scholarly journals The Next World and the New World: Relief, Migration, and the Great Irish Famine

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cormac Ó Gráda
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Excess Mortality ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Food Aid ◽  
Assisted Migration ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Great Irish Famine ◽  
Population Economics

Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine was a poor and backward economy. The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s is accordingly often considered the classic example of Malthusian population economics in action. However, unlike most historical famines, the Great Famine was not the product of a harvest shortfall, but of a major ecological disaster. Because there could be no return to the status quo ante, textbook famine relief in the form of public works or food aid was not enough. Fortunately, in an era of open borders mass emigration helped contain excess mortality, subject to the limitation that the very poorest could not afford to leave. In general, the authorities did not countenance publicly assisted migration. This article discusses the lessons to be learned from two exceptional schemes for assisting destitute emigrants during and in the wake of the famine.

scholarly journals Fertility Trends, Excess Mortality, and the Great Irish Famine

Demography ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phelim P. Boyle ◽  
Cormac O Grada
Keyword(s):  
Excess Mortality ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Fertility Trends ◽  
Great Irish Famine

scholarly journals Charity as Social Justice: Antonio Rosmini and the Great Irish Famine

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
FRANCESCO ZAVATTI
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Great Irish Famine

The article sheds light on the significant fundraising and relief activities for Ireland during the Great Famine (1845–50) initiated in 1847 by the Italian philosopher and cleric Antonio Rosmini and his network in Savoy-Piedmont, Lombardy-Venetia and England. By analysing Rosmini's philosophical and political writings, the article demonstrates that Rosmini considered aid in times of crisis as an act of social justice for which individuals have to take responsibility. By analysing documents from the Italian and Irish archives, the article gives an account of the fundraising effort's practices of networking, appealing, almsgiving and delivery.

‘There But For The Grace of God Go I’: Middle-Class Catholic Responses to Ireland’s Great Famine*

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enda Delaney
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Irish History ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Great Irish Famine

Abstract Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Irish Catholic middle class became more powerful in both political and economic terms. It was this group that became the backbone of Irish nationalism as it emerged in the 1870s and 1880s. But how did the Catholic middle classes respond to what was the greatest disaster in Irish history, Ireland’s Great Famine of the 1840s? This article offers an account, based on a wide range of evidence, of the responses to the events of the Famine years, focusing especially on the role of the rural middle classes and the Catholic clergy, two of the most powerful elements within Irish political and social life. The overall argument is that, while it suited later nationalists to underline the universal nature of the catastrophe, suffering during the Great Irish Famine was concentrated in the ranks of the Catholic rural underclass, which was decimated by death and emigration.

Transportation Convictions during the Great Irish Famine

2006 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Young Men ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Great Irish Famine

Periods of famine would seem to entail not only increased criminal activity but also a greater range of people willing to commit crimes to avoid starvation. Transportation data from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s confirms an increase in criminal activity, revealing that the locus of crime shifted significantly toward the areas most seriously affected by famine conditions. The characteristics of the criminals, however, did not change dramatically. Young men continued to be the main perpetrators, as they had been before the Famine, although those convicted during the Famine often received lighter sentences.

scholarly journals ‘Irish fever’ in Britain during the Great Famine: immigration, disease and the legacy of ‘Black ’47’

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (166) ◽  
pp. 270-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis Darwen ◽  
Donald M. MacRaild ◽  
Brian Gurrin ◽  
Liam Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Irish Sea ◽  
Irish Population ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Great Irish Famine ◽  
Epidemic Typhus ◽  
Deadly Disease ◽  
The Irish Sea ◽  
National Perspective

AbstractDuring the worst year of the Great Irish Famine, ‘Black ’47’, tens of thousands of people fled across the Irish Sea from Ireland to Britain, desperately escaping the starvation and disease plaguing their country. These refugees, crowding unavoidably into the most insalubrious accommodation British towns and cities had to offer, were soon blamed for deadly outbreaks of epidemic typhus which emerged across the country during the first half of 1847. Indeed, they were accused of transporting the pestilence, then raging in Ireland, over with them. Typhus mortality rates in Ireland and Britain soared, and so closely connected with the disease were the Irish in Britain that it was widely referred to as ‘Irish fever’. Much of what we know about this epidemic is based on a handful of studies focusing almost exclusively on major cities along the British west-coast. Moreover, there has been little attempt to understand the legacy of the episode on the Irish in Britain. Taking a national perspective, this article argues that the ‘Irish fever’ epidemic of 1847 spread far beyond the western port of entry, and that the epidemic, by entrenching the association of the Irish with deadly disease, contributed significantly to the difficulties Britain's Irish population faced in the 1850s.

Mortality among institutionalised children during the Great Famine in Ireland: bioarchaeological contextualisation of non-adult mortality rates in the Kilkenny Union Workhouse, 1846–1851

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONNY GEBER
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Adult Mortality ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
Great Irish Famine ◽  
Mass Burial ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

ABSTRACTOver half of all victims of the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852) were children. Many of these deaths took place in the union workhouses: institutions of government poor relief which for many were the last resort in a desperate struggle to survive famine-induced conditions such as starvation and infectious disease. Archaeological excavations of a mass burial ground dating to 1847–1851 at the former workhouse in Kilkenny City have provided the opportunity to undertake a detailed interdisciplinary exploration of non-adult mortality in an Irish workhouse during the height of the Famine.

‘Ill Used by our Government’: The Darien Venture, King William and the Development of Opposition Politics in Scotland, 1695–1701

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael E. Comunale
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
New World ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Press ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Political Factions

This article examines the development of political opposition in Scotland from 1695 to 1701 in the context of the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies. It is argued that the potency of the political movement inspired by Darien derived from the view that King William was directly implicated in the failure of the colony. Three episodes in the Company's history—the loss of subscriptions in Hamburg, the appearance of memorials in the new world prohibiting English aid to the colony and the imprisonment of Darien sailors by the Spanish authorities—are examined in detail. The ramification of these controversies was increasingly seen as the result not of English interference, but rather the crown's refusal to act on behalf of the Company. Because a significant proportion of the population was invested in the Company, and because the press helped to keep Darien in the forefront of public consciousness, these issues transformed Darien into a major political grievance that united disparate political factions in support of a single cause. Although the alliance inspired by Darien was temporary, it, nonetheless, played a crucial role in disrupting the political status quo.

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