The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1897-09-25
POTATO BlIGH1 IN THE YEAR 1916
ALIEN GOVERNMENT AND LAND
LORDS INDIFFERENT.
The HEART.RENO|N6 CONSEQUENCES
ONE MILLION OF THE INHABITANTS
DIED OF STARVATION.

1t is just fifty years since the most
| terrible Irish famine of history reached
it's climax, and it is little indeed that
Great Britain has done to prevent a re.
currence OF the disaster by way of Il
! scmi-centennial.
The potato blight first appeared IN
1915 and destroyed half the crop. The
pest came as BLUSH spcck in the 20
| tato and rapidly spread. 1t was first
noticed in Wexford.
II do be striving to blindfold them in
boiling. ! hope no harm will come
| from them' was a Wexford wifcs
| quaint way of referring to the bad po-
tatoes when tho plague was yet young
| But harm did come.
Daniel O'Connell, quick to see the
promised ruin, proposed in Parliament
to stop the export of oats--of which
! 10000 quarters went in one week to
| London alone-to prohibit brewing and
| dlstilling with grain and to raise 81 ,5GU..
! 600 for relief works But then and there
| after Westminster was slow to respond
| The Irish famine had bad luck to he
| mixed up in the corn law repeal fight
! and Sir Robert Peel called Heaven to
| witness that the repeal of the grain
| duties was the cure of all Ills in Ire
land as well as England Naturally the
| Conservative papers tried to fight Peel
! by saying that the famine stories were
exaggerated-that the peasants merely
wanted an excuse for avoiding the pay
| ment of rent. And the Irish nOn-resi-
dent Manifestations "vermin," us Ar
thur Young had called them---did moth
| ing to relieve the distress
Indeed, in the great debate of Jan
| nary, 1876. when Ireland was already in
| dire distress. one Mr.. Shaw, member of
lin, said that this was nothing unusual.
fever, dysentery and death being a
kind of normal state in Ireland"
Those were terrible days when the
great lords agent responded to piteous
appeals: What the devil do care for
your black potatoes? II was not us
that made 'em black. Pay your ron, In
two days Or-you know the consc-
quences
A woman said: I'VE had but little
barley, about Il barrel. and, God help us
we could not eat any more Of that same
as the landlord put a cross on ii. 1t
was for the rent"
The cold was severe in the winter of
1S46 when the government. in half
hearted way, began relief works, which
were, however, stopped on August Is.
Some ~ 900 tons of food, almost entirely
Indian corn meal, which tn" people did
not know how to cook properly were
given out.
In those days q man paid IL rent Of
! CT los. for a cabin and E2 rs. for n
half acre of potato bog. The beds were
stone benches covered with a little hay,
where the living, too weak to move,
often lay under the same covarih with
those already dead.
There was found near Skibbcrccn
when the famine was at its height Il
dying woman in a ditch, a dead baby
at her brcat, a child clutching her lin.
ger with the grip of death.
The Bnnsbys of the poor law Wer"
oracular in their decisions and .lcini-
! lions. while there was a calf on the
shank"-so ran their rule-"thcrc was
no starvation. The kncc-ioint must he
the biggest part of the leg before re-
lief can be afforded"
A good many die under the enforce
ment Of this rule, but a little matter like
that doesn't always shake the dispensers
of official charity. Private charity in a
land where all the wealth was owned by
absentees, there was practically none
The relief works were good in the
Dry, but men wasted by starvation could
not WELD the pick on heavy road build
ing or grading jobs, and the pay vas
only a few pence day, with food in
ordinately high. Tho Parliamentary
theorists who insisted that only unprtrf-
able work must be done and that wages
must be kept low, SO as not to tempt
people away from agriculture, were re.
sponsible for many deaths.
In June, 1886, the potato blight came
on again. 1t seemed in some places
fairly to drop from the skies on the
fields, sweeping over them as Il dry,
sinking fog, which fell on the grass
like gray dew or dull boar frost. This
time the crop was total loss. and the
relief works, which had been shut down
on the 18th of Augnat everywhere in
the expectation of new crop, had to
be started up again in a hurry anu
relief dispensaries Of food opened be-
sides. In all cases where government
bought and sold food, 1t maintained the
high prices OF private dealers, SO as
not to force them to shut their shops