The Irish Political Structure, 1847.

Historians debate why the British governments of the 1840’s were unable and unwilling to devote sufficient resources to save more people in Ireland. Extreme Irish Nationalists or Republican argued strongly that this was not inaction by the British government. They argue it was a very deliberate action to wipe out a large proportion of the Irish – effectively genocide. The Irish language section of the memorial to the Irish on Grosse Ile specifically describes the disaster of the 1840s as an artificial (man made) famine.

Most historians do not accept this interpretation. At the same time, they also recognize that the British government had little or no reason to be proud of its record in the Famine. American historian Professor James Donnelly summarizes the issue:

"What is that fundamental truth? As the great majority of professional historians in Ireland now recognize, it is that a million people should not have died in the backyard of what was then the world’s richest nation, and that since a million did perish while two million more fled, this must have been because the political leaders of the nation and the organs of its public opinion had at bottom very ambivalent feelings about the social and economic consequences of mass eviction, mass death and mass emigration."

How did British opinion come to be so uncaring? Ireland was part of Britain since 1801 and elected Members of Parliament who sat in London, not in Dublin. Consequently, the Irish were very much a minority in government and regarded as an alien minority in those times.

Another problem was that the English, Scots, and Welsh were largely Protestants and were suspicious of the largely Roman Catholic Irish. Ireland’s failure to industrialize was held to be the fault of the Irish not the fault of British trade policies that had often hampered Irish enterprises. Many thought that the Irish were poor because they were Roman Catholics. Religious prejudice was strong on both sides of the Protestant-Catholic divide and on both sides of the Atlantic in 1847. Despite the many claims to the contrary, even in official school curriculums, the United States was often hostile to Roman Catholics too.

Most poor people could not vote then because the right to vote was based on property holding. The Irish poor did not have the political influence their numbers justified. Government policy maintained a system of large estates with small tenant farmers renting the land. In many areas this land system was uneconomic even before the famine struck. Many of the estates went bankrupt as tenants could not pay their rents during the famine. Land reform came in only after the Famine.

The political ideology (viewpoint; outlook) of the times was harsh. People who held political power thought it wrong to tax the rich to help the poor, and there was no pension plan, medicare, unemployment insurance, family allowance, or even a system of government-funded schools at this time. The British government stuck to its “laissez-faire” principles. It was very reluctant to interfere with the market economy, although it did actually take some action.

In 1846, Prime Minister Robert Peel did abolish the Corn Laws to allow cheap corn into Ireland which split his Conservative Party. Ministers used public money to get private operators to get food to the right place, or keep it in the right place. As a result of government efforts and private sector activity combined, food exports from Ireland fell from 472 000 per year in 1845 to 146 000 tons in 1847. The food not being exported was being eaten in Ireland. In addition, imports of food in 1847-8 were three times greater than exports from Ireland. This part of the story is rarely recalled. So there were efforts to help, but they were too little, badly organized and often hampered by religious or political prejudice.

The role the government played in life then was much more limited than today. Feeding children, helping the sick, the old, and orphans were seen as largely family obligations.

The idea of a citizen was different then partly because Ireland was not yet a full democracy. The absence of political ties to the state meant that poor citizens could not vote for a system of economic help from the state. Those, whom people are morally obliged to help, are included in what is sometimes called the “circle of care.” In the 1840’s it was a family “circle of care” and there was no national safety net until the last part of the 20th century. Added to that, it is possible to argue that the British majority extended less care to their minority of citizens who were Irish.

The idea of national citizenship in the 1840’s was similar to our idea of global citizenship today. We give to charities helping famine in Africa, and want the Canadian government to help a little too. However, taxing Canadians to help people abroad is unpopular. We are horrified at the British Government’s neglect of its national citizens at that time. Perhaps in one hundred and fifty years from now, future students will be horrified by Canadian neglect of our fellow global citizens today.

British Governments were also divided on which role to play in this natural disaster. This was the first natural disaster to be publicized by sketches in print, and the government knew and saw what was happening. There was no hiding from this illustrated and well-documented disaster.