Prelude to Famine

While the potato had seemed like the answer to a growing population’s

prayers when it first arrived in Ireland, by the early 1800′s warnings began

to grow about over reliance on a single source of food. A significant

proportion of the Irish population ate little other than potatoes, lived in

close to total poverty and was rarely far from hunger.

A typical tenant farmer had barely half an acre on which to grow all the

food for a family. Potatoes were the only viable option with such a small

landholding. At least those with tenancies, small as they were, had the

certainty of shelter and some food. Homelessness was common; many

people lived in makeshift mud cabins or slept outdoors in ditches. Work

was in short supply forcing labourers to travel the country in search of

employment, surviving on what they could forage, get by way of charity or

steal.

Life expectancy was short, just 40 years for men, and families were large,

with many mouths to feed. The gap between living and dying, even in a

good year, was perilously narrow.

In 1836 a report from the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Irish

Poor concluded that more than 2.5 million Irish people, more than a

quarter of the population, lived in such poverty as to need some kind of

welfare scheme. Poor law unions were established to provide work houses

where the most impoverished would be fed but these were wholly

inadequate even before famine stuck and completely overwhelmed when it

did.