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The Irish famine - an insight

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  • The Irish famine - an insight

    An insight into a hugely influential event for both Ireland and elsewhere. Its sad to think that this burial site was forgotten about, a reflection of how common such things were at the time and a need to forget. The great famine was the catalyst for mass emigration across the Atlantic, and why not, this was the alternative......

    Witnesses to a catastrophe - The Irish Times - Thu, Oct 20, 2011

    Witnesses to a catastrophe

    A forgotten Famine burial site inside the grounds of a former workhouse in Kilkenny has yielded the remains of nearly 1,000
    people, and a wealth of knowledge about how they lived and how they died.

    AN GORTA MÓR, the Great Hunger, was a time of terrible human drama as Ireland’s poor struggled to survive the ravages of famine and disease. The chance discovery of a Famine-period burial ground in Kilkenny city now helps to tell their story, how they lived and how they died during a dark period of Ireland’s history.

    Some one million people died and were buried as conditions and finance allowed, with the poorest ending up in burial grounds used by a network of Victorian workhouses.

    It was on the grounds of just such a workhouse in Kilkenny that the remains of almost 1,000 victims were found in 2005 as work got under way on a new shopping centre.

    The discovery in turn delivered an unparalleled opportunity to gather hard information about the victims and how they died, says osteoarchaeological scientist Jonny Geber.

    He conducted research on the bones recovered from the burial site inside the grounds of the Kilkenny Union Workhouse, in the process gaining important insight into conditions at the time.

    “There are plenty of burial grounds associated with workhouses, but these were known and would never be excavated,” explains Geber.

    Remarkably, the burial site inside the grounds of the Kilkenny workhouse was never consecrated and for some reason remained unknown. “This is unique. This burial ground was completely unknown, it had been lost in local memory,” he says. “That is one of the most fascinating aspects of it.”

    Given the situation, authorisation was given to fully excavate and clear the site. Here was an unprecedented opportunity to study the remains before re-interrment, something that provided the possibility of a forensic analysis of the workhouse residents and the conditions in which they lived and died.

    The deceased could become silent witnesses to the catastrophe that ravaged Ireland during the mid-18th century and also help reveal how the calamity struck the lowest levels of society.

    Geber became involved in 2006 after archaeologists Margaret Gowen Co were commissioned to excavate the site. “I quickly realised the site was very significant, very important,” he says.

    He decided to undertake a PhD in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University, Belfast, with funding provided by Johan and Jakob Söderberg Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and Margaret Gowen Co.

    The ground held the remains of 970 people who were thought to have died between 1845 and 1852. They were interred in a series of deep pits with between six and 27 people in each pit, thought to have represented that week’s deaths.

    All were buried in coffins and these were stacked in the pits one on top of the next. The majority of them, 56 per cent, were infants, children and youngsters.

    The only personal effects left behind by the almost 1,000 buried there were four sets of rosary beads, four medallions and two finger rings, poignant testimony to the poverty of those who ended up in the workhouse, were any actually needed.

    Geber got to work studying the remains, looking for the tell-tale signs of disease. In this he co-operated with Julia Beaumont, a PhD student in archaeology at the University of Bradford.

    The bones can reveal a great deal, for example the type of diet consumed by an individual or their health status given the paucity of food in parts of Ireland at the time, he says.

    The palaeopathological analysis showed that this was “a population under severe stress” caused by the Famine, he says. There were high rates of active infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and many more would have suffered with “Famine fever” or endemic typhus.

    The greatest scourge however was scurvy, caused by lack of vitamin C. The failure of the potato crop triggered the disease because this source of vitamin C dropped out of the daily diet. As a consequence more than half of those interred at Kilkenny showed bone damage caused by scurvy.

    The hard evidence provided by the research suggests that scurvy may well have added greatly to mortality at the time, Geber says. The prevalence rate in Kilkenny is higher than most historical estimates in general and scurvy in certain age groups is correlated with mortality.

    The research also showed that the workhouse did provide at least some vitamin C in the diet delivered to the inmates. This too was revealed in the bones, says Geber.

    The evidence from the burial grounds also matched up with what the records of the time had to say about conditions inside the workhouse and provides greater clarity about this harsh system.

    Workhouses for the poor were introduced in Ireland in 1838, says Geber. Their purpose was to provide a place of final retreat for the destitute, but in fact the real goal was to deter people from seeking relief by making sure conditions inside were always more wretched than conditions outside. This means that those who viewed the workhouses as a refuge were truly without hope.

    The horror of conditions must have reached a peak during the Famine. The Kilkenny workhouse was built for 1,300 inmates but records show that by June, 1851 it housed 4,357 souls, says Geber.

    Other stories resulted from the research, for example four adults interred there underwent lower limb amputations, with two failing to survive, the evidence being burial along with the severed limb.

    The analysis was completed last year and the remains were re-interred in a special memorial and garden built adjacent to the shopping centre. Few who pass by however and glance casually at the dedication stone could ever comprehend the horrors experienced by those buried there.

    Famine uncovered: many children died alone in the workhouse


    CHILDREN MUST have suffered terribly during the Famine, not just in terms of hunger but also from social isolation and abandonment.

    “The most startling discovery was that there were so many children among the dead, particularly children aged two through six,” explains Jonny Geber, the researcher who analysed the remains of the Famine dead.

    “The Famine would have struck an entire generation but children tend to be ignored in the social research,” he says. “We know a lot of children would have died in the Famine and this shows it.”

    The harsh Victorian workhouse system was based on the idea that people were poor through their own fault and therefore deserved punishment. Only orphans, complete families with children or the very oldest and weakest would have been allowed to enter this unforgiving regime.

    The large number of children’s skeletons testified to their presence in the burial pits; youngsters who would have lost parents or been abandoned at the door in the hopes they might survive An Gorta Mór. Of the 970 skeletons analysed more than 540 were children of varying ages.

    “Many children died alone in the workhouse, there must have been thousands of them. It is sad to think of it,” says Geber.

    These children were buried in the pits with the adults, but the Kilkenny Board of Guardians who ran the workhouse went to great lengths to maintain the dignity in death of adults and children, Geber says.

    “To be buried in a coffin was very important in 19th-century Ireland.”

    Records at the time showed that the officials struggled to keep up with expenditure on coffins and shrouds for the dead.

    None of the burials occurred without a coffin, implying that the notorious sliding coffin was not used in Kilkenny, he says. Some workhouses found a way to cut costs by using these devices, which included a hinged door. Once the burial took place, the body would drop out while the coffin could be lifted from the grave and used for the next victim.

    Almost all of the bodies were interred in individual coffins which were stacked in the pits before burial. In 10 cases the coffins were shared, usually by an adult and a child with the child placed by the legs of the adult.

    One coffin was found to have an adult with two children and in another touching case a newborn child was found nestled in the crook of the arm of a female, presumably its mother.

    Geber acknowledged he felt a “huge sense of responsibility” towards the Famine victims found in the Kilkenny Union Workhouse. He hoped that by telling their story some of their dignity could be returned.

    – Dick Ahlstrom

  • #2
    Even when I was a child in the sixties and seventies the story was taught in schools that the famine was the Irish peoples fault, the implication being they were too stupid to grow anything but potatoes. A dark and terrible time.
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
      Even when I was a child in the sixties and seventies the story was taught in schools that the famine was the Irish peoples fault, the implication being they were too stupid to grow anything but potatoes. A dark and terrible time.
      That's what we were told as well Pari. I always thought 'why not eat something else then' 'How many potatoes can you eat'? Of course we were getting it from the English point of view.

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      • #4
        The problem was that nearly all the potatoes grown in Ireland were 'clones', plant a bit of potato skin and you get more of the same. The genetic variety was too limited to cope with one problem.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by snapper View Post
          The problem was that nearly all the potatoes grown in Ireland were 'clones', plant a bit of potato skin and you get more of the same. The genetic variety was too limited to cope with one problem.
          Are you aware that food exports from Ireland increased during the famine(s)
          In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

          Leibniz

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          • #6
            Like with most famines, the starvations were not caused because there was not enough food, but because the most important income source for most people was destroyed (in this case potatos). With a lot of food production gone the cost of the remaining food (which in theory could still have feed Ireland) skyrocket and become unaffordable to all those people who had already lost their income.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by snapper View Post
              The problem was that nearly all the potatoes grown in Ireland were 'clones', plant a bit of potato skin and you get more of the same. The genetic variety was too limited to cope with one problem.
              That describes the reason why blight killed so many potatoes, not the reason so many people starved. The Scottish highlands & islands were hit just as hard by blight, yet there were few deaths. The death toll in Ireland could have been a tiny fraction of what it was had landlords, local administrators & ultimately the government in London taken a different course.
              sigpic

              Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                That describes the reason why blight killed so many potatoes, not the reason so many people starved. The Scottish highlands & islands were hit just as hard by blight, yet there were few deaths. The death toll in Ireland could have been a tiny fraction of what it was had landlords, local administrators & ultimately the government in London taken a different course.
                I concede to your excellent point. Some fault must lie with bad administration of the available food, whether by subsidy or rationing.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by snapper View Post
                  I concede to your excellent point. Some fault must lie with bad administration of the available food, whether by subsidy or rationing.
                  some? alot actually, london ruled the land, when a famine occured in 1782-83, the ports were closed and no food was exported, this time certain food item exports actually increased , while a million people died of disease, or starved to death, compounded by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were evicted.

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                  • #10
                    This summary by the historian James Donnelly looks at British ideology regarding the Irish famine and the role it played. I suppose some might find it noteworthy that I found the article on the BBC website. Its quite long so i wont post it up.

                    BBC - History - British History in depth: The Irish Famine

                    as important are the prevailing policies that created Ireland as it was in 1844, but thats a different matter to what I want to address with the above link.
                    Last edited by tantalus; 21 Oct 11,, 15:42.

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                    • #11
                      The thing that I can't get my head around is how the British, being a country that fought hard on the side of right for one of the other big human rights issues of the era - slavery - could allow a system of land administration in Ireland that left it's people in a worse position than any slave faced.
                      "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Aussiegunner View Post
                        The thing that I can't get my head around is how the British, being a country that fought hard on the side of right for one of the other big human rights issues of the era - slavery - could allow a system of land administration in Ireland that left it's people in a worse position than any slave faced.
                        Same way Thomas Jefferson & so many others who fought British 'tyranny' could own slaves. Same way people & nations consistently hold inconsistent or even diametrically opposed positions when it suits them to do so. Being a democracy & an empire is awkward at the best of times. Not fertile ground for consistency.

                        Just one point on 'worse than slavery'. It wasn't. It was at times terrible, always oppressive & ultimately fatal for some (though that was due to many factors, most of all lasseiz faire policies), but it wasn't worse. If it was I wouldn't exist & neither would a goodly percentage of Australians & Bostonians & a solid chunk of folk elsewhere. The Irish could flee Ireland. They did so in their millions throughout the C19th & C20th, often to the land of their oppressor, often to its colonies & often to the new world. Slaves rarely had that option, and even then at great risk of capture & return. Ireland under the English could be a terrible place, but it wasn't worse than slavery.
                        sigpic

                        Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                        • #13
                          Serfdom. A likeness to slavery - or virtual slavery.
                          Ego Numquam

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Chunder View Post
                            Serfdom. A likeness to slavery - or virtual slavery.
                            Yes, but people throw around terms loosely at times. Were Irish tennant farmers really serfs? Did they belong to the landowner (or, more precisely, the property)? Serfdom, in turn, is not chattel slavery. This is my point here. What the irish suffered was terrible, but there are terms that exist to describe it & ways to use those terms which do that suffering justice. Borrowing terms from elsewhere because they also signify a terrible, and in some ways similar system, does not aid our understanding of events. it obscures it. That was certainly not anyone's intent, but it can be a result. What the English did in Ireland was appaling. An example of just how terrible colonialism can be (not that there is any shortage). A blot on English history. It can & should be understood for what it was.
                            sigpic

                            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                            • #15
                              I think colonialism is probably the most accurate term of Irish history in its entirety but you can also at points find genocide and yes, slavery - Ireland is a fertile land that British administrators from early times saw as a place which could be a breadbasket to English expansion. The problem was there were people already living there. British propaganda for years (that fed into later stereotypes) placed a huge emphasis on dehumanising the Irish and positioning them as creatures not worthy of basic human decencies, as such it was easy to justify mass murder of those who were not fully human (a tactic that was expanded to other groups such as Africans and Asians at later dates to great success). That the feckless Irish had Brehon laws that granted men and women unparalleled equality in the time period concerned (with a form of divorce and compensation), that Irish were more hygenic than English (Gráinne Mhaol famously tossed a hanky given by Queen Elizabeth into the fire rather than keep it because it was dirty once used, to the changrin of the court) and that Irish culture was well-developed and of at least equal sophistication to the island next door was irrelevant.

                              Irish land law under British rule is interesting because it shows just how subjective the idea of private property is - Ireland became a rentier society with big landlords who "owned" the land (by slaughtering its occupiers) but rented it back to their survivors as tenants who had no rights, from which sprung the land league and some of the earliest socialist ideas, such as the abolition of rent and landlords. The complete illegitimacy of the system prompted radical thinking:



                              The blight was a natural disaster but its consequences were deliberate mass murder because ideological connotions at the time aligned with English interests - the areas hardest hit along the rugged West Coast were areas where Gaeilge was still dominant and where the English always expected more trouble would come from. They successfully imported colonizers to Ireland's North-East in the 1600s (that is the basic cause of everything since) but when the chance came the best thing to do in the West (where land is poor) was nothing at all and let "nature" take its course. There are honourable exceptions of those who raised money (including the Choctaw people in North America, at a time not easy for themselves) but the years of indifference and hatred had a natural result in the death of a million and forced expulsion of a million more. It broke the back of the nation and gave England what for 70 years seemed like final victory - Protestants were well fed, never again would a United Irishmen style rebellion of both religions against the real enemy be a threat. As I've said before my father's family line had 8 children during the famine in County Galway - 5 died, 2 left and one (my great times 5 grandmother) ate boiled clay, mud, grass and rats to keep going - she eventually escaped the countryside to Derry (on the coach of an Englishman she had sex with to "pay" for her journey) where she died gan pingin (without a penny) working in mills after a few years over-intensive labour. The land on which she had lived continued to export foodstuff the whole time and the landlord himself evicted many for lack of rent (and because the smell of corpses was putting off the horses).

                              I don't expect nor want to be treated as an impartial source but that's what it was, evil and preventable, nothing more or less.
                              Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
                              - John Stuart Mill.

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