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I can speak to Irish history. Long considered one of the most poor and wretched places for common folk, the rural poor had numerous issues in Ireland. While the
by Dumblydorr 5y ago
I can speak to Irish history. Long considered one of the most poor and wretched places for common folk, the rural poor had numerous issues in Ireland. While they had dance and a lovely folk music, they also had starvation, disease, lack of political representation, and a lack of basic economic ladders. They did have plentiful turf to warm themselves, in contrast to many other poor folk in other areas of Europe. They also had the gulf stream, like Iceland and the UK, which kept their climate relatively warm for it's northerly location.
There's no better demonstration of the decimation of the rural Irish than the potato famine of the 1840s. It wasn't just one year, multiple years, their monocrop of the Irish Lumper potato, which had led the widespread growth in population, failed them due to fungal blight. It's estimate 5% or even 10% died of starvation in some rural areas. Moreover, millions more left in droves for the UK and USA, recognizing the crushing poverty and lack of food vastly outweighed their love of the land and culture.
In my estimation, the rural Irish had leisure time for the arts despite their poverty and destitution. The abundance of time didn't help, they were too poor to own many games and objects. Yet, through music and dance and writing, they kept their spirits alive and, by some cheer, were able to Banish Misfortune.
- Ericson2314 5y agoIf it weren't for English colonization they wouldn't have been forced into such risky monocrop behavior.
- pfortuny 5y agoNote that it was the very Irish who asked the English to come help them in one of their multiple internal wars…
- heavyset_go 5y agoIt was the economic system that was imposed upon the Irish that forced them into relying on a monoculture, too, and forced them to starve. The Irish working class were forced into smaller and smaller subdivisions by English landlords[1], to the point that they could only rely on a potato monoculture[2] to sustain themselves. During the famine, those landlords evicted over half of a million poor and starving Irish people[3]. Those same Irish tenant farmers harvested crops during the famine that were then shipped and sold on the English market[4], while those that harvested them starved. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Tenants_and_subdivisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Tenants... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Potato_dependency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Potato_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Eviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Evictio... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Food_exports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Food_ex...
- Uehreka 5y agoGood recounting, but I feel like any talk of the potato famine has to mention the role the English played: > Charles E. Trevelyan, who served under both Peel and Russell at the Treasury, and had prime responsibility for famine relief in Ireland, was clear about God's role: "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated". Source (but you can find stuff like this everywhere) https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/historical-notes-god-and-england-made-irish-famine-1188828.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/historical-...
- kingkawn 5y agoThe famine was the fault of the British, not pre-industrial life