If several generations of McMullins, Ryans, Roneys, Goodwins and I don’t know who else hadn’t decided to go “the next county over” way back when, I could be an Irish artist with a Basic Income.
Damned potatoes.
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David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •*_jayrope
in reply to David McMullin • • •David McMullin
in reply to *_jayrope • • •The role of Irish potatoes in world history may be less widely known than I thought. Here’s a quick summary from someone who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. Real historians, real Irish people, or anyone with more knowledge is welcome to chime in. I’m sure some details will be wrong but the gist of this will be more or less correct…
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David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •Potatoes, as you said, come from the Andes originally. But (somehow) by the 19th century they had become the staple crop and primary source of sustenance for the poor people of Ireland. In the 1840s, a blight struck the Irish potatoes, causing widespread hunger. By 1847 (“Black 47”) the potato crop failed entirely and there was a catastrophic famine.
David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •A huge proportion of the population died, and a third of the survivors emigrated, more or less at once in a giant wave. The population of Ireland didn’t recover to its pre-famine level for something like 150 years. This is why there are so many people of Irish origin in North and South America, Australia and many other places, but especially the United States. (That’s oversimplified: emigration started long before and continued long after but peaked with the famine.)
David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •Most of Ireland’s wheat was exported, to supply the British Empire and to profit the local landowners and their colonial overlords, while the tenant subsistence farmers just died in droves. Or took the “coffin ships” to America.
David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •Arriving in America, the Irish famine refugees had a pretty hard time of it. Most were dirt poor, uneducated and starving. In the bizarre American system of racial hierarchy of the time (all systems of racial hierarchy are bizarre), the Irish were considered a separate and inferior race, and treated as such. But grudgingly or not, America took them in, and they made the most of it here, building this country alongside everyone else from everywhere else.
David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •4-5-6 generations on, their descendants (like me) are seen as ordinary white people, with all that entails (a whole other conversation).
A subset of those descendants take inordinate pride in being white people now, and they “honor” this history by wearing plastic hats and puking green beer on St Patrick’s day, while dishonoring it by trying to make sure today’s racially distinct refugees never get the chance their own great-grandparents got. Such people are assholes.
David McMullin
in reply to David McMullin • • •@jrp
The “Make America Great Again” crowd is most ashamed of something that really did make America great—its willingness to absorb wave after wave of desperate, oppressed, scum-of-the-earth nobodies from “shithole countries” as the President calls them, like 1840s Ireland, and give those people a chance.
Anyway all that’s what I was referring to when I said “damned potatoes.”
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Matthew
in reply to David McMullin • • •@jrp I am not a history expert, but I gather that the famine was made worse because the British government were trying to keep the corn (wheat) price high & stable so Irish wheat was exported making the problem worse.
Added to that was the Victorian belief that the poor were effectively "to blame" for their own problems so limited aid and forced a sort of "workfare" system in which they had to work on make-work projects usually in appalling conditions.
I'm a brit so not proud of this
David McMullin
in reply to Matthew • • •Yes, that’s consistent with what I thought. I’m not clear on all the details, but I understand that misrule, mismanagement and general callousness of those in power made everything worse. I think it’s safe to say that most famines are caused as much by politics or war as by weather and natural phenomena. Usually a combination of both.
Matthew
in reply to David McMullin • • •*_jayrope
in reply to David McMullin • • •@David McMullin Thanks David, those details aer much appreciated here to know about. I heard about an irish famine before driving a lot of people out of the country, however wasn't aware of the modern implications.
Now i just wish you weren't restricted by a word limit.
David McMullin
in reply to *_jayrope • • •