The Irish standard., 1897-09-25
POTATO BLIGHT IN The YEAR I845
GOVERNMENT AND LAND
LORDS INDIFFERENT.
The HEART-REAOING CONSEQUENCES
ONE MILLION OF THE INHABITANTS
DIED OF STARVATION.

1t is just fifty years since the most
terrible Irish famine of history reached
its 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
1916 and destroyed half the crop. The
pest came as a BLUSH speck in the po-
tato and rapidly spread. 1t was first
noticed in Wexford.
II do be striving to blindfold them in
boiling. I hope no harm will come
from Them" was Wexford wifcs
quaint way of referring to the bad po-
tatoes when the 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
distilling with grain and to raise Gl ,5Gu,.
600 for relief works. But then and there
after Westminster was slow to respond
The Irish famine had bad luck to be
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
1,,f f,,,
exaggerated-that the peasan,s merely
wanted an excuse for avoiding the pay
ment of rent. And the Irish non-resi-
dent Manifestations 'vermin." as Ar
ing to relieve the distress.
Indeed, in the great debate of Jan
uary, 1916, when Ireland was already in
dire distress, one MIR. Shaw, member of
Parliament for the University of Dub
lin, said that this was nothing unusual.
fever, dyscntery 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 rent In
two days oi-you know the consc-
quences."
A woman said: I'VE had but little
barley, about a barrel and, God help MS
we could not eat any more OF that same
as the landlord put a cross on it. 1t
was for the rent"
The cold was severe in the winter of
1876 when the government, in a half
hearted way. began relief works, which
were, however, stopped on August 15.
Some 1900 tons of food. almost entirely
Indian corn meal, which the people did
given out.
In those days man paid Il rent OF
.G1 los for a cabin and E2 5s. for n
half acre of potato bog. The beds were
where the living, too weak to move,
often lay under the same coverlid with
those already dead.
| There was found near Skibbcrccn
when the famine was at its height Il
! dying woman in Il ditch, Il dead baby
| at her brcat, a child clutching her lin
ger with the grip of death.
| The Bunsbys of the poor law Wer"
oracuar in their decisions and ,lclni-
tions. "Whilc there was Il calf on tho
shank"-so ran their rule-"thcre was
no starvation. The kncc-joint 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
ory but men wasted by starvation could
not WELD the pick on heavy road build
ing or grading jobs, and the pay vas
only few pence Il day, with food in
ordinately high. Tho Parliamentary
theorists who insisted that only unprnf-
able work must bc done and that wages
must be kept low, so as not to tempt
people away from agriculture, were re.
sronsibe 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 hoar frost. This
| time the crop was total loss. and the
relief works, which had been shut down
on the 18th of August everywhere in
the expectation Of a new crop, had to
f., be started up again in hurry and
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