Irish Potato Famine example essay topic

In the early 1800's life in Ireland wasn't easy, Irish citizens got by day to day by farming and relying on the potato. The potato was their main source of food and money. With out the potato the Irish would have nothing. No one was prepared for what was about to happen in 1845, the beginning of the Great Irish Potato Famine.

The Irish Potato Famine was the worst tragedy in the history of Ireland. The outcome of the famine would result in hundreds of thousands dead, an failure of the economy in Ireland, and millions of emigrants forced to leave their home and country just to try to survive. The famine would effect countries other than Ireland as well. Some of these countries included England, America, Canada, and Australia. The next five years, almost all Irish citizens, would have the hardest struggle that they would ever face. It would tear families apart, destroy peoples lives, and cause large financial losses to landowners.

In the early to mid 1800's Ireland was a very poor and difficult place to live. Most of the land was owned by landowners that lived in England and rented their land out to Irish citizens. The owners had almost no interest in their land and property in Ireland. They only cared about getting their money from their renters. The rents were overpriced and living costs in Ireland were also extremely high. The living conditions for the renters in Ireland were horrible, with one-room houses that were expected to shelter whole families.

Another problem with the country was that over 70% of the population was illiterate. The renters would use their land to farm potatoes because they were cheap, easy to grow, full of vitamins, and you could grow a lot in a small area and in poor farming conditions. The whole country relied on the crop of potatoes as their source of food and income. In the mid 1800's there were many seasons that produced poor crops, and in some cases no potatoes at all. These seasons were taken lightly, and just thought to be bad crop seasons. After these bad seasons, farmers became upset and began to grow poorer quality potatoes known as 'Lumper potatoes' or 'Horse potatoes' instead of the stronger healthier potatoes.

These new potatoes were originally grown for feed for farm animals and were more prone to disease, but because they grew in the poorest conditions possible, humans would have to eat them due to the loss of the healthier potatoes. In 1845 a crop disease known as 'blight' would be introduced to Ireland. It was a disease that would cause potatoes to rot while they grew. It was from guano, which was part of a fertilizer that was imported from South America. The contaminated fertilizer was also distributed to other countries in Europe such as France, Germany, The Netherlands, and England. It was responsible for thousands of deaths in these countries but was soon eliminated, as these countries were not as dependent on the potato as the Irish were.

The Irish discovered the problem when they found that they were harvesting black potatoes. At first they blamed the problem on poor weather, or insects. They just figured that it was another poor farming season. The actual spreading of the disease was that its pores were carried in the wind and land in pits where potatoes were to be planted. The disease would not die in the extreme winter cold and would double the problem for the next spring's crop. The first year, the Irish only saw it as another crop failure because it only effected a third of the harvest.

It was later that season that they realized that they were about to face a famine. The Irish government would not give out aid to farmers because they felt that it would make the country look bad showing other people that the citizens could not care for themselves. The Prime Minister told landowners that lived in England to give their renters some support. Very few did, most didn't and about half of the owners evicted their renters from the land. The result in the first year was thousands of deaths.

Due to such a large number many people were not buried in coffins, instead there were mass burials where bodies were dumped into large holes in the ground. This resulted in more unsanitary conditions. Eventually the federal government imported Indian corn from America to be distributed to the most desperate people. Although it was for good intentions, it didn't comply with Irish expectations for food. The corn was difficult to mill on the small number of mills in Ireland, it was difficult to digest, and it was not very filling, leaving many Irish hungry. It eventually became accepted and the Irish learned to deal with it.

In 1846 due to no effort to rid the infected potatoes of the previous year the new season provided enough food to feed the country for only one month. This caused people to eat what ever they could get their hands on. People ate dogs, horses, birds, mushrooms, roots, flowers, and anything that was believed to have a nutritional value. Fish was a food that involved a risk to obtain due to the rough Irish seas and rocky coast. Shellfish and seaweed were eaten but after many people died from eating poisonous varieties of both. Crime rates rose, and because of over crowed prisons and expensive costs of keeping prisoners alive, convicted prisoners were sent to Australia.

This caused for people to break laws just to escape the danger of living in Ireland. Other diseases began such as the typhus fever, bacilli dysentery, ophthalmia, an eye infection causing many to go blind, scurvy- causing teeth to fall out and joints to swell- that was caused by a lack of vitamin-c which was a common vitamin found in potatoes, and small pox developed. There were only 28 hospitals in Ireland and these were helpless to the thousands of citizens in need of care. Thousands of more people became homeless between 1846 and 1847 because their landlords kicked them off the land making them homeless. They found shelter in ditches, and wherever else they could but this also helped spread the diseases.

Some renters were murdered by their landowners so that they would not have to deal with a dispute when they would be told that they were evicted. To help their renters out, some landowners gave enough money to their renters for them to make it to the America. In 1847 250,000 people left Ireland to America. The costs were covered by some charities. The ships that were used for transporting immigrants were ships that used for trade between America and England. The empty ships heading back toward America were packed with immigrants.

The ships were known as 'Coffin Ships' because an average of 5% died on the voyage to their new homes. An example of a coffin ship would be 'Elizabeth and Sarah' it was a boat that was equipped for 212 people but was packed with 276. It was loaded with 8700 gallons of water, but the passengers required 12,532 gallons. Each person was given a pound of food per day. There was only 32 sleeping arrangements for all 276 people to share. The captain took the wrong route and the trip lasted 8 weeks instead of 4.

The death count on this ship voyage was 42. Once to the new land the immigrants were not out of danger yet. In 1847 immigrants introduced the typhus fever to America and Canada. The Saint Lawrence River froze much later than normal and the ships were forced to wait in it for weeks while it thawed. This caused for a 2-mile back up (40 ships long) holding over 10,000 immigrants.

The local American hospitals could accommodate only 200 people while over 430 were in desperate need of medical attention. Those in need of aid were dumped on shore and if they could crawl themselves to a hospital then they were treated. Due to bad accommodations the sick were mixed with the healthy creating more sick people. Also another danger posed to immigrants, they were very prone upon arrival to be robbed by American citizens. Over 5000 died within weeks of arrival due to fever. Once settled, some immigrants got jobs as blacksmiths or mill workers, but many were illiterate.

The people incapable of holding a job found answers to their problem of nothing to do by drinking large quantities of alcohol and by fighting. Many more people died from fighting after arriving in America. Those that were happy with their new lives wrote letters and sent money to their family so that they could escape Ireland and start a new life in America. Those whose lives became bad and worsened by the immigration were too ashamed to talk to their family and discontinued contact with family back in Ireland.

In conclusion the potato famine effected not only those who lived in Ireland, but those in America too. The people that survived the crisis eventually returned their lives back to normal and were not physically harmed but rather emotionally scared with memories of wondering how much longer they were going to live. Also they remembered the whole scene with dead bodies every where and villages of which every resident was sickened and dying. The Americans were effected by this epidemic with the introduction of many diseases introduced to their country. Especially those in the New England area of the country, where most of the immigrants arrived who had seen how the famine over seas had such an impact on millions of people's lives. Over all many lives were lost, many lives changed, all due to the only crop that the Irish relied on... the potato..