information on irish famine in 1845 please?

Question

my friend is doing an essay on irish famine but was off when she was in class when it was explained properly and has been forced to do it although she has no idea. can u give me some information and help about it please thankyou oh by the way dont say to me to tell her coz we go to seperate schools

Answer 1

Fozzed and Anoldmick have given you excellent answers - plenty there for a good essay.

The only thing I would add is that there were a small number of people who tried their level best to alleviate the suffering of the Irish people during the famine.

The Society of Friends (the Quakers), raised large sums of money in England to open soup kitchens in Ireland to try to feed the starving population.

A very small number of Irish landlords became bankrupt in their efforts to feed the hungry, but overall, the lack of help from within the country, and from the British government was shameful.

Answer 2

Fozzled gives an excellent answer; perhaps I can summarize: The Irish had become very, very dependent on potatoes by the early 1840s. There is one variety that grew very readily in Ireland and demanded minimal tending as it grew. The variety is known as the "lumper". The problem with the lumper is that it has a very high moisture content. In Ireland's naturally damp climate, that was a prescription for disaster.
In 1845 a fungus attacked the potato crop with stunning ferocity. A healthy potato would be turned into a black, inedible mess overnight. And so dependent upon the lumper was the population that hundreds of thousands died because they had nothing else to eat.
Some Irish blamed the English. So strained were relations between Ireland and England that it was quite easy for Irish folks to believe the English had somehow caused the blight and then acted to ensure its terrible toll. The English didn't do it, but nonetheless, the results of the potato blight caused by that fungus I mentioned were profound. There was a great wave of Irish immigration to America in the following years. It was leave or starve, basically. It's so terribly ironic at how America was so richly blessed through the sorrow that struck Ireland. The Irish have always been amongst the most industrious and most innovative amongst us - and yes, I am of Irish descent...but I have to admit my ancestor came to Virginia in 1740. Still - Erin go Bragh!

Answer 3

Tell her to go on google and type in irish famine 1845 there will be loads and loads of information there that will give her enough for a great essay.

Answer 4

Fozzled, Anoldmick and Dream On all gave very good answers.

I would also like to add that many people were evicted from their homes during the Great hunger because they could not pay their rent, some were deported to Australia because they ate the food that was supposed to pay the rent.

The Quakers tried very hard to help the poor in Ireland during the Great hunger.

Calcutta, Bombay (India), Jamaica, Florence (Italy), Antigue (France), Barbados and The Choctaw tribe (North America) all tried to help Ireland during the Great hunger.

Have a look at this video it might help

Answer 5

Greedy Rich British landowners, mainly English took over the place and wouldn't give the natives food or water, that is one of the reasons why a lot of Irish people emigrated to other parts of the world and why there is still resentment even to this day against Anglos.

Answer 6

Potatoes where the staple diet of the poor in England and Ir land The famine was caused by the Potato Blight and a lot of people in both countries died of starvation but for some mystical reason the English always get blamed by the Irish for it.

Answer 7

Basically us Irish Catholics starved to death as the potato blight destroyed our only food source ,"spuds". And we still had to give grain to the British bastards for our taxes even though they could have saved a million Irish people and instead of saving us they condemned us.

Answer 8

he 'Great Hunger' was one of many famines in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century, but the size of the disaster dwarfed those that preceded it. A contemporary comment was that "God sent the blight, but the English made the famine: and to some extent this was true because the governments of both Peel and Lord John Russell did little to help the Irish population.

The Irish population had exploded in the first half of the nineteenth century, reaching about 8.5 million by 1845. The peasants were almost totally dependent on the potato as a source of food because this crop produced more food per acre than wheat and could also be sold as a source of income. Because of the widespread practise of conacre, the peasants needed to produce the biggest crop possible and so the type of potato most favoured was the "Aran Banner," a large variety. Unfortunately, this particular strain was highly susceptive to the fungus, Phytophthora infestans, commonly known as blight, which had spread from North America to Europe. The blight destroyed the potato crop of 1845 and by the early autumn of that year it was clear that famine was imminent in Ireland. Peel's government was slow to react. Peel said that the Irish had a habit of exaggerating reports of distress; since he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1812 and 1818, his experience might have told him that there might have had some truth in his comment, but in 1816 he had produced a contingency plan for the government in case economic disaster ever struck Ireland. Consequently his lack of action is difficult to explain.

During the winter of 1845-1846 Peel's government spent £100,000 on American maize which was sold to the destitute. The Irish called the maize 'Peel's brimstone'. Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid at the end of the week and often men had died of starvation before their wages arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little used: men filled in valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash payments. The Irish crisis was used as an excuse by Peel in order for him to the repeal the Corn Laws in 1846, but their removal brought Ireland little benefit. The major problem was not that there was no food in Ireland — there was plenty of wheat, meat and dairy produce, much of which was being exported to England — but that the Irish peasants had no money with which to buy the food. The repeal of the Corn Laws had no effect on Ireland because however cheap grain was, without money the Irish peasants could not buy it.


Peel was replaced in office in June 1846 by Lord John Russell and a Whig administration dedicated to a laissez-faire policy. Russell's administration believed that Irish wealth should relieve Irish poverty, and rejected the policy of direct state intervention or aid. However, neither Irish landlords nor the Poor Law unions could deal with the burden of a huge starving population. In January 1847 Russell's administration modified its non-interventionist policy and made money available on loan for relief, and soup kitchens were established. The potato crop did not fail in 1847, but the yield was low. Then, as hundreds of thousands of starving people poured into the towns and cities for relief, epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery broke out, and claimed more lives than starvation itself.

In September 1847 Russell's government ended what little relief it had made available and demanded that the Poor Law rate be collected before any further money be made available by the Treasury. The collection of these rates in a period of considerable hardship was accompanied by widespread unrest and violence. Some 16,000 extra troops were sent to Ireland and troubled parts of the country were put under martial law. The potato crop failed once more in 1848, and this was accompanied by Asiatic cholera

The 1841 census recorded an Irish population of 8.2 million. By 1851 this figure had been reduced to 6.5 million. These statistics give some indication of the scale of the disaster, but since many of those affected by the famine lived in remote and inaccessible places, it is more than possible that far more people died that has ever been thought. It has been estimated that at least one million people died from starvation and its attendant diseases, with the balance seeking emigration to Britain and North America

Related Material
See also Lord Lucan and the Irish potato famine

Answer 9

it was caused by the Blight, when it destroyed the WHOLE potatoe crop, not like previously.
people starved and emigrated.
England wouldnt help by giving money. they gave jobs for the malnourished people.
Places where people could get a warm meal were opened by Brits though.

Answer 10

Potato blight caused it.No spuds to eat.