Week 4 – Discussion on the text “Quakers and the Famine” about how the Quakers from England,

Ireland and the United States contributed to famine relief for Ireland setting up long-term local
employment schemes instead of only providing short-term distribution of food and clothing. Discussion
on the text “How the Free Market helped reduce the Effects of the Famines in Ireland from 1845 to
1851,” and Analysis of the song “Famine” released in 1994 by Sinead O’Connor.

George Fox founded the Religious Society of Friends, later known as The Quakers, in 1652.

Video 1 – How Quakerism began – George Fox (3 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmL_GhnXSJQ

Video 2 – Who were the Quakers? The Quakers in the United States (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPp7z1cN_4

Text 1: “Quakers and the Famine”

This text was published in 1998 in “History of Ireland: Ireland’s History Magazine,” 18th-19th-Century History, Issue 1,
The Famine, Volume 6. Taken from https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/quakers-the-famine/

When the potato crop failed due to blight in 1846 it was obvious, in Ireland at any rate, that a major
catastrophe was about to occur. The first failure in 1845 had been partial, but it left the country debilitated with
reserves run down, while individuals had few possessions left to sell or pawn.
Few Quakers in worst affected areas
Members of the Society of Friends (or Quakers) were amongst those who understood the seriousness of
the situation and many of them reacted by setting up relief operations in their own areas. In the autumn of 1846
soup kitchens were set up by Quakers in towns such as Waterford, Enniscorthy, Limerick, Clonmel, and
Youghal. Any thought of setting up a more comprehensive relief program was hampered by two drawbacks.
First, the number of Quakers in Ireland was small —a mere 3,000 or so out of a population that exceeded eight
million. Second, the Quaker population was concentrated in certain areas and was almost entirely absent from
the west, including Donegal, Kerry, Clare, west Cork, and the whole of Connaught. Quaker relief, therefore,
could not be offered directly in the areas which would suffer most.
 The Society of Friends had certain advantages, though, if the right method of providing relief could be
found. Quakers had a well-developed network of committees which operated on a nation-wide basis to organize
their own society. Through these committees and through family ties Quakers throughout Ireland were in close
contact with each other and with those in Britain. Many Irish Quakers were merchants and would have had the
organizational capacity to purchase goods and move them efficiently to other parts of the country. Above all,
Quakers believed that God was present in everyone and this gave an understanding that the individual in
distress should be helped if at all possible.
Relief committees established
It was with this in mind that a number of Quakers, led by Joseph Bewley, organized a meeting in
November 1846. The outcome was the establishment of a twenty-one member “central relief committee.” To
facilitate frequent meetings, membership was confined to the Dublin area, while a further group of twenty-one
would be nominated as “corresponding members” and from the Quaker community outside Dublin. Following
discussions with their Irish counterparts Quakers in London also established a relief committee.
Throughout the Famine these two committees worked closely together, with the Dublin committee
looking after grants of food and clothing while the London committee raised funds. The division of labor was
not strict, however, and many English Quakers came to Ireland to see for themselves just how bad the situation
was and to become involved directly with the giving of relief. As the work of these committees progressed they
set up various subcommittees to handle specific tasks and amongst these were local committees in Waterford,
Cork, Limerick, and Clonmel which looked after relief operations in the south and south-west.

This map, showing the total value of specific Quaker relief efforts —whether in the provision of boilers,
food and/or monies— per county from 11 December 1846 to 1 May 1848 both illustrates how well informed the
Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends was about where destitution was greatest during the Famine
and its ability to coordinate supplies to the most needy in those areas.
Communities in Counties Galway and Mayo in Connacht and Clare, Kerry, and especially Cork received
the most support from the Quaker relief effort. Interestingly, County Cavan alone in Ulster is singled out for
major relief efforts. A middle group of counties from Donegal, through Sligo Roscommon, Tipperary, Limerick
and Waterford also received substantial support from the Quakers. Taken from https://www.rte.ie/history/famine-
ireland/2020/1116/1178533-a-labour-of-love-the-contributions-of-the-society-of-friends/
 This map shows the distribution of contributions from the northeastern states of North America for
Quaker relief efforts in Ireland. Having obtained first-hand information on the true conditions prevailing in
Ireland in the autumn of 1846, and having confirmed that the failure of the potato crop was a major disaster for
so many of the Irish poor, the Quaker appeal for funds, food and clothing was extended to North America.
This map shows some of the originating centers which shipped many barrels of corn, flour and meal (as
well as smaller consignments of beans, oats, ryemeal and wheat and some boxes of clothing) to Ireland from the
third month (March) to the tenth month (October) of 1847. Cork port received nine of these shipments,
Liverpool eight, Dublin two and Limerick one.
Boston and New York head the list but Ogdensburgh (upstate New York) on the Canadian border and
Utica also made substantial contributions, as did Burlington, New Jersey. Significant contributions also came
from the smaller New England states as well as from other centers in upstate New York. Further south (just off
the map), Philadelphia became a major receiving center for contributions.
Canadian groups were also generous in their contributions. Not only Quaker communities but also Irish
Relief Committees in American cities, Protestant Episcopalian Churches as well as one Reformed Dutch
Church entrusted their contributions to the Quaker relief effort.
Given their justified reputation for independence, probity and foresight in directing famine relief efforts, overall
a large proportion of American contributions were directed to the Quakers. Taken from
https://www.rte.ie/history/famine-ireland/2020/1116/1178533-a-labour-of-love-the-contributions-of-the-
society-of-friends/
Food and Clothing
The first and most obvious means of assisting the hungry was through direct grants of food or the money
with which food could be purchased. Some of this went to Quaker relief workers in the field, but the scope for
this kind of aid was limited by the size and distribution of the Quaker community. A great deal more was done
through assistance to non-Quakers who were running local relief efforts and through Quaker workers
identifying local people who were capable of operating soup kitchens and encouraging them to become
involved. In essence, the relief committees of the Society of Friends acted as intermediaries who encouraged
those who had something to offer to donate it and then made these donations available to local activists. In their
own words the Quaker workers provided a “suitable channel” through which aid was brought from the donors
to the recipients.
 Before long the committees became involved in the distribution of clothing. In the winter of 1846/47 a
large proportion of the clothing donations came from English committees, mostly consisting of women. Some
clothes were made by the donors and others came from factories as a result of pressure from the women’s
committees. A warehouse was taken in Dublin to receive donations and sort them into bundles for passing on to
the destitute. In the following winter American donations were predominant and this was mostly in the form of
fabrics so that employment could be generated in making clothing.
In the summer of 1847, there was a major change of direction in the type of relief offered by the Quaker
committees. The emphasis on grants of food and clothing was greatly reduced in favor of longer term means of
assistance. There were many reasons for this. First, there was a change in the type of relief offered by the
government: soup kitchens were established by the poor law unions to feed the destitute without admitting them
to the poor house. The Quakers recognized that there was going to be a hiatus following the closure of the
public works schemes and before the poor law unions could set up the soup kitchens. They ensured that their
own relief efforts were kept going to bridge that gap as far as they could manage, but once the government soup
kitchens were established they saw no point in duplicating them.
Second, the Quaker relief committees were suffering from both donor fatigue and physical fatigue. In
essence, their operations had been established to meet the shortages expected in 1846/47 and many of the
donors had given all that they could afford. The resources of the relief committees had been carefully managed
over the year, but there was a comparatively small amount left by the summer of 1847. With the co-operation of
the government a survey was carried out among the officials who ran the poor law unions which showed that
the magnitude of the destitution was so great that the resources of the Quaker committees could not even scratch
the surface. Their original assertion was that “if there be one thousand of our fellow-men who would perish if
nothing be done, our rescue of one hundred from destruction is surely not the less a duty and a privilege,
because there are another nine hundred whom we cannot save.” In theory this maxim should remain valid if the
proportion was one hundred out of hundreds of thousands, but in practice the resources available might not have
saved anyone at all given the scale of the destitution.
Instead, it was felt that meager resources should be kept only for those who were not eligible for
government assistance and for longer term projects. Members of the Society of Friends had always felt that
the only way to make a lasting contribution to help solve the problem was by means other than short-
term distribution of food. The first moves towards this type of aid came in the early days of the Quaker
involvement when cash donations were given to people in Galway and Mayo who had set up local
employment schemes, mainly involved with weaving and other textile production. As time went on,
however, a greater variety of projects were undertaken or supported.
Fisheries
In a famine it is a natural reaction to seek alternative ways of producing food and Quaker workers
sought to do this through assistance to fisheries. In the early stages of the relief efforts Quaker travelers in
Galway discovered that the fishermen of the Claddagh had pawned their nets and other equipment during the
previous year and were destitute. Through cash loans the tackle1 was redeemed2 and the fishing community
became self-sufficient again. Similar aid was given to fishermen in such centers as Kingstown, Arklow and
Ballycotton and for a small initial input poverty-stricken communities were given back the means of supporting
themselves. In the main the loans were repaid within a short time and the funds became available again for other
purposes.
Not content with helping existing fishing communities the Quaker committees became involved in
projects to foster new fisheries. For a variety of reasons these were not successful —distance from markets and
the lack of bait due to the destruction of shellfish beds by the starving population. Fishery projects at Achill and
Ballinakill Bay, near Clifden, did not last long. Another, at Belmullet, kept going for two years from the end of
1847 and some fifteen fishing boats and ten curraghs were fitted out. Ultimately, this project failed through bad
management by the proprietor. A fourth project was undertaken at Castletownbere in west Cork from the
autumn of 1847, lasting for nearly five years and employing fifty-four men and boys. Eventually this, too, failed
through bad management.
Probably the most worthwhile fishery project was that which was established at Ring through the
initiative of the local Church of Ireland vicar and which was given financial support by the Quaker relief
committee based in Waterford. This provided work and food for a number of families and for a time a fish-
curing plant was operated here with Quaker funding.
Seed distribution
In the spring of 1847 an English Quaker, William Bennett, arrived in Ireland with the intention of
touring the worst-hit areas. He believed that as the potato had proved to be an unreliable source of food there
was a need to encourage a greater diversity of crops. To this end he and his son acquired seed from W.
Drummond and Sons in Dawson Street. His main choice was turnip seed together with carrots and
mangelwurzel and later he included cabbage, parsnip and flax.
William Bennett distributed most of his seed in Mayo and Donegal and while he was there, he also made
cash grants to local craft industries that had been set up to provide employment. After six weeks he returned to
England where he published a book entitled Six Weeks in Ireland, and this was influential in encouraging the
flow of donations.
Some of the local Quaker committees became involved in the distribution of seed, but the central
committee in Dublin was hesitant, believing that any crops grown would be distrained by the landlords in lieu
of rent owed. However, in May 1847, Sir Randolph Routh, the government’s Commissary-General, gave some
eighteen tons of seed to the committee for distribution. The task of organizing distribution was given to William
Todhunter, who managed to do so by means of the postal system together with free carriage donated by a coach
company and a steam packet company. Some 40,000 smallholders received grants of seed and it is estimated
that 9,600 acres of crops were sown.
Following the success of this operation the Quaker central relief committee repeated the exercise in the
spring of 1848, laying out an initial sum of £5,000 to purchase and distribute almost sixty tons of seed. It is
estimated that 32,000 acres of crops were grown as a result, and that about 150,000 people would have been
supplied with food as a result.
Agricultural improvement
The next logical step after the distribution of seed was to become directly involved in agriculture.
Members of the Society of Friends who were involved in the relief operations could see that the government
relief works did nothing to improve the long term prospects of the country as they were mostly concentrated on
non-productive tasks. In 1848 the idea of undertaking agricultural reclamation works was put forward as a more
useful operation.

1
Tackle: fishing gear.
2
To redeem is to regain something that was pawned by paying it.
 The initiative came from a group of landowners on the borders of Mayo and Sligo, near Ballina, who
approached the central relief committee in the spring of 1848 with an offer of the free use of land for a season.
The offer was taken up, some 550 Irish acres, equivalent to about 360 hectares, were selected for the scheme
and more than a thousand people were taken on to prepare the land for crops using spade labor. The workers
were paid by the task, but unlike the government works of the previous season, the rates of pay were higher than
normal to allow for the lower productivity to be expected from people debilitated by the effects of famine and
disease. The cost of this project was about £300 in a normal week but reached £500 a week from time to time.
Part of the cost was laid out in the purchase of fertilizer and care was taken to use only imported fertilizer to
avoid distorting the local market and pricing it out of the reach of other farmers.
A variety of crops was sown and again the turnip formed a large part of the operation, while for obvious
reasons no potatoes were sown. In order to bring some diversity of employment a certain quantity of flax was
also introduced. However, when the harvest came, this spade-cultivation experiment proved very disappointing
in its yield. Various reasons were advanced for this, including the previous condition of the land, a factor which
seemed to be borne out when the landowners managed a far better yield in the following season. In all,
however, the project was a success in its main two aims to provide employment and to teach small-holders how
to manage alternative varieties of crops.
The central relief committee was also involved in a number of similar projects on smaller scales through
the giving of loans for spade cultivation to local landowners. The success of these was often better than that of
the Ballina project and in general the loans were repaid.
A further benefit of the various agricultural schemes was the effect on the local economies. Some of the
landowners involved in these projects commented that the numbers of people dependent on the local poor law
unions had greatly decreased with a consequent reduction in the rates. One commentator in Fermanagh
estimated that the poor law rate in the district where his spade cultivation scheme had operated was as little as
12 per cent of the local average.
Following the experience in Ballina a proposal was put forward to the central relief committee that it
should establish a model farm for the more effective teaching of methods of growing crops and to act as an
example of how a well-run farm should operate. A suitable property was found at Colmanstown in east Galway
in the spring of 1849 and an extensive range of farm buildings was constructed. Before the farm could become
fully operational a considerable amount of land reclamation was required and this involved the removal of
ditches to create larger fields and the laying of land drains. A stream was diverted to supply water to a mill
which would carry out the threshing and milling of the grain crops.
Some 228 people were employed on the Colmanstown model farm and a variety of crops was grown
including grain and green crops, while there was also a wide range of farm animals such as cattle, sheep and
pigs. This project was continued long after the end of the famine, only coming to an end in the early 1860s
when the property was sold.
Industry
In line with the belief that longer-term changes were needed the Quaker relief operation sought to
encourage the diversification of the economy and this included various industrial projects. An attempt was made
in 1848 to become directly involved through the establishment of a flannel manufacturing operation in
Connaught. While the project was considered to be worthwhile and machinery was found for the task, at a late
stage the committee shied away from direct involvement, deciding instead to offer financial backing to any
suitable person who wished to take on the enterprise. Unfortunately, no one came forward.
A number of loans and grants were given to others who were providing industrial employment, ranging
from small scale cottage industries3 to factory or mill-based enterprises. Amongst the latter were flax mills set
up in the Ballina area as a direct result of the Quaker spade-cultivation exercise in 1848.

3
A cottage industry is a business or manufacturing activity carried on in a person’s home. Many kinds of handicrafts are cottage-
industry goods.
Campaigns
The Society of Friends was in frequent contact with the government and in a number of ways these
contacts were useful and successful. In the early stages the London committee persuaded the government to
make available two steamships to bring supplies collected in Britain over to the west coast of Ireland. A little
later the government was prevailed upon to pay the considerable cost of transporting American food across the
Atlantic. A major operational cost within Ireland could have been the transport and storage of food, but an
agreement with the government commissariat removed the cost and responsibility entirely. Under this
arrangement all food landed in Ireland for the Quaker relief operations would be handed over directly to the
commissariat in exchange for a credit note. This note could be used at any commissariat depot throughout
Ireland to draw down supplies of food for distribution locally.
The London relief committee succeeded in persuading the Admiralty to update the charts of the west
coast of Ireland as the existing charts had proved to be extremely inaccurate and useless for fisheries. Other
campaigns undertaken included putting on pressure to have certain controls on fishing relaxed to improve the
amount of food available.
The greatest of these campaigns was the attempt to persuade the government to make fundamental
changes in the system of land tenure. Much of this work was carried out by Jonathan Pim, one of the secretaries
of the Dublin committee. He published a book on the subject in 1848 and he had a part in the final drafting of
the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849. Long after the famine was over, Jonathan Pim continued his campaign for
land reform, and in 1865 he entered parliament as a member for Dublin.
It is likely that he was heavily involved in the drafting of later land acts, even after he had left
parliament.
Assessment
When the central relief committee published its report in 1852, it concluded that its famine operations
had not been a success. In the context of the time this was the only possible conclusion as no organization could
celebrate the success of a relief operation in the light of the massive toll of death and emigration.
Looked at another way, however, this cannot be deemed a failure. The extent and variety of the Friends’
relief operations were out of proportion to the mere 3,000 members of the Society in Ireland. The total of
£200,000 that was handled by the Quaker relief bodies was a small part of the total from all sources, but it
nevertheless represents about £11 million at today’s prices. Nearly 8,000 tons of food were distributed along
with almost 300 soup boilers and nearly 80 tons of seed. Countless numbers of people were given employment
in agriculture, fisheries and industry, and many more were taught how to grow crops which had previously been
unfamiliar to them. While the relief was organized by a religious body, there was a strict rule that there were to
be no religious strings attached.
The exercise was not without its toll among the Quaker relief workers. The strain of intense involvement
over a protracted period affected the health of many workers and some died. Others contracted famine diseases
in the course of their relief works. It is not known how many died either directly or indirectly as a result of their
involvement, but the few who are known include Joseph Bewley, the leading light in the Dublin operations,
who died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-six through over-work. Jacob Harvey, who was central to the
operations in New York, also died through over-exertion as did William Todhunter, who was aged forty-six.
Abraham Beale of the Cork committee contracted typhus and died.
The selfless way in which these Quakers gave of their time, energies, and even their health made its
impact on the Irish psyche, and to this day the famine relief efforts of the Society of Friends have not been
forgotten in folk memory.

Rob Goodbody is a member of the Historical Committee of the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland.
Further reading:
▪ R. Goodbody, A Suitable Channel: Quaker Relief in the Great Famine (Dublin, 1995).
▪ M.J. Wigham, The Irish Quakers: A Short History of the Society of Friends in Ireland (Dublin, 1992).
Taken from https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/quakers-the-famine/
 Text 2: The Irish Potato Famine: How the Free Market helped reduce the
Effects of the Famines in Ireland from 1845 to 1851
This text was written by Teresa R. Johnson (who was a free-lance writer in Memphis, Tennessee in 1987) and published
in the journal The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty in January 1987. • Volume: 37 • Issue: No. 1. The Freeman was an
American libertarian journal formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). The Freeman was
founded in 1950, but in September 2016, the FEE announced it would permanently end its publication. The FEE was
established to present the principles of free markets, limited government, private property, the rule of law, and libertarian
philosophy and to oppose government programs introduced during the 1930s under President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Every year from 1845 to 1851 a deadly blight attacked Ireland’s potato crop, causing severe famine.
About a million people died and at least a million others emigrated. Historians offer various explanations of
how such massive suffering could have occurred in a province of Great Britain, then the richest nation in the
world. Although their explanations vary, most historians insist that if the British government had abandoned
free market4 principles, few, if any, Irish people would have died. Yet evidence shows that free market
principles did not increase the suffering of the Irish, but, rather, alleviated much of the misery that the famine
caused.5
It is not my purpose to determine the reasons for Ireland’s distress. I do intend to show, however, that
free market economics did not murder a million Irish people, despite what many historians say.6 I will present a
brief history of the tenant-farmers, the people who suffered most during the famine. Next, I will demonstrate
that the British government did not consistently uphold free market principles. I will then discuss how free
enterprise reduced the effects of the famine. First, however, I will show how a few historians describe the
impact of free market principles on Ireland’s misery.
Some historians who favor government intervention suggest that the British leaders were caught up in
forces beyond their control. For example, Kevin Nowlan7 writes: “The history of the great famine does not
sustain a charge of deliberate cruelty and malice against those governing, but it is a chastening story of how
fashions in social and economic ideas and human limitations can combine to increase the sufferings of people”
(p. 133). Likewise, Thomas O’Neill says of Parliament, “The fetish of free trade had tied their hands” (p. 257).
Yet those who would make such statements blame the system of free market economics without acknowledging
that Parliament did not strictly follow that system and without mentioning that the Irish people bore some
responsibility for their own situation.
Lawrence McCaffrey8 is one historian who explicitly condemns Parliament for supporting free
enterprise. Whereas Nowlan refrains from charging the British leaders with deliberate cruelty, McCaffrey
compares them to the Nazis. Likening the famine-stricken Irish to the Jews in Nazi Germany, McCaffrey says
that both groups suffered “ideological murder.” He continues,
Certainly, the Nazis were more ruthless, heartless, and consistent in the application of racist principles
than Trevelyan and his colleagues were in enforcing the dogmas of political economy. But an Irishman
dying of hunger or crowded into the bowels of an emigrant ship in the 1840s would have had scant

4
A free market is a market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an
idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e., buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual
agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation. The opposite of free market principles are
interventionist measures or state aid by the government.
5
Thesis statement.
6
Thesis statement.
7
Professor Kevin B. Nowlan (died 2013), was a professor of Irish history at University College Dublin (UCD); he was president of
Dublin Civic Trust and vice-president of the Irish Georgian Society. He campaigned tirelessly to protect Dublin’s heritage and urged
young people to join organizations and groups dedicated to saving what was left of Ireland’s cultural inheritance. Read more
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/heritage-campaigner-kevin-b-nowlan-dies-29049697.html
8
PhD Lawrence McCaffrey (1925-2020): Professor of History at Loyola University of Chicago, among the 13 books he wrote there
are: Home rule and the general election of 1874 in Ireland (1954), Ireland, from colony to nation-state (1979), The Irish diaspora in
America (1984), and The Irish Question: Two Centuries of Conflict (1995).
 consolation in knowing that his predicament was not the result of race hate, but the price he must pay to
maintain a free enterprise economy9. (p. 66)
McCaffrey admits that Ireland’s situation was complex, and he censures those Irishmen who see the
prejudice of Englishmen as the cause of all Ireland’s misery. Yet he oversimplifies the situation by placing all
the blame on Parliament for adhering to free market principles.
Background: Irish Tenant-Farmers
The situation of Irish tenant-farmers explains how the failure of a single crop could devastate an entire
country. Since most of the farmland in Ireland belonged to a few wealthy English and Irish landowners, the
majority of the Irish agricultural population did not own land and had to trade their labor for the use of a
dwelling and a garden plot. Although some of these tenant-farmers paid rent by raising and selling a pig, many
worked in their landlords’ fields of oats, rye, or other grains. For their own families they planted only potatoes,
which cost little and yielded more food per acre than most other crops (Woodham-Smith, p. 35). Also, potatoes
thrived on this rented land: ground unfit for the landowners’ grain or animals (Green, p. 103).
For most rural laborers, then, their potato crop was the only source of food. Tenant-farmers lived in
constant danger of famine, not only because they depended upon a single article of food, but also because the
potato “in its very nature [is] peculiarly liable to fail in certain seasons” (O’Brien, p. 223). The crisis that began
in 1845 was not Ireland’s first potato famine. An 1851 census reported that the potato crop had failed in some
degree at least 24 times since 1739 (Woodham-Smith, p. 38). Every summer more than two million people went
hungry until the new crop came in (Woodham-Smith, p. 165). So the failure of the potato crop yearly from 1845
to 1851 greatly increased the misery of a country already burdened by extreme poverty.
Although historians emphasize Parliament’s free market stance, the best way to describe the British
economy of 1845 is that it was a fusion of free market principles and certain governmental interventionist
measures. Parliament’s critics assert that free market policies increased the ill effects of the famine. Yet
evidence shows that government intervention in the form of the Corn Laws10, the Navigation Laws11, and the
Poor Laws12 intensified Ireland’s difficulties.
When the potato crop failed, Parliament adhered to free market principles by refusing to close Ireland’s
ports. Critics insist that Parliament should have prevented the export of other crops, arguing that the Irish people
should have benefited from Irish produce. However, not only did those crops rightfully belong to the
landowners, they were also needed to feed English laborers (O’Neill, p. 257). If Parliament had closed Irish
ports, famine, rather than being prevented, would have been transferred from Ireland to England. The
suggestion that the government buy Ireland’s produce and distribute it among the Irish would have solved the
problem of paying the landlords (Woodham-Smith, p. 75), but not the problem of feeding the English laborers
[living in England].
Yet the Corn Laws and the Navigation laws show that Parliament was less dedicated to the free market
than many historians would indicate (O’Brien, pp. 265-6). The Corn Laws, passed to protect British agriculture,
kept the price of grain artificially high by imposing tariffs on imported grain. The Navigation Laws protected
the British shipping industry. Under these laws, only British ships could carry goods into British ports.
Such protectionist measures worked against both the English laborer and the Irish tenant-farmer. The
Corn Laws increased the price that the English laborers paid for food. And while thousands of Irishmen were
dying of starvation, food that private societies in the United States had sent to distribute to the Irish could not go

9
Free enterprise or private enterprise economy, also known as capitalism, is a type of economic system in which most of the means of
production are privately owned, and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.
10
The Corn Laws: Any of the regulations governing the import and export of grain (called corn by the English) in Britain. Records
mention the imposition of Corn Laws as early as the 12th century. They became politically important in the late 18th and early 19th
century, during the grain shortage caused by Britain’s growing population, bad harvests, and the blockades imposed in the Napoleonic
Wars. When Sir Robert Peel became prime minister the laws were finally repealed (1846).
11
The Navigation Acts were intended to protect English (later British) commerce from foreign competition. These laws dated back
from the 17th and 18th centuries and required the use of English or colonial ships to carry English trade. The laws were designed to
encourage English shipbuilding and restrict trade competition from England’s commercial rivals, especially the Dutch. The great Act
of 1651 was aimed at the Dutch carrying trade. The Navigation Acts were abolished in 1849, a final step towards making Britain a
free trade economy.
12
The Poor Laws: a body of laws to provide relief for the poor.
directly to Ireland. It first had to be transferred to a British ship, increasing the cost of aiding the needy and
lengthening the time that starving people had to do without food (O’Brien, p. 266). The combination of the
Corn Laws and the Navigation Laws made it unprofitable for foreign markets to sell grain to English or Irish
markets.
Only after the famine had continued for several months did Parliament finally repeal these protectionist
measures (O’Brien, p. 249). With the repeal of the Corn Laws in January 1846, American grain was bought to
sell in Ireland, thus providing food that the Irish desperately needed. A year later the repeal of the navigation
laws allowed donations from foreign countries to enter Ireland freely.
The Poor Laws provide additional examples of government intervention in Ireland. These attempts to
legislate charity were met with disapproval on all sides. Landlords opposed the bills because property taxes
funded the provisions for the poor (O’Brien, p. 187). The poor despised the workhouses, which were the major
provision for aid under the laws, because of the hideous conditions at those institutions. In many of the
workhouses prison-like discipline was enforced; in others, overcrowding and a lack of discipline allowed
immorality to go unchecked. Some parents decided that it was better for their families to remain hungry than to
live among such immoral conditions (O’Neill, p. 250).
Therefore, the belief that Ireland suffered because of Parliament’s dedication to free market economy is
wrong on two counts: First, in practice, Parliament was not completely dedicated to the free market, as
evidenced by its willingness to retain protectionist laws and to legislate charity. Second, when the market was
finally made freer by the repeal of two protectionist measures, both the Irish and the English benefited.
Direct Government Aid
The huge amount of government aid given to Ireland during the famine is further evidence that
Parliament did not strictly follow free enterprise principles. In fact, Britain spent £8,000,000 on famine relief in
the first year alone (McCaffrey, p. 65). Initially, Parliament provided the Irish tenant-farmers with public
employment so that they could earn money to buy grain, which Parliament imported from the United States.
Parliament’s public works system was, for the most part, an exercise in futility. Since the government
had stipulated that the works should not benefit any individual, most of the work involved building roads, many
of which led “from nowhere to nowhere” (Woodham-Smith, p. 166). Some of the road work was so badly
managed that it bordered on vandalism: “The roads of Ireland were ruined. … Distances which were formerly
driven in about an hour and a half . . . now took four hours, and accidents were frequent” (Woodham-Smith, p.
166). Because wage payment was often delayed for several weeks, some workers died of starvation. Thomas
O’Neill relates that “Denis McKennedy of Caharagh, co. Cork, who died on October 24 on the roadside, was
employed by the board of works up to the day of his death and was owed wages for a fortnight” (p. 229).
Another serious problem with the public works was that many people were on the payroll who did not really
need help (O’Brien, p. 253).
Before the spring of 1847, it became evident that the public works system had not fulfilled its purpose
(O’Neill, p. 234). And the worst of the famine had not yet occurred. Whereas blight had ruined only a portion of
the 1845 potato crop, it destroyed the entire 1846 crop. By July 184713, so many Irishmen had died of starvation
and related diseases that the British government began its second phase of famine relief: distributing free food.
These direct handouts also defied the free market policies that historians say Parliament upheld religiously.
The Free Market in Ireland
A study of the government food distribution in July 1847 provides evidence that free enterprise aided
Ireland. Although the northern counties depended upon agriculture almost as much as the western counties
(Green, p. 89), less than 20 per cent of the population in the north took advantage of the government’s offer of
free food, whereas in some western counties as much as 100 per cent of the population received free food
(O’Neill, p. 242). Ireland’s only thriving manufacture, the linen industry, made the difference for the north
(McDowell, p. 14). Because of this industry, many people in the north had a secure source of income and, thus,

13
Black '47 refers to 1847, the worst year of the Irish famine. During the Great Hunger, about 1 million people died and more than a
million were forced to emigrate, causing the country’s population to fall by 20%–25%, in some towns falling as much as 67% between
1841 and 1851.
could buy food instead of relying on government aid. The linen factories, which in 1850 employed almost
20,000 people (O’Brien, p. 327), did not provide the only opportunities for spinners and weavers. Northern
tenant-farmers could earn money by producing linen at home (McDowell, p. 15).
The “balanced economy” that the linen industry provided the north gave those counties many benefits
that the rest of the country did not enjoy (Green, p. 122). In most of the other counties virtually all transactions
took place by barter14; money was practically unknown. Since more capital was available in the north, most
vendors, including food merchants, were also there. Even where food was available in other parts of the
country, the lack of jobs and of capital prevented the destitute tenant-farmers from buying that food.
In most accounts of the famine years, historians say little about private relief efforts, preferring to
discuss government aid to Ireland. Yet private charity, which is a vital part of a free market economy, kept vast
numbers of Irishmen alive (O’Brien, pp. 247-8). Such charity was of two basic forms: contributing food or
money, or providing work.
Several organizations world-wide sent donations almost immediately upon hearing of the famine. The
first contributions came from Irishmen who served in the Queen’s troops in India (Woodham-Smith, p. 156).
Many donations of food and money came from Irish-American organizations. But the Society of Friends (the
Quakers) offered the most consistent aid in the early famine years. In November of 1846 they formed the
Central Relief Committee in Dublin, which worked closely with a similar committee in London (Woodham-
Smith, p. 157). After surveying the situation in Ireland, they decided that the most immediate need was to set up
food distribution sites throughout the country. Their soup kitchens were so successful that Parliament used them
as a model for its food distribution program (O’Neill, pp. 235-6).
Once the immediate crisis ended in a particular area, the Quakers attempted to stimulate the local
economy by helping the Irishmen to earn a living. In 1847, at the height of the famine, they distributed turnip
seeds to farmers who could not afford seed. The resulting crop was so bountiful that the Central Relief
Committee decided to continue the program (Woodham-Smith, p. 286). They later bought and operated a farm
in Galway county to develop and to demonstrate improved agricultural methods (O’Neill, p. 258).
The Quakers also aided the Irish fisheries. Since bad weather often prevented Irish fishermen from going
out to sea, they normally relied upon potatoes for food when they could not fish. When the potato crop failed,
many fishermen pawned their boats and tackle in order to buy food. The Quakers, through local committees,
lent the fishermen enough money to redeem their equipment (Woodham-Smith, p. 292). In the community of
Arklow alone, more than 160 families survived because of these loans (Woodham-Smith, p. 292). The Quakers
also set up new fishing stations in the western counties of Galway and Mayo and in the southern county of Cork
(Woodham-Smith, pp. 292-3).

A private relief effort that historians generally overlook is the establishment of lace-making15 as a
cottage industry. The lace-making centers were concentrated mainly in the northern and extreme southern
regions of the country. Convents ran most of the lace-making schools in the south, while wealthy ladies
sponsored the schools that opened in Northern Ireland. The lace industry began mainly because many of the
poor women strongly desired to work (Wardle, p. 187). Not wishing to rely on government aid, they asked only
for a way to provide for their families. Those who sponsored the lace schools offered exactly that: they trained
and equipped the destitute women to make lace, and in many cases they volunteered to find English buyers for
the finished product.
Many women who opened lace schools had to perform the tedious job of unravelling an existing piece of
lace in order to find out how it was made. They would teach the method to a few women, who would then teach
14
Barter is a system under which goods and services are exchanged instead of currency.
15
Lace: a fine netting or openwork fabric of cotton or silk, made by looping, twisting, or knitting thread, woven in ornamental designs.
others (Wardle, p. 178). They soon learned to concentrate on making the most time-efficient kinds of lace. And
because crochet work can be done faster than most traditional lace methods, some of the schools developed
crochet patterns that imitated lace (Feldman, p. 90).
The cottage industry that grew out of these efforts did more than provide money to buy food; it reunited
many families (Wardle, p. 197). According to Mrs. Susannah Meredith, a proprietor of one of the lace schools,
several children who had gone to lace-making schools when their parents had been forced to enter a workhouse
could soon earn enough money to feed their families. Once the family was back together, other members
learned the trade and increased the family income. The ability to earn a productive living inspired the workers
with hope and maintained the dignity that handouts16 can sometimes destroy.
Conclusion
Neither a relatively free market nor government relief programs kept many Irish people from suffering
greatly. Ireland’s problems had been years in the making; they could not be solved overnight. Yet the urgent
needs created by the potato crop failure required overnight solutions. To blame free enterprise for not providing
those solutions is to ignore the complexity of Ireland’s situation.
Free enterprise, while it did not save every Irishman, did not increase the suffering that occurred in
Ireland in the mid-1800s. In fact, Parliament’s move toward freeing the economy by repealing the Corn Laws
and the Navigation Laws alleviated much of the suffering in Ireland. And in Northern Ireland, where the linen
industry had raised the standard of living, the people suffered less and relied less on government aid.
Furthermore, private charity saved the lives of countless Irish tenant-farmers, worked to improve local
economies, and started a cottage industry that provided employment for many Irish women through the rest of
the century.
Lawrence McCaffrey, after maligning free enterprise, grudgingly admits that it allowed the Irish
immigrants in the United States to prosper: “They lived in a country with social mobility and economic
opportunity. American capitalism might be vicious, but it provided . . . possibilities for wealth” (p. 81). Such a
backhanded compliment17 obscures the fact that free enterprise in both Great Britain and the United States
helped the Irish people. Millions of Irishmen before, during, and after the great famine were willing to risk the
difficult passage to the United States so they could take advantage of the opportunities that “vicious American
capitalism” offered.
We need to be aware of this “vicious” tendency to interpret history so that free enterprise is seen as a
villain. Those who oppose the free enterprise of the past are those who would insist that government
intervention is the only way to eliminate the poverty that exists today. But government aid, in today’s America
as in yesterday’s Ireland, is at best ineffective, and at worst damaging to those who are supposed to benefit by
it. The American welfare system has failed just as Parliament’s attempts to aid Ireland failed. Taken from
https://fee.org/articles/the-irish-potato-famine/
References
▪ Feldman, Annette. Handmade Lace and Patterns. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
▪ Green, E. R. R. “Agriculture.” In The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-52. pp. 89- 128- Edited by
Dudley Edwards and Desmond Williams. New York: New York University Press, 1957.
▪ McCaffrey, Lawrence, The Irish Question 1800-1922. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1968.
▪ McDowell, R. B. “Ireland on the Eve of the Famine.” In The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845.52, pp. 3-
86.
▪ Nowlan, Kevin. “The Political Background.” In The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-52, pp. 131-206.
▪ O’Brien, George. The Economic History of Ireland from the Union to the Famine, Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M.
Kelley, 1972 [1921].
▪ O’Neill, Thomas, “The Organization and Administration of Relief, 1845-52,” In The Great Famine: Studies in Irish
History 1845-52, pp. 209-259.
▪ Wardle, Patricia. Victorian Lace. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1968.
▪ Woodham-Smith, Cecil. The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-9. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962.

16
Handouts: aid; charity; something given free to a needy person or organization.
17
A backhanded compliment is a compliment that implies it is not really a compliment at all. Example: She paid me a backhanded
compliment when she said my work was “surprisingly good.”
Video 3 – Song “Famine” released in 1994 by Sinead O’Connor (4 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8BDWmGQmY

Video 4 – Song “Famine” – Official video (4 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZIB6MslCAo

Video 5 – Song “Famine” in Concert (5 min)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyLnbjtBLX4

Stanza I
Ok, I want to talk about Ireland
specifically I want to talk about the
“famine”
about the fact that there never
really was one
There was no “famine.”18
And then on the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach
our children Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still
hurting “we”
And this leads to massive self-
destruction
alcoholism, drug addiction
All desperate attempts at running
And in its worst form
becomes actual killing

See, Irish people were only allowed See, we’re like a child that’s been And if there ever is gonna be
to eat potatoes battered healing
All of the other food: has to drive itself out of its head there has to be remembering
Meat, fish, vegetables because it’s frightened and then grieving
were shipped out of the country Still feels all the painful feelings So that there then can be forgiving
under armed guard But they lose contact with the there has to be knowledge and
to England while the Irish people memory understanding
starved.

Refrain
All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?

18
What Sinead O’Connor means is that, in her opinion, there was no famine, but genocide.
Stanza II
An American army regulation Anyway, during the supposed but its use in the controlling of our
says you mustn’t kill more than “famine” education
10% of a nation We lost a lot more than 10% of our
'Cos to do so causes permanent nation School goes on about Black ‘47,
“psychological damage” Through deaths on land or on ships On and on about “The terrible
It’s not permanent but they didn’t of emigration famine”;
know that But what finally broke us was not But what they don’t say is in truth
starvation There really never was one.
Refrain
(Excuse me? Sorry? Excuse me?)
(I can tell you in one word!)
All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?

Stanza III
So, let’s take a look, shall we?
The highest statistics of child abuse
in the EEC19
And we say we’re a Christian
country
But we’ve lost contact with our
history
See, we used to worship God as a
mother
We’re suffering from post-
traumatic stress disorder
Look at all our old men in the pubs
Look at all our young people on
drugs
We used to worship God as a And if there ever is gonna be
mother healing
Now, look at what we’re doing to there has to be remembering
each other and then grieving
We’ve even made killers of So that there then can be forgiving
ourselves there has to be knowledge and
The most child-like trusting people understanding
in the universe
And this is what’s wrong with us
Our history books, (and) the parent
figures, lied to us
I see the Irish as a race
like a child that got itself bashed in
the face

Refrain
All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?

“We stand on the brink of a great achievement. There are those who would stop us –on both sides of the border.
I speak to them first. I say to them that in this island there is no solution to be found to our disagreements by
shooting each other. There is no real invader here. We are all Irish in all our different kinds of ways. We must
not now, or ever in the future, show anything to each other except tolerance, forbearance and neighborly love.
(…) Because of our traditions everyone here knows who he is and what God expects them to do.”

How do we keep our balance?

Forgiveness…
Forgiveness…
Forgiveness… Yes.

19
The EEC was the European Economic Community created in 1957.
 On July 11, 1970, Taoiseach Jack Lynch (1917-1999), Prime Minister of Ireland from 1966 to 1973 and
from 1977 to 1979, gave a speech on national network in response to the growing threat of nationalist violence
in Northern Ireland. This speech was delivered at a very difficult moment in modern Irish history, coming as it
did at the beginning of The Troubles. Parts of this speech made by Taoiseach Jack Lynch are the ones Sinead
O’Connor included in her song “Famine.”
The Troubles, also called the Northern Ireland conflict, was the violent sectarian conflict that lasted
from 1968 to 1998 in Northern Ireland between the overwhelmingly Protestant unionists (Loyalists), who
desired the province to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic
nationalists (Republicans), who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland. Listen to the
speech he delivered here https://www.rte.ie/archives/2015/0710/713954-taoiseach-appeals-for-orange-day-
peace/

Week 4: Questions for Class Discussion

The professor in charge should assign these questions to groups of two students to be answered either as
a writing assignment in a discussion board or as a speaking assignment in an online class.

1) Read Text 1 “Quakers and the Famine” and Text 2 “The Irish Potato Famine: How the Free Market helped
reduce the Effects of the Famines in Ireland from 1845-1851” to answer the following questions:
a) How did the free market help reduce the effects of the famines in Ireland from 1845 to 1851?
b) How did private charity save lives and improve local economies? Mention all efforts made by the
Society of Friends (the Quakers) in Ireland. What projects were successful and what schemes failed?
Continue the chart below that we began for you.

Projects that were undertaken or Was this project successful? Did this project fail?
supported How was this project successful? How did this project fail?
Distribution of food: Soup kitchens
Distribution of clothing
Assistance to existing fishing
communities
Projects to foster new fisheries
Seed distribution
Agricultural improvement
Industrial project: The
establishment of a flannel
manufacturing operation
Providing employment through
cottage industries
Providing employment through
factory or mill-based enterprises
Campaigns
The establishment of lace-making
as a cottage industry
Other projects

2) What point does Teresa Johnson make when she states in her conclusion: “Ireland’s problems had been years
in the making; they could not be solved overnight. Yet the urgent needs created by the potato crop failure
required overnight solutions. To blame free enterprise for not providing those solutions is to ignore the
complexity of Ireland’s situation”? Explain.
3) According to the lyrics of her song “Famine,”
a) For Sinead O’Connor, if there was no “famine,” what was there?
Also watch Video 3 of Week 3 “The Famine – Lecture by Professor Patrick Geoghegan of Trinity
College Dublin” from minute 7 to minute 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMRPWxCdvHs to
answer: What does Professor Geoghegan say about some people referring to the famine as a holocaust,
or as genocide? What are the problems that there are with using those terms?
b) Why does Sinead O’Connor mention the American Army regulation of not killing more than 10% of a
nation? What is her point?
c) What does “Black ‘47” refer to?
d) What did history books and the parent figures lie the Irish people about?
e) What were the long-term psychological effects of the Potato Famine on the Irish people in the 1990s and
what solutions does Sinead O’Connor propose in her song to solve these social problems?
f) What words does Sinead O’Connor use to make reference to the 1970s-1990s bomb attacks carried out
by the IRA against the British?
g) Why did Sinead O’Connor include parts of the speech made in 1970 by Taoiseach Jack Lynch? Please,
reflect upon the fact that this speech was delivered in 1970, and Sinead O’Connor mentions it in her
song released in 1994. Does Sinead O’Connor want to encourage reflection on the past to move forward
into the future without violence? What other interpretation can you give to the song?

UCV-EIM-Third year-CTT1-Third Term-Prof. Eleanor Jackeline Meléndez-Updated in 2021.