Episode 463: Irish Potato Famine: Great Hunger or Genocide?
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On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time to the 1840s and look at the Irish Potato Famine. Known as the Great Hunger, this was a period of years where a horrible blight caused the failure of the single most important crop in the nation—potatoes. But the problem was deeper than that. Part of it was a horribly corrupt system of land ownership which was overseen by the British. Another was massive exports of food forced out of Ireland by the land owners while the common people starved. It all combined to reduce the population of the Emerald Isle by around 25% due to famine, disease, and people getting the hell out of there.
So, why did the potato cause so much damage to the nation? Well for one, the (mostly British) land owners forced farmers to grow a single type of potato because it made them the most money. When disease spread killing that crop, there was nothing else in place. It was the main food source of typical Irish farmer/tenants, so the starvation was real. It speaks to the dangers of a monocrop and what a disease can do to a food supply.
However, this was just the tip of the spear. The trouble came from horrible laws that were enforced by Britain. They upheld tariffs that made the import of food difficult; this wasn’t done in a previous famine, and the open ports saved the nation. This time, nobody could bring in food. But the landlords also exported the crops that were actually growing. They owned the land and the food produced on it, and most of them lived in England, so the food was shipped away to make a profit.
The combination of these factors led to somewhere around 1.5 million people dying of starvation or disease and hundreds of thousands fleeing the country for England, Canada, and America. Many people classify what the British did (and failed to do) as a genocide of the Irish people. Some call it an accidental genocide, but others say it was intentional and fueled by racism and religious hatred against Irish Catholics. Be it planned or accident, the laws and the blight were the perfect storm for the darkest days of Ireland.
Visit Our Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Famine-Irish-history
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml
https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/introduction.htm
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/was-the-famine-genocide-by-the-british-28954929.html
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