How did the potato blight of 1845 influence history?

Question

This was in 1845 when the potato blight destroyed the potato crops of Ireland and England. Many people starved and 10 years later Ireland's population decreased from 8 million to 4.
Are there any links that could help me too?
I cannot really find anything that useful.
Well thank you so much :)

Answer 1

Political reaction resulted from the Famine, because of the extremely limited franchise that existed at the time. While Ireland in the 1820s to 1840s had been dominated by the Catholic Emancipation and "Repeal" movements under Daniel O'Connell, it was not until the 1880s under Charles Stewart Parnell, nearly forty years after the Famine, that a major Irish nationalist political movement, the Home Rule League (later known as the 'Parliamentary Party') appeared. Parnell was also instrumental in establishing the Irish Land League, to achieve land reform. (The Independent Irish Party, formed in June 1852, disintegrated within four years, but it was in major decline from 1853 when tenants benefited from a recovery in agricultural prices.)

Outside the mainstream, too, reaction was slow. The 1848 Young Ireland rebellion under Thomas Davis, though occurring at the start of the Famine, was hardly impacted upon by the Famine, as much as by the clash between the constitutional nationalism and Catholicism of O'Connell and the pluralist republicanism of Davis. Another rebellion would not occur again until the 1860s under the Fenians/Irish Republican Brotherhood. Historians have speculated that, such was the economic and social impact on Ireland, the nation was numbed into inaction for decades afterwards; in other words, that politics mattered less to people after the traumatic experiences of the late 1840s and early 1850s.

Though its electorate was small (as elsewhere), Irish voters up until the mid 1880s continued to vote for the two major British political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, with more votes and seats going to the latter, even though it had been the party of government during the Famine. A large body of voters continued to vote for Unionists, who wished to maintain the Union that joined Britain and Ireland right into the twentieth century. (The Dublin township of Rathmines had a unionist-dominated council and unionist mayor as late as 1929.)

The British Royal Family avoided censure, due to their relative impotence in political affairs. Although some nationalists in the 20th century started a long-lived rumour that Queen Victoria (the "Famine Queen") had only donated a miserly £5 to famine relief, in fact it was £5,000, the modern day equivalent of €70,000. Victoria and her family received warm welcomes during Irish visits in the 1850s and 1860s. Contemporary accounts report that political meetings of constitutional nationalists in Ireland as late as the 1860s finished with the singing of God Save the Queen[1] while Killeen Castle in County Meath was considered as a possible Irish royal residence at the end of the century.

If the political elite in Ireland were tolerant of British political parties and the monarchy, emigrants were not so. Many Irish emigrants to the United States quickly associated with separatist republican groups and organisations like the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The political liberties and freedom of opportunity they encountered in the States confirmed for them the potential of an independent Ireland, and often made them more passionate than their brethren at home.

The Famine became a major platform for emigrant anger, as it was the main cause for them being emigrants in the first place. John Mitchel, a journalist by trade (who had written for Thomas Davis's newspaper, The Nation before leaving to set up his own paper, only to be arrested, tried for sedition and transported to the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land) proved to be a superb propagandist in the campaign against British rule in Ireland. Analysing the famine, he wrote:

“ The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight but the English created the famine...a million and half men, women and children were carefully, prudently and peacefully slain by the English government. They died of hunger in the midst of abundance which their own hands created.[2]
John Mitchel ”

Mitchel's commentary expressed the anger felt by many emigrants, who saw themselves as the dispossessed, forced from Ireland by a famine they blamed on Britain's slow and ham-fisted reaction. The famine became a constant issue with Irish Americans, who to an extent perhaps almost unrivalled among emigrant communities in the United States, remained emotionally attached to their native land. Leaders such as John Devoy in later decades came to play a major role in supporting Irish nationalism. It was no accident that the President of Dáil Éireann, Eamon de Valera in 1920 chose to travel to the United States, not elsewhere, in his efforts to get the Irish Republic recognised and accepted, or that when Michael Collins launched special bonds to fund the new Republic, many were sold to Irish Americans.

A controversial claim made by a very small number of historians, especially in the US, is that the Famine amounted to genocide by the British against the Irish, meaning that the famine was part of a deliberate policy of planned extermination. However most Irish, British and American historians, such as Professors F.S.L. Lyons, John A. Murphy, Roy Foster, and James S. Donnelly, Jr, as well as historians Cecil Woodham-Smith, Peter Gray, Ruth Dudley Edwards have dismissed claims of a deliberate policy of genocide. All historians generally agree that the British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied by the ministry of Lord John Russell, were misguided, ill-informed and counter-productive.

"Democide", a recently coined term, has been suggested to be more appropriate — referring to a deliberate policy of negligence rather of planned extermination. The famine killed one million Irish through hunger and related diseases such as cholera. A million others emigrated during the famine, with millions more following them in the following decades. The vast majority of these people were Roman Catholic, traditionally less inclined towards loyalty to the Crown. The famine ended conclusively any chance of Ireland ever being a military or economic threat to England again. Although the Famine was traditionally seen as only effecting Catholics or pre-plantation Irish, some modern historians such as David Miller point out that predominantly Protestant areas such as Ulster lost 20% of their population from 1841 to 1851 (compared to the 15 percent death rate in Catholic Leinster) and a substantial number of "planters" lost their lands or were otherwise bankrupted.

Many American historians, however, still insist that what happened was genocide, sometimes accusing other historians, statisticians and researchers who state otherwise of pushing a British point of view, or of revisionism, rewriting history to make excuses for British imperialism.

Republic of Ireland commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine in the 1990s. It was a contrast, in many ways, with the 100th anniversary in the 1940s. Then, no commemorations were held. It may still have been too traumatic an experience; the children of many Famine survivors were still alive, as indeed were some born in the Famine. The horrors of the recent Holocaust may also have played a role in preventing people from wanting to relive the Famine. Only in the 1990s was the Irish state able to commemorate what was one of the most traumatic experiences in Irish history. British Prime Minister Tony Blair used the opportunity to apologise for the failings of past British governments on the issue. A large amount of new famine studies were produced, many detailing for the first time local experiences. Historians re-examined all aspects of the Famine experience; from practical issues like the number of deaths and emigrants, to the longterm impact it had on society, sexual behaviour, land holdings, property rights and the entire Irish identity. One irony struck observers. In the immediate aftermath of the Famine, two things changed; sexual behaviour underwent a conservative revolution, while the Roman Catholic Church underwent a revival. In the 1990s, as its commemorated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Famine, Roman Catholicism through a series of scandals went into massive decline in Ireland, while the sexual mores adopted by the Irish underwent a new more liberal revolution more akin to the pre-famine era.

extracts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_potato_famine_%28legacy%29

Answer 2

well 1st of all it didn't reallyb affect britain only ireland. at that point the regular irish people were nearly totaly dependant on the potatoe crop because it was the only croip really suitable for the harsh terrain that the protestant ascendancy allowed them to farm on and also it was the onlt crop that did not have a tax imposed on it by britain. because of this potatoe blight as u said the population of ireland decreased by over 4 million due to death and vasts emmigration from lreland to countries such as england and the US. as a result of the irish diaspora over 500milllion people in the world today claim irish desendancy. also in ireland as a result of the famine the native irish language suffered greatly as fluent speakers either died or thought their children english instead 2 give them a better chance when they emmigrated to english speaking countries. oh and the irish held a grudge 4 the britishs lack of help during the disaster! :D

Answer 3

The potato crop failed for three succesive years and many thousands of Irish starved to death.
They grew other crops but these were taken by their landlords who mostly lived in England as payment for rent.
Those who could afford the fare fled to other countries, mainly the USA and Canada but many died on the way from disease.
While this was going on the British Government refused to give any assistance.

Answer 4

Please read.