Famine

in

Ireland
Menu

Opening
Ireland before the Famine
Disaster strikes
Map – impact of the Famine
Dealing with death
Responses 1 – state aid or self-help?
Responses 2 – evictions
Responses 3 – emigration
The Famine in fiction for children & young adults & in poetry
 The Spectre
Illustrated verse by 'H.D.', London 1851
The fell Spectre advanc'd - who the horror shall tell
Of his galloping stride, as he sounded the knell
Of thousands on thousands who 'neath his eye fell.

Starving Child
Anonymous watercolour, c. 1850
National Library of Ireland

‘Famine Song’ For copyright reasons

Sinead O'Connor only short excerpts
Universal Mother of this and other
Various editions tracks can be played
Famine
OK, I want to talk about Ireland
Specifically I want to talk about the 'famine'
About the fact that there never really was one
There was no 'famine'
See Irish people were only ALLOWED to eat
potatoes
All of the other food
Meat fish vegetables
Were slipped out of the country under armed
guard
To England while the Irish people starved
And then in the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach our children
Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still hurting me
See we're like a child that's been battered
Has to drive itself out of it's head because it's
frightened
Still feels all the painful feelings
But they lose contact with the memory
And this leads to massive self-destruction
ALCOHOLISM DRUG ADDICTION
All desperate attempts at running
And in it's worst form
Becomes actual killing
And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and
understanding
And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and
understanding
An American army regulation
Says you mustn't kill more than 10% of a
nation
'Cos to do so causes permanent 'psychological
damage'
It's not permanent but they didn't know that
Anyway during the supposed 'famine'
We lost a lot more than 10% of a nation
Through deaths on land or on ships of
emigration
But what finally broke us was not starvation
BUT IT'S USE IN THE CONTROLLING OF OUR
EDUCATION
Schools go on about 'Black 47'
On and on about 'The terrible 'famine''
But what they don't say is in truth
There really never was one
Sinéad O’Connor
So let's take a look shall we
The highest statistics of child abuse in the
EEC
And we say we're a Christian country
But we've lost contact with our history
See we used to worship God as a mother
We're suffering from POST TRAUMATIC
STRESS DISORDER
Look at all our old men in the pubs
Look at all our young people on drugs
We used to worship God as a mother
Now look at what we're doing to each other
We've even made killers of ourselves
The most child-like trusting people in the
Universe
And this is what's wrong with us
Our history books THE PARENT FIGURES
lied to us
I see the Irish as a race like a child
That got itself bashed in the face
And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be FORGIVING
There has to be KNOWLEDGE and
UNDERSTANDING
 Ireland before the Famine

'Exuberance of ... folk tradition in music and dance'

This dance, ‘Out on the Ocean’, is a jig.*

The first Irish jig to be written down was composed
by a harper from Co. Sligo, Thomas Connellan,
in the early eighteenth century.

* Music Session from Belfast

Traditional Irish Music
Chyme Music, Outlet Recording, Co Ltd, PTICD 1095
 'Despite the grinding poverty
endured by the poor,
pre-Famine Ireland was renowned for the
exuberance of its
folk tradition in music and dance.'
 Saturday Evening in Connemara
Francis Topham, c. 1845
Sheffield Art Museums

Snap Apple Night or

All Hallows Eve in Ireland
Daniel Maclise, 1833, Private collection
An influential artist, Maclise influenced many others in
producing genre pictures showing the Irish peasantry in
typical situations - by the cooking pot or the cross roads
engaging in a rustic dance.
Festive Group Dancing to the Uilleann Pipes, Co. Waterford Do you know what
Samuel Towgood Rocke, 1820s
uilleann pipes are?
Ulster Folk & Transport Museum
Can you spot the differences in the clothes the men are wearing? Find out on the next page

‘Riverdance’ (uilleann pipes)

Innisfree Ceoil
Celtic Airs
Outlet Recording, Co Ltd, CHCD 2001
Uilleann (IH-lehn) pipes are Irish bagpipes.

The bag is blown up by bellows held under the elbow.

The Gaelic word for elbow is 'uille', so these pipes are called uilleann pipes.

They were developed in Ireland in the eighteenth century.

Uilleann pipers must sit down to play.

Nine musical instruments are
important to Irish traditional
music.

They are

small bagpipes called uilleann

(IH-lehn) pipes

a drum called a bodhran

(BAW-rahn);

the harp;

the tin whistle;

the accordion;

the wooden flute;

the guitar; and

the piano.
 A potato diet
Do you know how many potatoes an
Irish family ate each day in the early
19th century?

See some contemporary evidence on the next page

Digging for potatoes Storing potatoes in the loft

 Upon an average, a man, his wife, and four children, will eat
thirty-seven pounds of potatoes a day.
The family live upon potatoes and buttermilk six days a week;
the Sabbath is generally celebrated by bacon and greens...
An Englishman, seeing a number of fine florid children in a cabin, said to
the father:
How do your countrymen manage to have so many fine children?’
It is the potato, sir,’ said he.

County Wicklow, 1806

 Disaster
strikes

‘The Famine Song’ (The Praties They Grow Small)

The Alias Acoustic Band
Irish Songs, Tunes, Poetry and Speech of Rebellion, Resistance & Reconciliation,
Proper/Retro, R2CD 40-73
The potato crop in Ireland failed in three years out of four:
1845, 1846, 1848.

The cause was the potato blight or Phytophthora infestans, a

fungal disease.

Some one million people died of starvation or disease.

Another one million emigrated from Ireland.

As to the potatoes, they are gone, clean gone. If
travelling in the dark, you would know when a potato
field was near by the smell.

The fields present one space of withered stalks.

Mine which were safe a few days since are all going -
some gone - though I had none of the disease last
year.
Co. Galway priest, summer 1846
Oh, the praties they grow small over here, over here
Oh, the praties they grow small over here, over here
Oh, the praties they grow small, and we dig them in the fall
And we eat them, skin and all, over here, over here, over here.
Chorus
Come lay me down, and treat me decent
Oh we wish that we were geese, night and morn, night and morn
Come lay me down, and fill my can
Oh we wish that we were geese, night and morn, night and morn
Come lay me down love, and treat me decent
Oh we wish that we were geese, and could live our lives in peace
For surely you're an honest man.
Till the hour of our release, eating corn, eating corn, eating corn.
As I walked out through Galway City
Oh, we're down into the dust, over here, over here
As I walked out on a pleasant walk
Oh, we're down into the dust, over here, over here
As we were walking, I could hear them talking
Oh, we're down into the dust, but the Lord in whom we trust
Oh surely he's an honest man.
Will repay us crumb for crust, over here, over here, over here.
The crops are dying, the children crying
COME LAY ME DOWN
There is widespread hunger all over the land
But when you return, will you treat me decent?
For surely you're an honest man.

When I return, I will treat you decent

When I return, I will fill your can
When I return, I will bury you decent
For I know that you're an honest man.

The Famine Song (1897)

Before the famine 2 million acres were planted with potatoes.

In 1847, the figure was only a quarter of a million acres.

 Searching for food

This picture of a woman and her two

children is one of the best known
images of the Irish Famine.

Have you seen it before?

Go to the next page to find out more

The picture tells a story from the famine.

This woman is Bridget O’Donnell.

Her husband had seven acres of land and the

rent was £7.25 a year.

The family was evicted when they could not pay

and men came to knock down their home.

Bridget was pregnant and had a fever.

Her husband went off to find work.

Neighbours took in Bridget and her children.

The baby was born dead and then they all got
fever.

Her 13 year old son died of hunger while the

rest were sick.
 Before & after

Irish Peasant Girl

Watercolour by Frederick Goodall, 1845
British Museum, London

Orphan girl at Crossmolina, Co. Mayo

Anonymous drawing, c. 1850
National Library of Ireland
 An eye-witness account

Having for many years been intimately connected with the western portion of the County of Cork and
possessing some small property there, I thought it right personally to investigate the truth of several
lamentable accounts which had reached me of the appalling state of misery to which that part of the country
was reduced ....

I shall state simply what I saw there .... on reaching the spot I was surprised to find the wretched hamlet
apparently deserted.

I entered some of the hovels to ascertain the cause, and the scenes which presented themselves were such as
no tongue or pen can convey the slightest idea of.

In the first, six famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled in a corner on some
filthy straw, their sole covering what seemed a ragged horsecloth ....

I approached with horror, and found by a low moaning they were alive - they were in fever ...

In a few minutes I was surrounded by at least two hundred such phantoms, such frightful spectres as no
words can describe ....

Their demoniac yells are still ringing in my ears and their horrible images are fixed upon my brain ....

This was written by Nicholas Cummins, a magistrate of Cork, to the Duke of Wellington.
The letter was also published in The Times, 24 December 1846.
 The impact
of
the famine

The most badly

affected areas were
in the west and south-west
 Dealing with death
Why did Baby Bridget die?
So many people died during the Famine that burial rituals,
such as keening and waking,
so important to the Irish,
had to be overlooked.

Bodies were often taken away in carts

to be buried, without coffins,
in mass burial places.
Funeral at Skibbereen, Co. Cork
Illustrated Lond News, 30 January 1847

‘Death stripped to all dignity’

The Aran Fisherman’s Drowned Child
Frederick William Burton
1841
National Gallery of Ireland

Pre-Famine traditions & rituals on death

 Reponses 1
State aid or self-help?
 Two questions

1. What is John Bull giving the Irish

family?

2. What does the cartoon tell you about

English attitudes towards Irish people
and the Famine?

This is a famous cartoon, published in 1846, in Punch,

Union is Strength the satirical English magazine. It provides the magazine’s
John Bull: ‘Here are a few things to go on with, Brother, answer to Irish hunger and distress.
and I’ll soon put you in a way to earn your own living.’ Go to next page to learn more about the attitude of Punch to the
famine.
Punch & the Famine

The English satirical journal, Punch, consistently under-estimated the severity of the crisis in Ireland
and depicted the famine as a moral issue.

It blamed indolence of the Irish for the continuation of the famine and for ‘sponging’ on the British
taxpayer.

Hard work or industry (symbolised by a shovel) at home or emigration were Punch’s answers to poverty
in Ireland.

In the main, British press coverage of the Famine was coloured by anti-Irish prejudice and political and
practical considerations.

The general tenor was that the Irish were a backward race and lived on inferior food - the potato; they
were ungrateful and disloyal; Ireland was a drain on British resources; and Britain was being flooded
with Irish paupers.

Punch, in particular, along with The Times ‘reinforced traditional animosities and alienated the
sympathies of the British upper and middle classes’.

In ‘Union is Strength’, 17 October 1846, John Bull (England) presents his Irish ‘brother’ not only with
food but also with a spade to help him ‘to earn your own way of living’.

Punch assumed that self-help was a priority and came to see Irish indolence for the continuing
catastrophe.
 Reponses 2
Eviction

‘Skibbereen’
The Alias Acoustic Band
Irish Songs, Tunes, Poetry and Speech of Rebellion, Resistance & Reconciliation
Proper/Retro, R2CD 40-73
 Re-enacting the
eviction

1. Working in groups.
Look at the picture.
You have to become the
main people in the picture.
Freeze frame.

2. Judging everyone's
freeze-frame
Give it a mark from 1 (not
like the picture) - 5
(exactly like the picture).

3. Asking questions
Make a list of the
questions which
you need in order to
‘The Ejectment’ understand the
Illustrated London News, xiii, 16 December 1848 importance of the of the
scene in the
See next page for a commentary on this scene picture.
Ejectment of Irish Tenantry
A grimly effective rendering of an eviction: the
brutal bailiff, the pleading tenant, his weeping wife
and children, the unfeeling onlookers and the stony-
faced soldiers standing by are all convincingly
presented.
Many of the starving found themselves not only
without food, but also without habitation.
In the pre-Christmas edition of 1848, The Illustrated On the one hand they suffered a drastic reduction in
London News published a scathing article
condemning those Irish landlords who were using
the current crisis to unpeople their property.
The two illustrations accompanied the text.
The first depicted an ejection scene, and is one of
the most exquisite engravings of the entire Famine
collection.
Illustrated London News, xiii, 16 December 1848
A second illustration shows the makeshift shelter along
the ditch, into which the evicted tenant retreated.
The stance of the major figure in the picture is one of
utter despair.
The apparent callousness of landlords stemmed from
two major problems.
their incomes as tenants defaulted on rent.
On the other hand they were faced with rising taxation.
Circumstances varied from district to district.
Nevertheless, some landlords were particularly ruthless,
justifying their action by the slogan 'evict . . . debtors or
be dispossessed'.
Oh, Father, dear, I often hear you speak of Erin’s isle
Her lofty scenes, her valleys green, her mountains
rude and wild
They say it is a lovely land, wherein a prince might
dwell
Oh why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell.
My son, I loved my native land with energy and pride
Till the blight came over all my crops, my sheep and
cattle died
My rent and taxes were so high, I could not them
redeem
That’s the cruel reason I left old Skibbereen.
It’s well I do remember the year of ‘48
When I arose a Fenian to battle against our fate
I was hunted through the mountains as a traitor to
the Queen
That’s another reason I left old Skibbereen.
It’s well I do remember the cold November day
When the landlord and the sheriff came to drive us all
away
They set our roof ablaze in fire with their damning
yellow spleen
That’s another reason why I left old Skibbereen.
Your mother, too, God rest her soul, fell on the snowy
ground
She fainted in her anguish, the desolation round
She never rose but passed away from life to mortal dream
She found a grave and place of rest in dear old Skibbereen.
You were only two months old, and feeble was your frame
I could not leave you with my friends, you bore your
father’s name I wrapped you in my cótamór, at the dead of
night unseen
We heaved a sigh and bid goodbye to dear old Skibbereen.
Oh father, dear, the day will come when on vengeance we
will call When Irishmen both stout and stern will rally one
and all
I’ll be the man to lead the van, beneath the flag of green
And loud and high we’ll raise the cry, ‘Revenge for
Skibbereen'.
‘Skibbereen’ (later 19th century)
Skibbereen was one of the areas worst affected
by the famine – and one of the most publicised
The song 'Skibbereen' as evidence
What effect did the Famine have on Anglo-Irish relations?
Read the words of the song about the Famine, which was written some years after the event.

a. Identify the two characters in the song and say which verses belong to each.

b. Describe the circumstances surrounding the father’s departure from Skibbereen (keywords: blight,
rent, eviction and death).

c. What emotions and feelings are aroused by the song?

d. What effect, to judge from the song, did the Famine have on relations between Britain and Ireland?

e. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of using such songs as historical evidence?
What do they tell us?
Eviction scenes
In
Irish art
 An Irish Eviction
Frederick Goodall, 1850
Leicester Museum & Art
Gallery
 The Eviction
Erskine Nicol
1853
National Library of
Ireland
 Evicted
Lady Butler
1890
University College, Dublin

This constitutes a new

direction in Irish rural art.
Portraying the after-
effects of the destruction
of the peasant woman's
cabin, the beauty of the
landscape (the Wicklow
hills) complements the
plight of the inhabitants.
'She too is a victim of
historic exploitation, with
no rights over the land she
inhabits.'
 Reponses 3
Emigration
in
Irish art

The Fields of Athenry (1979 version)

Patrick Sarsfield Celtic Supporters Club
www.patricksarsfieldcsc.com
Outward Bound
Erskine Nicol
mid 19th century
National Library of
Ireland
 Typhus
Théophile Hamel
1849
Montreal

Grosse Isle, the Quebec

quarantine hospital, with
only 150 beds, was not
prepared for the hundreds
of typhus victims from
Ireland. In four days in
May 1847 it had to deal
with over 500 typhus
sufferers. 5,300 died
there that year. Another
15,000 died soon after
landing in British North
America.
 Irish Emigrant Arriving
in Liverpool
Erskine Nicol, 1871
National Galleries of
Scotland

Migration was a
disorienting experience.
This picture conveys some
of the dislocation. Once in
Liverpool emigrants
sought lodging and
passages. Swindlers,
'runners' and
'mancatchers' preyed on
them, often robbing them
of baggage and carefully
hoarded cash.
 The Famine
in
Irish fiction & poetry
Under the Hawthorn Tree by Conlon-McKenna, Marita, O'Brien Press, 0-86278-206-
6

Under the Hawthorn Tree is the first of an award-winning trilogy,* a gripping story
of love, loyalty and courage set in the time when Ireland was devastated by the
Great Famine of the 1840s.

Three children, Eily, Michael and Peggy, are left to fend for themselves.

Starving and in danger of the dreaded workhouse, they escape in the hope of
finding the great-aunts they have heard about in their mother's stories.

With tremendous courage they set out on a journey that will test every reserve of
strength, love and loyalty they possess.

There are also a Channel 4 film of the book, available on video from 4 Learning,
and a study guide (O'Brien Press, ISBN 0-86278-383-9) to both the book and the
film.

* The other books in the trilogy are The Wildflower Girl, set in America (0-86278-
283-X) and Fields of Home (0-86278-509-X), set in Ireland.
Famine by McKeown, Arthur, Poolbeg Press, 0-85371-505-0

Joe and his daughter Maggie lived on a farm in Co. Antrim, in the north-east of Ireland
more than one-hundred-and-fifty years ago.

In the summer Joe worked in his fields. In the winter he worked at his loom making
linen. Maggie looked after some hens in the yard.

One morning they went out to the field to check on the potato crop - the potatoes
were rotten!

All over the county starving families took to the roads. One day Jack was forced to
sell the family cow and he and Maggie walked to Belfast, where they set sail for
America on the sailing ship, Electra - their lives changed forever.

The Long March by Fitzpatrick, Marie-Louise, Wolfhound Press, 0-86327-644-X

In 1847 the Choctaw Indians raised 170 dollars for famine relief in Ireland.

This superbly illustrated book tells the moving story of that tribe's own dispossession
and enforced exile.

Young Choona struggles to understand why his people would care about white men
dying on the other side of the world.

In doing so, he learns the history of the Choctaw's tragic Long March to freedom to new
lands in the West, and appreciates the historical similarities between the two peoples,
including great respect for the land, dispossession and potato eating.
Gill & Macmillan, 0-71713-150-5
A fictional diary told in the voice
of twelve-year-old Mary
O'Flynn, this is the story of the
courage and determination with
which one family survived the
appalling ordeal of the Famine.
It is illustrated by authentic
photographs of landscapes,
interiors and genuine period
artefacts.
OUP, 0-71713-150-5
'Turned out of their home, their
crops destroyed, too hungry to
sleep, and cold to their very
bones.' This is the story of
Eamonn's struggle for survival.
Can he keep himself and his
family alive through the cold
and the famine - through the
coldest winter Ireland has ever
known?
Pan, 0-33030-328-7
The hero, Dualta Duane, a young
Galwayman, is forced to flee his
home after tangling with the son of
the local landlord. Journeying
through the west and south-west of
Ireland in his fight to survive as a
second-class citizen in his own
country, he comes across the
constitutional nationalist Daniel
O'Connell and Cuan McCarthy who
advocated political violence. The
novel reaches its climax at the height
of the Famine.
III. From
Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on
wild higgledy skeletons 'At a Potato Digging'
scoured the land in 'forty-five, Seamus Heaney
wolfed the blighted root and died.

The new potato, sound as stone,

putrefied when it had lain
three days in the long clay pit.
Millions rotted along with it.
Mouths tightened in, eyes died hard,
faces chilled to a plucked bird.
In a million wicker huts
beaks of famine snipped at guts.
A people hungering from birth,
grubbing, like plants, in the bitch earth,
were grafted with a great sorrow.
Hope rotted like a marrow.
IV.
Under a gay flotilla of gulls
The rhythm deadens, the workers stop.
Brown bread and tea in bright canfuls
Are served for lunch. Dead-beat, they flop
Down in the ditch and take their fill
Thankfully breaking timeless fasts;
Then, stretched on the faithless ground, spill
Libations of cold tea, scatter crusts.

Stinking potatoes fouled the land,

pits turned pus into filthy mounds:
and where potato diggers are
you still smell the running sore.