts follow the ships, knowing it is only a matter of time before fresh meat is thrown overboard. Suddenly, the seaman is jolted across the deck as the ship crashes into a reef of ice. There is a great wrenching sound as a gaping hole is torn in the hull. Distraught passengers emerge, shivering in their nightclothes until Shaw, the ship's master, orders them back below decks and hammers the hatches shut.

The young seaman rushes with the rest of the crew to man the ship's pumps, but though they work as hard as they can, they're no match for the sea gushing in. It is obvious that the hammer is soon to be engulfed. He climbs back up to inform Shaw, but when he finally locates him, he finds him and two of his senior officers lowering a lifeboat into the raging waters. They are abandoning their station and leaving the other men, women, and children to their fates. As the water level in the hold gurgles higher, the remaining crew open up the hatches. Then together, crew and passengers scramble down the side of the sinking ship onto the ice.

For many, it is a hopeless mission. Some slip to a freezing, watery grave. Others are crushed between great blocks of ice. In less than 40 minutes, the Hannah disappears below the waves. For those lucky souls who manage to cling to the ice, respite will not come for hours. But early that evening, the Nicaragua, a barque headed for Quebec, comes upon the scene. In the intervening hours, more have died from exposure, while others float off, never to be

found. But incredibly, some 130 of the Hannah's ill-fated passengers are rescued. In various states of undress, cut and bruised, and suffering from frostbite, they are nonetheless alive. News of the terrible episode makes it back home to Ireland, but it does not dissuade the hundreds of thousands still determined to take to the ocean in search of a new life. The rate of emigration doesn't ease up in the years following the end of the famine. In fact, numerically, it has a far greater impact on the demographics of Ireland than the million who lost their lives. In 1841, the population is about 8.5 million.

By 1851, about 6.5 million. By 1901, 8.5 million. By 1851, about 6.5 million. By 1901, 4.5 million. By now, more Irish-born people are living overseas than in Ireland itself. Even today, the population has still not returned to its pre-famine level. But alongside its volume, the mass emigration has another notable feature. More women than men emigrated, and that is really unusual because traditionally it's men who emigrate, not women. So again, that sort of changed Ireland both within Ireland and overseas. Before the famine, if people had a large number of children,

they would have divided up what little bit of land they had between their children. But in post-famine Ireland, there was a nervousness about doing that. So there was a movement to primogenital, where any land would be given to the first son. So what do the younger sons do? And particularly, what do the women do?

So emigration became a really practical solution for the people who were not going to get land. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the country die or leave between 1845 and 1852. The impacts of such dramatic demographic change are felt in all aspects of life. The impacts of such dramatic demographic change are felt in all aspects of life. Politically, and in common with many European counterparts, nationalism was strong in pre-Famine Ireland. Its undisputed figurehead was Daniel O'Connell, who campaigned against the acts of union that saw the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as the 19th century began. Given Westminster's handling of the disaster, it might have been expected that the nationalist movement would emerge stronger than ever.

But it goes into reverse for several years. By the time of the famine, O'Connell is in his 70s and suffering poor health, no longer the inspirational force he once was. A new, radical group within his repeal movement forces a breakaway, forming Young Ireland. Though they have no realistic chance of success against the British government, they lead a small uprising in July 1848. But their leaders are imprisoned and eventually transported to Tasmania. At a time when Ireland's nationalist movement is in dire need of strong leadership,

the famine years instead coincide with a nationalist political power vacuum. So it takes another 10 years, I think it's 1857, when a new nationalist movement gets underway. And significantly, it's the Fenians, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the movement is founded simultaneously both in Ireland and in America. And that was one of the consequences of the famine. It had created an island of Ireland overseas. And a lot of the nationalist activity after the famine really takes place in North America. But what you see is that they increasingly refer to the famine

as an example of British misgovernment and as a reason why Ireland needs its own parliament. So for all nationalists of whatever persuasion, the famine really is a watershed in their attitude in terms of this is the most egregious example of British misrule. It is only in 1997 that a British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, makes a statement expressing remorse for the British government's inaction during the famine. A landmark moment in Anglo-Irish relations and a staging post in the peace process then coming to fruition. It did take Tony Blair to come out and without saying the words sorry to issue what was I think

a very cathartic and healing apology in May 1997. I remember at the time very well this number of conservative press in Britain and unionists in Northern Ireland were very angry with him, which showed how divisive the subject of the famine still was. But beyond politics, the lasting impact of the famine on Irish society and culture are widespread. The other thing that the Irish famine does is it really seems to wipe out the culture. It has a really bad impact on the Irish language. Many of the people who died were native Irish speakers. And then in the decades afterwards, people who wanted to emigrate, they needed to speak

English, not Irish. So it really weakens the Irish language. And that only changes with the Gaelic cultural revival at the end of the 19th century. Also there's a saying by one of the survivors, music, poetry and dancing died. Those things never returned as they had been. And again this rich cultural life that we associate with pre-famine Ireland seems to disappear as people really become much more sombre in the years after the famine. As all churches gain more authority, as people really become much more somber in the years after the famine, as all churches gain more authority, as people become much more religiously conformist.

All told, a million people perished in the famine. The lives of even more were uprooted. But over a century and a half later, it continues to inform Irish identity, not least the nation's reputation for compassion. Mary Robinson, who's the president of Ireland, said it best that Irish people have an informed consciousness and that gives them a moral responsibility to help other people who are suffering from famine or who are displaced.

And I think at the moment we're seeing that very much in Ireland with the reception of massive amounts of Ukrainian immigrants. Mary Robinson, when she was president, she was the first head of state to actually visit a famine. She went to Somalia and she talked about we as Irish people do have that obligation now to help other people whose present is our past. And I do think Irish people are always to the forefront in terms of generosity

and helping other people who are suffering. Next week on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Agatha Christie. I think she's really interested in how human beings harm each other or end up harming each other, sometimes just because different people passionately want different things and they can't both get their way. passionately want different things and they can't both get their way. So I think one of the key themes in her work is relationships with other human beings can be an amazing source of support and nourishment. But when it goes wrong, Agatha knows exactly how poisonous one person trying to get their own way about something, how poisonous that might be for somebody else if their desires or needs are different.

And I think that's her main subject matter, is humans, the good and evil in all of us. That's next time on Short History Of.