The Story of Ireland: A History of the Irish People by Neil Hegarty

Author:Neil Hegarty [Hegarty, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Hunger

And if from one season’s rottenness, rottenness they sow again, rottenness they must reap.1

In 1824, the ordnance survey of Ireland was inaugurated. Beginning with the flatlands on the shores of Lough Foyle, the country was mapped comprehensively, triangle by painstaking triangle; by 1846, the survey had been completed in County Kerry. With other economic surveys of the country being undertaken at the same time, Ireland could now be said to be more thoroughly known than at any point in its history: its social trends, its economic circumstances and potential were now fully charted, tabulated, calculated. This was a land where a line might have been drawn the length of the country, from Derry to Cork: east of that line, economic circumstances were in general more favourable; west of it, less favourable. But they were nowhere especially benign: there was still little work to be had in the towns; the wellbeing of much of the population was bound up alarmingly with that of the annual potato crop; and the fate of the country hung by a thread.

Early in September 1845, as the first potatoes were being harvested across Ireland, news began to filter through to the administration at Dublin Castle: the crop was coming out of the ground rotten and putrid. The news would not have been greeted with much surprise: already in Europe that summer similar reports had passed from town to town; the phenomenon was everywhere. The disease was the potato blight, Phytophthora infestans, a microscopic fungus spread by wind and rain. Although previously present in the Americas, it had been quite unknown in Europe before 1842, when it was likely brought by ship to one of the continent’s Atlantic ports. Early in the summer of 1845, it was already destroying crops in Belgium and the Netherlands; by the year’s end, it had swept to the borders of Russia, Scandinavia, Germany and on to Britain and Ireland. It was only in Ireland, however, that such a high proportion of the population was so utterly dependent on a single crop.

The effect of the blight was rapidly to turn the stalks black and reduce the tubers to a stinking pulp. At first, the response in government circles was measured: the loss appeared not to be so very great; and supplies could be augmented by the bumper oat harvest that year. As the autumn went on, however, it became clear that much of the crop had failed, though some districts suffered more than others; the western seaboard and much of Ulster at this time escaped with the least damage, while a great stretch of the midlands, east and southeast suffered the greatest. A massive wave of human tragedy had broken upon Irish society.

The authorities investigated means by which the good potatoes could be safely stored: if they were kept in cool, dry, ventilated conditions, the blight might not spread and infest the entire crop. But the potatoes continued to rot as before. It was then suggested that the dug tubers be stored suspended in bog water.

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