The History of the Irish Famine

The Exodus: Emigration and the Great Irish Famine

Gerard Moran, Gerard Moran

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315513478
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Histoire
• Sous-sujet: Histoire du monde

The Great Irish Famine remains one of the most lethal famines in modern world history and a watershed moment in the development of modern Ireland – socially, politically, demographically and culturally. In the space of only four years, Ireland lost twenty-five per cent of its population as a consequence of starvation, disease and large-scale emigration. Certain aspects of the Famine remain contested and controversial, for example the issue of the British government's culpability, proselytism, and the reception of emigrants. However, recent historiographical focus on this famine has overshadowed the impact of other periods of subsistence crisis, both before 1845 and after 1852.

This volume examines how the failure of the potato crop in the late 1840s led to the mass exodus of 2.1 million people between 1845 and 1855. They left for destinations as close as Britain and as far as the United States, Canada and Australia, and heralded an era of mass migration which saw another 4.5 million leave for foreign destinations over the next half-century. How they left, how they settled in the host countries and their experiences with the local populations are as wide and varied as the numbers who left and, using extensive primary sources, this volume analyses and assesses this in the context of the emigrants themselves and in the new countries they moved.

Part I

The exodus

While emigration from Ireland was on the increase in the decades prior to 1845, the failure of the potato in the last quarter of the decade accelerated the process. Those with the resources, contacts and funds were among the first to leave and in the early stages came from those regions where there was a strong tradition of emigration, in particular from the north, north midlands and south east of the country. As the crisis continued the exodus extended to all parts of the country and after 1847 became a flood which continued well after the main impact of the Famine ended in 1852.

As Ireland had ensured periodic and regional famines over the previous three decades, the general feeling in 1845 was that the crop failure was temporary and normality would return the following year. However, the failure of the potato was greater in 1846 than in the previous year and most people did not have the resources to survive leading to emigration being seen as the only escape for many. While people had left when the crops failed on previous occasions, as between 1823 and 1825, by the second year of the Great Famine there was a dramatic increase in the numbers emigrating. What had been regional up to 1845 now became national with the exodus impacting on every part of the country. Even those who did not have to resources to emigrate pleaded with the government, landlords, poor law unions, friends, relations and whoever could help to assist them to leave. Landowners who had were engaged in providing assistance for their tenants to emigrate before 1845, such as Col. Wyndham and Sir Robert Gore Booth, were now inundated with requests to be sent abroad, while as early as 1846 a number of poor law unions pleaded with the government to relax the provisions so they could provide the support for paupers to emigrate.

1
Petition from Margaret Cassidy (a widow) to W.S. Trench¹ (Lord Shirley’s agent),² dated Apr. 1846 (PRO,NI, Shirley Papers, D3531/A), that the landlord would pay the passage fare of her son to North America as she does not have the resources. Has five acre farm at Fath, Co. Monaghan, but has lost her potato crop

Cassidy, Widow Margaret. Farths, April 46 (overwritten by Morant and Smith):

She has a young man her son whom she intends to send to America as she is not able to provide for him at home as Mr Smith can testify to your (sic)n situation in Life and has already laid out on him all she was able in providing him with such necessaries as she thinks requisite such as having apparel but cannot have his passage money… . Over written not from Smith: ‘I am aware of the situation in which the widow Cassidy has placed herself and her efforts to send her son to America having previously sent three other sons there so as to preserve her farm of 5 acres entire for her eldest son. Having lost her potatoes and being otherwise distressed she cannot now pay the rent but she has still a house and an industrious son to manage he can have employment at the culm drawing to make the – if allowed the free passage she seeks she could manage to put in the crops”; How did she act? – GM; “Nothing could be better than her conduct and that of her son upon all occasions. Every effort was made to shake her from her purposes but to no effect – Smith, “Granted” – Morant.³ Receipt for £2–10s signed Mgt Cassidy for passage “of my son to America that I might keep my farm in Farthes entire for my eldest son”.

Notes

1William Steuart Trench (1808–1882) was agent on the Shirley estate, and later served in the same position on the Marquis of Lansdowne’s and Marquis of Bath’s estates. In 1868 he had his biography published, Realities of Irish Life (Longman’s, London; 1868)

2Shirley was a landlord who engaged in large scale assisted emigration from his Co. Monaghan property during the Great Famine. The estate covered over 26,000 acres. As the Shirley family were absentee landlords, the management of the estate was left to an agent. He assisted over 1,300 of his tenants to emigrate.

3George Morant succeeded William S. Trench as agent on the Shirley estate.

2
Report from Belmullet, Co. Mayo of emigrants leaving on the Unity bound for North America citing the reasons they were leaving including the failure of the potato crop and the issue of rent arrears payments, Mayo Telegraph,¹ 22 April 1846

Emigration – We cheerfully publish the following, forwarded to us by our valued Correspondent at Belmullet:-²

“On the morning of the 16th instant the small steamer, Unity, from Sligo, arrived here to convey the Erris emigrants, bound for America, to join the passengers at Sligo. On the Quay it was really frightful to hear, and see, those creatures bewailing their hard fate in being obliged to leave their native land, and to separate from all they held dear on earth, their friends and relatives – the husband and his wife – the father from his children – the son from his mother – brothers from sisters, and daughters from mothers. I had conversed with many of them whom I thought were in comfortable circumstances, but alas! Their tale was truly doleful and lamentable, stating that they were in daily expectation of relief or employment from the Government, since their stock of potatoes had perished by the frightful disease, but they at length fully understood the procrastination of their Rulers – now that they were going to give them coercion as a substitute for food or employment, and knowing that would be swallowed up by the next course to save themselves and families from utter ruin. They were all Repealers and, the tears of sorrow which they shed on the shore of their dear loved land home I shall never forget, as the Belmullet Temperance Band played for them the National airs of their country. Previous to their embarkation they were several times heard to exclaim “that the land of liberty might afford them an opportunity of remembering the land of Coercion.” The poor fellows boasted “that they were free, as they owe no debt.” As for rent, of course, the Landlord’s Agents were more assiduous this season than any other, by being before hand, in order to secure themselves, whatever might become of the people’s food.³ I do believe that there are not ten pounds due for rent in all Erris this day. My ears thrill with the frightful cries of separating friends while I write. I could give particulars more calamitous of the creatures who are not so fortunate as to commend the means of taking them to America and whose last meal of potatoes and last penny are exhausted.”

Notes

1The Mayo Telegraph was a Repeal/Liberal newspapers based in Castlebar which was founded by Frederick Cavendish in 1830. In 1870 it changed its name to the Connaught Telegraph.

2Those who left in 1846 had the resources to leave. Belmullet was one of the poorest areas of the country and most affected by the failure of the potato throughout the late 1840s.

3The principal landlords in the Erris area were the Carters, Binghams and John Walsh.

3
Petition from the labourers from the Rattibarren barony, Co. Sligo to the Government outlining their poverty and asking for aid to be sent to North America, promising to repay any loans they received.¹ Appendix to Minutes taken before the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Colonisation, HC 1847 (737 – ii) vi, p. 197

Appendix No. 23

Petition from the Irish Poor

To the Right Honourable Lords Temporal and Spiritual

Honoured Gentlemen

We the undersigned, humbly request that ye will excuse the Liberty we take in troubling ye at a Time when ye ought to be tired, listening to our Cries of Distress; but like Beggars we are importunate. We the undersigned are the Inhabitants of the Barony of Rattibarren, Barony of Liney and County of Sligo. It is useless of us to be relating our Distress, for ye too were often distressed by hearing them, – for none could describe it; it can only be known by the Sufferers themselves. We thank ye, and our Gracious Sovereign, and the Almighty for the relief we have, though One Pound of Indian Meal for a full grown Person, which has neither Milk nor any other kind of Kitchen, it is hardly fit to keep the Life in them; but if we got all that we would be thankful. But if we have reason to complain, there is others who has more Reason to complain, for in the Parish Tawnagh² they are but getting Half a Pound, and several of them are not able to but Half a Pennyworth of Milk. I fear the Curse of the Almighty will come heavier on this country, the Way they are treating the Poor, but the Distress stares us in face more grim than ever, for we have no Sign of Employment, for the Farmers is not keeping either Boy or Girl or Workman they can avoid, but are doing the Work by their Families though they are not half doing it. In Times past the Poor of this Country had large Gardens of Potatoes and as much Conacre³ as supported them for nearly the whole Year, and when they had no employment they had their own Provision, but now there (are) Thousands and Tens of Thousands that has not a Cabbage Plant in the Ground; so we hope that ye will be so charitable as to send us to America, and give us Land according to our Families, and anything else ye will give us (and we will do with the coarsest Kind). We will repay the same, with the Interest thereof, by Instalments, as the Government will direct. And if they refuse or neglect to pay the same, the next Settler to pay the money and have his Land. And we will bind ourselves to defend the Queen’s Right to any place we are sent, and leave it on our Children to do the same. So we hope for the sake of Him gave ye the Power and England Power, and raised her to be the Wonder of the World, and enabled her to pay Twenty Million for the Slaves in India, and ye will lend us Half the Sum, which we will honestly repay, with the Interest thereof, for we are more distressed than they; and hope for the sake of him that said, ‘He that giveth to the Poor lendeth to the Lord and He will repay it’, that ye will grant our Petition. And may He grant ye heavenly Wisdom, with temporal and spiritual Riches also, is the earnest Prayer of your Petitioners.

[Eighty-six names]

We think it useless to ye with Names as we could get as many Names as would nearly reach across the Channel.

We hope your Lordship will excuse the Liberty we take in troubling you. We know that you have Irish Poor at heart, and that you are their best friend, which is the Cause of us making so free.

We hope ye will make Allowance for Deficiencies of this, for the Writer is a poor Man that knows little about Stiles and Titles, for we are not able to pay a Man that could it right.

To Lord Monteagle,⁴

House of Lords, London

Notes

1For the poor who did not have the resources to leave, such as labourers in the West of Ireland, they were prepared to plead to any quarter to be sent abroad.

2Tawnagh parish is near Riverstown, Co Sligo.

3Conacre was a quarter to two acres let to labourers by farmers on an eleven month tenure which was used to grow potatoes.

4Lord Monteagle, Thomas Spring Rice (1790–1866) had an extensive property in Co. Limerick, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1835 to 1839.

4
Letter of James Prendergast in Milltown,¹ Co. Kerry to his son, Thomas, in Boston, 18 Jun. 1848, thanking him and his siblings for remittances they were sending back to help the family survive.² Shelly Barber (ed), The Prendergast Letters: Correspondence from Famine-Era Ireland, 1840–1850 (Amherst & Boston, 2006), pp 130–32

Mr Thomas Prendergast
No 16 Pearplace
Boston
State of Massachuesetts
N. America

Milltown 18th June 1848
My dear Children
I received your letter of the 30th of May last containing a check for seven Pounds.³ It was a timely relief and tho I want it I assure you I felt more on your account than I did on my own account. I feared that some mishap had befallen ye as I heard not from ye for a long time. I was in debt one pound nineteen shillings which I borrowed time after time, since what you sent me was spent. I was in a very bad state of health and I feared I would have died before your relief would reach me and that I would be a burthen on the parish for my funeral necessary but, thank God, I received a new life when I received your letter and not so much on account of the order, as on account of the account it contains that ye are all well. It is always said that he who has tender and careful children is happy. In that case I am really so, for my sons and daughter are so and I will say that I have two of the best children in the world, while I have Julia and Con. My dear children ye can be neither jealous nor displeased when I say that I am more thankful to him than to my […] own. At the same time I have cause to thank you all. Mr Quill Manager of the National Bank cashed the Bill for your Mother on yesterday. She is so well that she left this place yesterday morning and arrived here in the Evening with the amount of her order. James Maurice was here. She gave him the three Pounds which ye ordered to carry to his father. Also the letter which ye sent (to his father), arrived here early in the evening and we carried it. His father said before this that he wrote ye consenting and praying that ye would take out the boy. James himself said so on yesterday. It is the only wish of the Boy. Ye need not delay to send for him as soon as ye receive this for I assure ye it is the wish of all his family both father and Mother as well as himself. His father will write directly and I am sure ye will have his letter, unless it miscarry, sooner than mine. If he were over once He ought to help his own family and free ye from a part of your cares here on this side. He desires to remember him to his aunt Julia and uncle Con⁴ and adds that every one of his family have the same wish as, in gratitude and every other respect as they are more indebted to Con than to their own blood relatives for his kindness. James says that if he were with ye he would try to shew (sic) ye that he knows what he and his family owe ye for your kindles and good natures. Mich(ea)ls Wife and children are well, and so are his fatherinlw and Motherinlaw. They are really attentive to children. His Wife is as attentive to us as daughter could be. They are doing well and would be glad to hear daily if possible from him. Tell Michl that he would not forget Michl Ginnaw for 18 shillings which was due to him when Michl left there. He knows that I am bound for it and that only Michl Ginna is so indulgent he should have paid long since, but he should not be forgotten on that account. Your Mother and I may say, every ...