Life In Ireland In The 1800's

Irish people are known all over the world Ireland, and in the mid-1800s Ireland was an agricultural nation, populated by eight million persons who were among the poorest people in the Western World. Only about a quarter of the population could read and write. Life expectancy was short, just 40 years for men. The Irish married quite young, girls at 16 and boys at 17 or 18, and tended to have large families, although infant mortality was also quite high. A British survey in 1835 found half of the rural families in Ireland living in single-room, windowless mud cabins that didn't have chimneys. The people lived in small communal clusters, known as clachans, MacManus, Seamus, 1922. Spread out among the beautiful countryside. Up to a dozen persons

lived inside a cabin, sleeping in straw on the bare ground, sharing the place with the family's pig and chickens. In some cases occupants were actually the dispossessed descendants of Irish estate owners.

It was not uncommon for a beggar in Ireland to mention that he was in fact the descendant of an ancient Irish king. MacManus, Seamus, 1922. Over 1.5 million died and another 1 million sought Refuge by attempting to Immigrate to foreign lands that promised brighter futures. Canada, America and Australia were the most popular. Those that travelled to England were met with; little or no welcome at all, local authorities demanding what little they had or threatening to send them right back. The near death of a nation through ignorance and greed was later said to be of British intent. The Irish Holocaust had taken so many, when so many just sat back and watched. Penal laws and the great potato famine of 1845 drove millions to their deaths. Others affected by what some have called genocide, boarded ships to new lands. These ships were to be known later as the coffin

ships.

The Potato
In 1844 Ireland was under British rule and Penal laws were in place to keep the poverty stricken Irish down. Penal laws prohibited Irish peasants from hunting and fishing. This luxury was kept for the British gentry and there middle men. With hunting and fishing prohibited, the daily diet was reduced to the potato, and it was liked by many because a potato would grow year round. Potatoes are not native to Ireland but likely originated in the Andes Mountains of Peru, South America. In the early 1500s, Spanish conquerors found the Incas growing the vegetable, which the Spanish called patata. They were taken back to Europe and eventually reached England where the name changed to potato. Around 1590, potatoes were introduced to Ireland where farmers quickly discovered they thrived in their country's cool moist soil with very little labor. An acre of fertilized potato field could yield up to 12 tons of potatoes, enough to feed a family of six for a year with leftovers going to the family's animals. MacManus, Seamus 1922 - In 1845 a terrible tragedy was to ensue,
The Blight
The blight was introduced to the potato crop; this blight was like a fungus that turned the potato into an inedible black mush. With no potatoes to sell the poor were evicted from their homes (huts) and with no food the poor starved and died on the roadsides by the thousand, this led to the start of the biggest Irish Immigration in history. Thousands flocked to the port towns, like Dublin Cork and Belfast. They boarded Canadian lumber ships that otherwise would have traveled back empty to Canada, and America.

Landlords
Unscrupulous landlords who wanted their lands cleared of peasants who couldn’t afford the rents and couldn’t produce the potato crop cast those that didn’t starve die, from their homes. In the 1800 a vital part of the English labor forces diet was also the potato, When English landlords seen that they couldn’t get a crop to sell in England, They sent thugs to kick the tenants off their land, leaving them to sleep in ditches and beg on the streets. Some landlords paid passage for their tenants to leave; this was their way of clearing their property in a hope that the next tenant could pay, or it freed up the land for sheep grazing.
The Land Act
The land act was established in 1846, an act solely established by English gentry in English run Courts to order the Head of the family to pay any money or rent owed to the landlord or go to the poor house and work off the families debt, in most cases it would take years to work off such a debt, inevitably, this forced many to run and seek refuge with relatives or try to board the heavily overcrowded ships that would take them to the new promise lands.
The Ships
Driven by panic, desperation and starvation, thousands of immigrants left Ireland in 1847, many left in rags with not enough food for the 40-day trip across the Atlantic and many with little or no money to buy food sold on board these ships the first coffin ships headed back for Quebec, Canada. The three thousand mile journey was devastating and with sickness rampant, it felt like it would never end, depending on winds and the captain's skill, it could take from 40 days to three months to make the crossing. Conditions on board were a lot less than desirable, they were made to carry lumber not passengers but the ship owners didn’t care if the ships hold was filled with people, more money for them and the ship it was reported would sail better because the Mass of immigrants stuffed into the ships hold would act as ballast. This chaotic and panic-stricken exodus was the largest single population movement of the 19th century. Many of the passengers were already ill with typhus as they boarded the ships, before boarding, they had been given the once-over by doctors on shore who usually rejected no one for the trip, even those seemingly on the verge of death. British ships were not required to carry doctors and anyone that died during the sea voyage was simply dumped overboard, without any religious rites. Some went to Great Britain and others to Australia, but most wanted to go to America, with fares on the Canadian ships being cheaper, many emigrants went by way of Canada and walked across the border into Maine and then south through New England. Below decks, hundreds of men, women and children of all ages huddled together in the dark on cold bare wood floors with no ventilation, inhaling the stench of vomit and the effects of diarrhea amid no sanitary facilities. Ships that actually had berths, there were no mattresses just bare board and they were never cleaned. Many sick people just stayed in bare wooden bunks lying in their own filth for the entire trip, just too sick to get up. Sharks were said to follow the ships, as there was plenty of food for them to eat, with all the bodies being dumped overboard.
The arrival
Upon arrival in the Saint Lawrence River, the ships were supposed to be inspected for disease, this took so long that in some cases it was impossible to see a doctor in less than a week. Any sick passengers removed had to be put in quarantine facilities on Grosse Isle, a small island thirty miles downstream from Quebec City. In 1847 shipload after shipload starting arriving to the St Lawrence river, these ships were full of sick, lice infested people just wanting to get off, many jumped and swam to shore while others drown, rather than spend another minute onboard. This led to the small medical inspection facility, which only had 150 beds being quickly overwhelmed. Just a couple of months later, 40 vessels containing about 14,000 Irish immigrants waited in a line extending two miles down the St. Lawrence. It took upwards of 10 days to see a doctor, many of whom were becoming ill from contact with the typhus-infected passengers. The next wave was in the summer of 1947; this time the line of ships had gotten much longer, a two-week general quarantine was ordered and imposed for all of the waiting ships. Many healthy Irish people in quarantine succumbed to typhus, as they had to remain in their lice-infested holds. Bodies were continuously just dumped into the St Laurence River.
A miracle
It may have been a small miracle or a Miracle Ship as it was later named by some the Jeanie Johnston, with the deadly combination of starvation and diseases such as typhus and cholera, death rates were said to be even higher than those in slave ships. And yet,” not a single passenger died aboard the Jeanie Johnston” Kathryn Miles 2013. Between 1848 and 1858, she was known as the "Luckiest Ship in the World" and she Ferried 2,000 immigrants safely to the New World in a dozen voyages across the Atlantic. Kathryn Miles 2013
In conclusion
Remembering those that died along the roadsides and those who made it to America after the hellish voyage on these vessels, and with mortality rates as high as fifty percent on these so called coffin ships, The Irish race still managed to jump through the hoops of the ill fated money hungry leeches such as, bogus politicians and gangsters who just like the English Landlords back in Ireland manipulated them to live in squalor and forced and pressed them into many forms of illegal dealings.

It would all change though and it would change in time for the better through perseverance. The journey from the hut on the side of the road to the White house was to be forged in history. JFK was the son of Famine immigrant; He would be the first roman catholic of Irish decent to be elected as the 35th President of the United States. The Irish people in General have settled all over the globe, the larger families have populated may countries and in the united states alone over 40 million claim Irish heritage. The sign is no longer is posted, NO CHINEESE OR IRISH NEED APPLY. Nowadays we are a more educated culture, and one might ask could this ever happen again. The Great Irish Famine is the most pivotal event in modern Irish history, with implications that cannot be underestimated. John Crowley,

2012.
Over a million people perished between 1845-1852, and well over a million others fled to other locales within Europe and America. By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The 2000 US census had 41 million people claim Irish ancestry, or one in five white Americans. Historians considered how such a near total decimation of a country by natural causes could take place in industrialized, 19th century Europe and situates the Great Famine alongside other world famines for a more globally informed approach. John Crowley, 2012.