The Irish Famine:
A Critical Analysis of the Genocide Debate

In order to determine whether the Irish Famine was an example of genocide, it is necessary to examine the historical evidence concerning its origins and development, and to evaluate the relevant government actions which preceded it. Discerning the historical truth beyond any doubt can be difficult, especially in cases of famines, for they often occur because of a variety of agricultural meteorological, social, political, and economic factors.

Proving genocide requires the presentation of factual evidence that the terrible famine that ravaged Ireland was intentionally precipitated by government authorities. In critically analyzing this issue, the absence of any evidence that the famine was caused by the British government compels any objective observer to conclude that the Irish Potato Famine was not genocidal in nature.

This does not diminish the scope of the catastrophe, for between 1845 and 1855, “more than 750,000 Irish died and another 2 million left their homeland for Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Within five years, the Irish population was reduced by a quarter.” (DH) When a nation suffers such an apocalyptic disaster, recriminations inevitably arise as people seek explanations and demand accountability. In Ireland’s case, nationalist passions and the historical enmity between Ireland and England led to Irish charges of genocide against the British government.

While most historians have rejected the notion that the Irish Potato Famine was due to genocide, millions of people in Ireland have always believed the genocide theory, or at the very least have believed that British colonial policies were a significant cause of the famine and made it much worse than it would have been. The fact that many “Anglo-Irish estates continued to export grain and livestock to England” (DH) during the worst years of the famine does not reflect well upon the English landowners and political authorities, but it is beyond dispute that the direct cause of the Irish Potato famine was potato blight.

It is signficant that most Irish historians have refused to define the famine as genocide, for this term “implies a deliberate policy of extermination. All are agreed that the British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied under Lord John Russell, were misguided, ill-informed and disastrous.” (Wikipedia) These historians recognize the complexity of the circumstances that led to the famine and have refrained from politicizing the issue.

They understand that at the midpoint of the nineteenth-century, more than half of the Irish population depended exclusively upon potatoes for subsistence, (DH) so when ten years of potato crops were successively decimated by blight, widespread famine in Ireland was the inevitable result. Since the British government was not responsible for the blight itself, which was a type of crop fungus which spread to Ireland from Mexico, the Irish Potato Famine cannot accurately be defined as genocide.

It must be conceded however, that British control over Ireland established unjust social, economic, and political conditions which, when combined with massive potato crop failures in the mid-nineteenth-century, produced unprecedented levels of hunger and starvation in Ireland. Since Ireland was under the complete economic and political domination of Great Britain, the British government was directly responsible for the imperialistic economic and political policies that exacerbated the intensity and scale of the famine.

A historical consensus has emerged that the famine “was at least fifty years in the making, due to the disastrous interaction of British economic policy, destructive farming methods, and the unfortunate appearance of the Blight.” (Wikipedia) Like most famines, it was due to a multitude of factors which combined to produce unforeseen consequences. The consequences for the Irish people were terrible and their resentment of British imperialism is understandable, but objectivity requires rational, logical assessments of the famine, and such assessments confirm that Great Britain bears a significant degree of responsibility for the length and intensity of the famine, but cannot be blamed for its outbreak.

In conclusion, the Irish Famine cannot truly be considered an example of genocide, for the historical evidence concerning its origins and development confirms that this epic tragedy was directly caused by potato blight. Preventing the spread of the Mexican fungus that spread to Ireland and ravaged the Irish potato crops for a decade was beyond the control of British government authorities.

But there seems little doubt that British government policies contributed to the vulnerability of the Irish people to famine and that London’s responses to the famine were inadequate. Ultimately, the death and suffering of the Irish people during the famine cannot be attributed to genocide, but the conduct of the British authorities has justifiably been condemned by many historians as criminally negligent.

Sources

“Irish Potato Famine.” Wikipedia. Online. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Irish_potato_famine. 25 January 2005.
“The Irish Potato Famine.” DH. Digital History. Online. Available: http://www. digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm. 25 January 2005.

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