These sculptures can be seen if you walk along the waterfront of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. They appeared here in 1997 and are designed to remind of the terrible misfortune that came to this country in the middle of the 19th century. This trouble has a name - The Great Famine: An Gorta Mor (Irish) or Great Famine (English).
It must be said that for millennia hunger has been the real curse of humanity. He reigned throughout the entire space of the Earth, was a regular guest in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. In the "Revelation of John the Theologian" Hunger is one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse (on a black horse, the other riders are Plague on a white horse, War on a red one and Death on a pale one).
Only relatively recently did famine leave economically developed countries, and the human body reacted gratefully to this by the phenomenon of "acceleration" that surprised everyone in the post-war years. For the first time, "acceleration" was recorded at the beginning of the 20th century - when compared with the data of the 30s of the 19th century, but the "explosive" and noticeable "naked eye" character (when adolescents suddenly turned out to be taller than their parents), it acquired in the 60s of the XX centuries (including in the USSR).
At present, famine has receded to the countries of Asia and Africa, where he, as before, collects an abundant "tribute" in the form of deaths and accompanying diseases. And in the rich countries of Europe at this time, about 100 million tons of food products are annually thrown away or sent for processing; in the United States, according to the UN Commission, the share of discarded products reaches 40% of those produced.
But it was not always so. And, relatively recently, in the now quite prosperous Ireland, in front of the entire "civilized world", a real tragedy unfolded, which resulted in the death of about a million people (from 500 thousand to one and a half million according to various estimates).
This country literally became depopulated, having lost 30% of its population in 10 years (from 1841 to 1851). A sad trend continued in the future: if in 1841 the population of Ireland was 8 million 178 thousand people (it was the most densely populated country in Europe), then in 1901 it had only 4 million 459 thousand - about the same as in 1800. This was the result of hunger, disease and the massive emigration of the indigenous population from the country experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. Ireland has not fully recovered until now, and at present it is the only state in Europe, the population of which has not increased since the middle of the XIX century, but decreased.
One of the most affected regions turned out to be County Clare: at the beginning of the 19th century, the number of its inhabitants reached 208 thousand people, and in 1966 it was home to only 73.5 thousand.
But how could this have happened on the European territory of one of the most powerful empires in world history? Not somewhere overseas, in India, Burma, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, on the Fiji Islands or in New Guinea, but very close - the shortest distance between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland 154 km (St George's Channel).
First British colony
First of all, it should be said that Ireland was still a colony of the British (the first in a row), and the relations between the Irish and the British were never friendly.
It all began in 1171, when the English king Henry II Plantagenet, with the blessing of Pope Hadrian IV at the head of an army that arrived in 400 ships, invaded Ireland.
The Irish Catholic Church, which until then remained the only one independent from Rome, was subordinated to the popes. The population of the island was imposed a huge tribute. The Irish language was banned (in the 17th century, a reward equal to the bonus for a killed wolf was paid for the head of an underground teacher). As a result of this policy, Irish is the native language (learned in early childhood) for only 200 thousand people living in the west of the island. But recently, the number of Irish people who consciously learn their native language in adulthood has been growing: it is believed that about 20% of the country's population now speak it to one degree or another. Also, on the territory of Ireland, the British prohibited wearing a national costume.
Queen Elizabeth I of the land of the northeastern counties of Ireland and completely declared the property of the British crown and sold to the Anglo-Scottish colonists. As a result, over time, in six of the nine counties of Ulster (northern part of the country), the number of descendants of the Anglo-Scottish settlers turned out to be higher than the number of Irish. And when Ireland gained independence (in 1921), most of Ulster remained part of the United Kingdom.
In general, if it is necessary to characterize the centuries-old relationship between the British and the Irish, it will be possible to do so using just one word: “hatred”. Over time, even the Irish prayer "Lord, save us from the fury of the Normans" changed its content: "Lord, save us from the greed of the Anglo-Saxons."
The historian William Edward Burkhardt Dubois of the United States wrote in 1983 that "the economic situation of the peasant in Ireland was worse than that of the American slave in the era of emancipation." This opinion is all the more curious since Dubois himself is African American.
In the "enlightened" 19th century, Alfred Tennyson, the favorite poet of Queen Victoria (she gave him the title of baron and the peerage), wrote:
“The Celts are all complete morons. They live on a terrible island and have no history worth mentioning. Why can't anyone blow up this nasty island with dynamite and scatter its pieces in different directions?"
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne-Cecil Salisbury, who was three times prime minister of Great Britain in the second half and at the end of the 19th century, said that the Irish are not capable of self-government or self-survival.
And in the 20th century, English screenwriter and actor Ted Whitehead said:
"In an English court, the defendant is presumed innocent until he can prove that he is Irish."
Therefore, one should not be surprised at the indifference shown to the tragedy of the Irish people by both the government of the Empire and the ordinary British.
English lords on Irish soil
But what happened in Ireland during those terrible years?
It all started back in XII, when the first English lords appeared on the territory of Ireland. The situation worsened under Henry VIII, who announced the separation of the English Church from the Roman Catholic Church, while the Irish remained Catholics. The lords of the country were now not only the descendants of foreigners, but also Protestant Anglicans, and the hostility between the ruling elite and the common people not only did not fade away, but even grew. Irish Catholics in accordance with the so-called "punitive laws" were forbidden to own or rent land, vote and hold elected office (these "repressive" laws were partially repealed only in 1829). The Anglo-Scottish colonization of Ireland was encouraged in every possible way - to the detriment of the interests of the indigenous population. As a result, by the beginning of the 19th century. local Catholic peasants (cotters) practically lost their land plots, and were forced to conclude onerous lease agreements with British landlords.
Irish lumper
Under these conditions, the appearance of potatoes on the island in 1590 literally saved many lives: the conditions for its cultivation turned out to be almost ideal, good and, most importantly, stable yields were guaranteed even in areas with the poorest soil. In the middle of the 19th century, almost a third of the country's arable land was sown with this crop. Gradually, potatoes became the mainstay of the diet of the vast majority of the Irish, especially in the western counties of Mayo and Galway, where, it is said, 90% of the population could not afford other products than potatoes (the rest of the products were sold: money was needed to pay for land rent). It was fatal for Ireland that only one potato variety was grown in it at that time - "Irish lumper". And therefore, when in 1845 the phytophthora fungus hit the island (it is believed that one of the American ships brought it there), a disaster occurred.
An gorta mor
County Cork in the southwest of Ireland was the first to be hit, from there the disease spread to other fields and famine came to Ireland. But the next year became even more terrible, because already infected seed material was often used for planting.
As if that weren't enough for hapless Ireland, the landlords, who also suffered losses, increased their rents for the use of the land. Many peasants could not bring it in on time, as a result, only Count Llucan in County Mayo evicted 2 thousand people for non-payment of rent in 1847, all in all, 250 thousand peasants lost their homes and land plots by 1849. In County Clare, according to Captain Kennedy, from November 1847 to April 1848, about 1,000 houses of ruined peasants were demolished. In total, from 1846 to 1854. about 500 thousand people were evicted.
All these people, who had lost their last source of income and food, poured into the cities.
In the fall of 1845, 100,000 pounds of corn and Indian cornmeal were purchased in the United States, but they arrived in Ireland only in February 1846, and became literally "a drop in the ocean": it was impossible to feed the entire population of the island with them.
It is curious that the British official in charge of managing state aid to the starving, quite seriously argued that “God's judgment sent a disaster to teach the Irish a lesson.” Going against the will of the Lord, of course, was unreasonable, senseless and even criminal, therefore special zeal on his He did not hold office.”The name of this official was preserved in an Irish folk song that tells about the events of those years:
By the lonely prison wall
I heard the girl calling:
Michael, they took you away
Because Travelina stole bread, So that the baby can see the morning.
Now the prison ship is waiting in the bay."
Against Hunger and Crown
I rebelled, they will destroy me.
From now on, you must raise our child with dignity."
On March 23, 1846, John Russell, speaking in the House of Lords, declared:
“We have turned Ireland into the most backward and most disadvantaged country in the world … The whole world stigmatizes us, but we are equally indifferent to our dishonor and to the results of our mismanagement.”
His performance did not make much of an impression on the "hosts" of Great Britain.
Some of the Irish then ended up in workhouses, where they had to work for food and a place under the roof, some were hired by the government to build roads.
But the number of hungry people who lost everything was too large, and therefore in 1847 the British Parliament passed a law according to which peasants whose land plots exceeded the specified area were deprived of the right to receive benefits. As a result, some Irish people began to dismantle the roof of their houses to demonstrate their poverty to government officials. Following hunger came its constant companions - scurvy, other vitamin deficiencies, infectious diseases. And people began to die en masse. The mortality rate among children was especially high.
In 1849, cholera came to Ireland, which claimed about 36 thousand lives. Then a typhus epidemic began.
At the same time, food continued to be exported from starving Ireland.
Christina Kineli, professor at the University of Liverpool, wrote:
“This Great Catastrophe and monstrous famine was also provoked by the Irish export of livestock (with the exception of pigs), which actually increased during the famine. Food was sent under the escort of the military through those regions that suffered the most from hunger."
British historian Cecile Blanche Woodham-Smith agrees with her, who argued that
“The history of relations between these two states has not seen a greater manifestation of cruelty and hypocrisy towards Ireland on the part of England than in 1845-1849 … Irish.
At the same time, the British government tried in every possible way to downplay the scale of the catastrophe that befell Ireland and refused foreign aid. But, as they say, “you can't hide an sewn in a sack”, and information about the plight on the island went beyond the borders of Ireland and Britain. Irish soldiers serving in the East India Company raised £ 14,000 for the hungry. Pope Pius IX donated 2 thousand pounds. Religious organization British Relief Association in 1847 collected about 200 thousand pounds. And even the American Choctaw Indians sent the $ 710 they had collected to Ireland in 1847.
The Ottoman Sultan Abdul Majid I tried to donate 10 thousand pounds in 1845 to the starving Irish, but Queen Victoria asked him to reduce this amount to 1000 pounds - because she herself gave the starving British only 2 thousand. The Sultan officially transferred this money, and secretly sent three ships with food for the hungry. Despite attempts by British sailors to block these ships, they still came to the port of Droghed (County Louth).
In 1847, after two years of famine, a good harvest of potatoes was finally obtained, the following year, the farmers remaining on the island tripled the area of the potato fields - and almost all the potatoes died in the fields again, for the third time in 4 years.
Lowering duties on import duties on food could have at least slightly reduced the severity of the situation, but Ireland was part of the UK, and therefore this law, common to the entire empire, inevitably hit the interests of British farmers, and therefore the agrarian lobby of Great Britain did not allow it to be passed.
On May 19, William Hamilton, a desperate 23-year-old unemployed Irishman, attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria, but loaded his pistol incorrectly. He was sentenced to 7 years in hard labor in Australia.
It was only in 1850 that the British government, seeing the consequences of its policies, reduced taxes and canceled the debts of Irish peasants that had accumulated during the famine. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged people have gone overseas.
Death Ships
The emigration of the Irish to the United States began at the beginning of the 18th century, but Ulster Protestants, the descendants of the Anglo-Scottish settlers, predominated among the people who went overseas. They settled mainly in the "mountain" states (Mountain West - Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming). They quickly and easily adapted to the United States.
Now the Irish emigration has acquired an avalanche-like character, and new settlers have settled, as a rule, on the coast of the northeastern states. One of the first ships with emigrants sailed from Dublin on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) in 1846 from the place where the memorial “Emigrants. Hunger - you saw his photo at the very beginning of the article. This ship arrived in New York two months later - on May 18, 1846.
In just 6 years (from 1846 to 1851), five thousand ships with the Irish arrived in the USA, Canada and Australia. It is believed that in 6 years from one and a half to two million people left Ireland. These people could not afford even a 3-class cabin on a regular cruise ship, so they carried them in the holds of old, out-of-date ships, some of which were previously used to transport slaves from Africa. These ships came to be called "ships of hunger", "floating coffins" or "ships of death."It is estimated that of the 100,000 people who sailed on these ships to Canada in 1847, 16,000 died en route or shortly after arrival.
As a result, the ethnic composition of the cities on the east coast of the United States changed dramatically: up to a quarter of the population were now Irish. In Boston, for example, the Irish population has grown from 30,000 to 100,000.
The situation in Toronto, Canada, was even more serious: 38,600 Irish arrived in the city, whose population was then about 20 thousand, 1100 of whom died in the first weeks.
Currently, memorials dedicated to the Great Irish Famine can be seen in 29 cities around the world. But now, at the same time, it was absolutely impossible to call the citizens of the United States and Canada hospitable. This was especially noticeable in the cities of the northeastern coast of the United States, a significant proportion of the population of which were then anti-Catholic Puritans. The sharp increase in the Irish population caused shock and expressed hatred for the "come in large numbers". In the same Boston, everywhere one could see signs with the inscription: "Irish people should not apply for work." And emaciated Irish women were not taken "to work" even in brothels, as they did not meet the generally accepted standards of the time: women with a "curvy" figure were valued. Caricaturists and authors of feuilletons portrayed Irish immigrants as feeble-minded drunkards, incorrigible thieves, and pathological lazy people.
The aftermath of the Great Famine
Today, the Irish diaspora is many times larger than the number of Irish people living in their homeland. In addition to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Irish also reached South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Chile - only 49 countries. Gradually, the Irish were able to adapt to the new conditions.
Currently, in the United States alone, there are about 33 million citizens of Irish descent (10.5% of the total population). The largest number of descendants of Irish settlers now live in the states of Massachusetts (22.5% of the total population) and New Hampshire (20.5%). The direct descendants of the emigrants who arrived on the "ships of hunger" are John F. Kennedy and Henry Ford. And even Barack Obama's maternal grandmother was also Irish.
But Ireland itself never recovered from the consequences of this famine and is now one of the most sparsely populated countries in Western Europe. If in the Netherlands the population density is 404 people per sq. km, in Great Britain - 255, in Germany, which survived two world wars - 230, in Italy - 193, then in Ireland - 66. Only slightly more than in the desert United Arab Emirates (where the population density is 60 people per sq. km).
