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My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up t

My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop), they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. I'd be more shocked to find out that Britain in the 19th century made things better in a region with famine.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop) There's a historical grey area here. India had experienced the conditions of their famine before, as you might expect, things happen more than once and so they had a social structure agreement between villages where ones who's crops were stricken and lost would have their food stocks supplemented with those of neighboring villages, and every village grew more than they needed to facilitate this. This worked excellently for probably thousands of years, until the Brits arrived and insisted taxes be collected, and they took crop yields in lieu of money the Indians didn't have. Either they were unaware because they assumed the brown people had no idea what they were doing, or they were aware and didn't give a shit because the people were brown, or some combo of the two, who's to say. But they did the very same to the Irish. Landlords were entitled to the yields of their land, and they took whatever it produced, which exasperated the already dire situation.
wolfram74 2y ago
I don't know, it's been a while since I've read on the subject, but I thought part of what drove the Irish to subsisting off of a monoculture was somewhat driven by necessity from the english consolidating lots of holdings to english lords and collaborators, tax policies shaping what little output they had left basically meant with the amount of arable farm land available to the Irish, it was only the surprisingly effective potato that could keep up. If that recollection is correct, then while the english might not have lit the metaphorical fire, they definitely gathered the kindling.
slibhb 2y ago
It's so trendy to blame everything on the British. Downside of being the local (or global) power; everything is your fault. Probably they should have helped more, but so should have everyone.
- mtalantikite 2y ago
  It'd be one thing if they just didn't help more, but they actively exacerbated it. There was food in Ireland, it just wasn't for the Irish. From the article: > The problem was not that the land was barren.... But almost none of this food was available for consumption by the people who produced it. It was intended primarily for export to the burgeoning industrial cities of England. ... In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. They rented their lands to farmers, a large majority of whom were Catholics. Scanlan points out that, whereas in England a tenant farmer might pay between a sixth and a quarter of the value of his crops in rent, in Ireland “rent often equalled the entire value of a farm’s saleable produce.”
  - sgt101 2y ago
    So, when you say "they" you mean the Protestant Irish ruling class?
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      > In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. A snippet from the snippet you apparently neglected to read.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
deaddodo 2y ago
> they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. Moreso than that, they exacerbated it. The British farmer barons refused to lower their demand on their crops to allow the Irish to consume them in lieu of their lost crops. In addition, they were the ones that pushed heavily for a monoculture on potatoes and a few oats over a diverse agricultural landscape; which allowed the famine to get so widespread. In other words, the Irish Famine wasn't any worse than most contemporary famines. However, it was a death toll for the Irish because all of the grown food was shipped over the North Channel (or you were imprisoned/killed for refusing to cede it). There's a reason the (catholic) Irish hated the British so fervently and it was 100% due to liberal involuntary servitude punishments, Cromwellian policies, and the Black 47.
- Reasoning 2y ago
  > In addition, they were the ones that pushed heavily for a monoculture on potatoes and a few oats over a diverse agricultural landscape; which allowed the famine to get so widespread. That doesn't mesh with what I've read. The English were generally derisive of the Irish's reliance on potatoes. But the Irish became reliant on potatoes because of the shrinking size of the average tenant farmer's allotment. Potatoes are labor intensive but produce a higher number of calories per area of land than others staple crops, especially on marginal land.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    I gave the short version. Your outline of consequence and effect is correct. The British demanded specific oats and other crops, which required large allotments; this left the Irish farmers with a small portion of land to grow their own subsistence on, in turn leading to Potatoes as the only option (ending in a monoculture). When the potatoes started dying, the Irish had no access to the other crops (as they were grown for the tenant holders).
concordDance 2y ago
> they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. Where does this come from? The article we are discussing mentions various bits of helping, as does the wikipedia page. It looks like a complex mix of various entities doing different things they think would help, some effective, some not.
Balinares 2y ago
The pathogen affected all of Europe but only Ireland suffered a famine. So, blaming the pathogen on its own is not convincing. British policy did play a central role. As a matter of law, the Irish were not allowed to own land. They could only rent a limited amount from landowners -- 0.5 acres at most, if my memory serves. And the only culture with a sufficient yield per unit of surface that the Irish could both make rent and feed themselves was the potato. The rest of the land served to produce other crops for the benefit of British landowners. As a result, the island of Ireland was in fact producing enough food to feed its population through the Famine. It was just exported to Britain instead.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop) There's a historical grey area here. India had experienced the conditions of their famine before, as you might expect, things happen more than once and so they had a social structure agreement between villages where ones who's crops were stricken and lost would have their food stocks supplemented with those of neighboring villages, and every village grew more than they needed to facilitate this. This worked excellently for probably thousands of years, until the Brits arrived and insisted taxes be collected, and they took crop yields in lieu of money the Indians didn't have. Either they were unaware because they assumed the brown people had no idea what they were doing, or they were aware and didn't give a shit because the people were brown, or some combo of the two, who's to say. But they did the very same to the Irish. Landlords were entitled to the yields of their land, and they took whatever it produced, which exasperated the already dire situation.

wolfram74 2y ago

I don't know, it's been a while since I've read on the subject, but I thought part of what drove the Irish to subsisting off of a monoculture was somewhat driven by necessity from the english consolidating lots of holdings to english lords and collaborators, tax policies shaping what little output they had left basically meant with the amount of arable farm land available to the Irish, it was only the surprisingly effective potato that could keep up. If that recollection is correct, then while the english might not have lit the metaphorical fire, they definitely gathered the kindling.

slibhb 2y ago

It's so trendy to blame everything on the British. Downside of being the local (or global) power; everything is your fault. Probably they should have helped more, but so should have everyone.

mtalantikite 2y ago
It'd be one thing if they just didn't help more, but they actively exacerbated it. There was food in Ireland, it just wasn't for the Irish. From the article: > The problem was not that the land was barren.... But almost none of this food was available for consumption by the people who produced it. It was intended primarily for export to the burgeoning industrial cities of England. ... In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. They rented their lands to farmers, a large majority of whom were Catholics. Scanlan points out that, whereas in England a tenant farmer might pay between a sixth and a quarter of the value of his crops in rent, in Ireland “rent often equalled the entire value of a farm’s saleable produce.”
- sgt101 2y ago
  So, when you say "they" you mean the Protestant Irish ruling class?
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. A snippet from the snippet you apparently neglected to read.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

deaddodo 2y ago

> they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. Moreso than that, they exacerbated it. The British farmer barons refused to lower their demand on their crops to allow the Irish to consume them in lieu of their lost crops. In addition, they were the ones that pushed heavily for a monoculture on potatoes and a few oats over a diverse agricultural landscape; which allowed the famine to get so widespread. In other words, the Irish Famine wasn't any worse than most contemporary famines. However, it was a death toll for the Irish because all of the grown food was shipped over the North Channel (or you were imprisoned/killed for refusing to cede it). There's a reason the (catholic) Irish hated the British so fervently and it was 100% due to liberal involuntary servitude punishments, Cromwellian policies, and the Black 47.

Reasoning 2y ago
> In addition, they were the ones that pushed heavily for a monoculture on potatoes and a few oats over a diverse agricultural landscape; which allowed the famine to get so widespread. That doesn't mesh with what I've read. The English were generally derisive of the Irish's reliance on potatoes. But the Irish became reliant on potatoes because of the shrinking size of the average tenant farmer's allotment. Potatoes are labor intensive but produce a higher number of calories per area of land than others staple crops, especially on marginal land.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  I gave the short version. Your outline of consequence and effect is correct. The British demanded specific oats and other crops, which required large allotments; this left the Irish farmers with a small portion of land to grow their own subsistence on, in turn leading to Potatoes as the only option (ending in a monoculture). When the potatoes started dying, the Irish had no access to the other crops (as they were grown for the tenant holders).

concordDance 2y ago

> they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. Where does this come from? The article we are discussing mentions various bits of helping, as does the wikipedia page. It looks like a complex mix of various entities doing different things they think would help, some effective, some not.

Balinares 2y ago

The pathogen affected all of Europe but only Ireland suffered a famine. So, blaming the pathogen on its own is not convincing. British policy did play a central role. As a matter of law, the Irish were not allowed to own land. They could only rent a limited amount from landowners -- 0.5 acres at most, if my memory serves. And the only culture with a sufficient yield per unit of surface that the Irish could both make rent and feed themselves was the potato. The rest of the land served to produce other crops for the benefit of British landowners. As a result, the island of Ireland was in fact producing enough food to feed its population through the Famine. It was just exported to Britain instead.