In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by the pathogen phytophthora infestans. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and causing millions more to emigrate. It was not until 2020 that the population of Ireland hit pre-Famine levels again. Padraic X. Scanlan covers how Ireland got to the point of the majority of its inhabitants being solely dependent on the potato crop for their sustenance, and how badly England botched assistance.
Well this was a charming book. I had heard about the famine (little hard not to; my maternal great-grandfather wound up bringing himself and his eleven siblings to America because they were orphaned due to the long-term effects of it), but I had never really read a book about it. Scanlan takes you through Ireland from the time England first invaded (pox on Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell and William the Orange) and their attempt to completely eradicate the Irish language and culture to the Famine, through the horror and out the other side. He covers how many of the deaths were due to England’s mishandling of the Famine; they actually thought that it was a good thing because maybe the Irish would become “civilized”, and realize the only worthwhile society was one where people were constantly grasping for the next expensive thing. Plus they wanted to test out the viability of purchasing maize from the United States. Because mass deaths is the perfect time for your condescending, slightly xenophobic attitudes and beta-testing of new products, right?
The contents were started out as a speech he gave, and to be honest, you can tell. Each chapter ends with a four to five paragraph summation of all the information previously discussed. It read like a scholastic paper, a doctoral thesis. He did gloss over the fact that due to Queen Victoria’s low donation, the rest of England could not in good conscience donate more than the Queen, so money raised was in dribs and drabs, which other historians have covered. And he declares it apocryphal that the Irish were reduced to eating grass; again, that fact has been proven. He mentions that Ireland was importing more food than they were exporting, completely glossing over that what was exported was beef, pork, wheat and flour, while what was imported was maize. The Irish had no machinery that capable of grinding it in most of Ireland, nor any knowledge of how to cook cornmeal other than to treat it like oatmeal. And the instructions the English “helpfully” included? Were in English; most of the people who would have benefited from those instructions only read Erse. Or that he blames the English Politicians for what happened, while also absolving England of any major blame; because being thankful that people are dying of starvation or evicting them so they die of starvation and/or exposure solely so that English landowners could have more land with less people on it isn’t exactly the same as actively setting up situations so that they die, I guess. Because people being buried in shallow graves, or the bodies being left where they fell, the mothers suffocating their children because it was kinder than starvation, the people who ate leaves and moldy vegetable ends and raw seaweed were inconveniences to the English (or Anglo Irish) landowners having room for their ornamental gardens and their cattle. And the cost of a lot of the relief was passed back onto the Irish, when they weren’t forcing farmers to cede their lands over to the English so as to receive abysmal treatment at the Workhouses.
The most depressing fact is that the pathogen is still present in Irish fields to this day; every year weather reports go out discussing where the blight has it and how bad it’s going to be.
I did enjoy the book; it was an interesting look into Irish history and a different take on the Potato Famine. I also found it interesting that information in this book actually connected with three other books I’ve read in the last six months (The Great Mortality, Ten Birds That Changed the World, and How to Be a Victorian). If you don’t mind being mildly depressed. I’d recommend you read it too.
