1845 AD
THE GREAT FAMINE
1845 AD
The population of
Ireland had reached
1845 AD
Sir
Robert "Orange" Peel
the
British
Conservative Tory Prime Minister, now offered to establish
denominational colleges in the cities of
Belfast in
Co. Antrim
in the
Ulster Province,
Cork
in
Co. Cork
in Southern Munster
and
Galway in
Co. Galway
in the
Connacht Province,
but the
Catholic Bishops
in
Ireland
were against
the proposition due to the
lack of any chance of religious instruction also being involved in their education.
August 20th:
Now came the terrible
Potato Blight (Murrain)
An Dubhchan
(Phytophthora Infestans),
which was actually a fungus
growth and not really a disease of the potato itself,
which had first appeared in America, and then in Belgium in 1843 AD, and then in the
potato crops in
England, that had by now
spread also across the
Irish Sea
to
Ireland where
September:
Within days the
"Great Famine" in
Ireland
was to begin its rampant march, with up to
40 %
of
the potato crop this year alone being lost, which from now would only get even worse, and it would
continue on until
1849 AD,
when this previous great maintainer of life
in
Ireland
was to fail completely due to the never - ending fungus blight,
now known as
Phytophthora Infestans as although the potato was
genetically related to
the poisonous
narcotics, like Deadly Nightshade
and
Tobacco, and therefore had a similar
structure, it could not stop this particular fungus from spreading and inflicting
itself now onto the potato crops all over
Ireland.
During the
future
4 years this
terrible
Great
Famine that
was to continue to lie ahead, this
particular fungus would be the cause of greatly diminishing the
population of
Ireland, firstly by
insidious starvation, followed
on by the resulting diseases
due to the malnutrition
to be then inflicted on the
population in
Ireland,
which was then to be added to by the perpetual "pompous intolerable attitude" of
the British Conservative Imperial Governments in England. They had created the
Immoral Union
in the first place to give them total control over the lives of the population
in
Ireland,
but they had no intention of fulfilling their "moral obligations"
under it.
September:
Thomas Davis
who had been born in 1814 AD
the son of an army surgeon, who had been educated at Trinity College in Dublin,
who was the leader of the
"Young
Irelanders"
and the editor of
The Nation
newspaper, who was also a member of the
Repeal of the
Immoral Union
Association,
a person of greta foresight,
had
previously put forward the proposition that,"
You must educate to be free,"
but unfortunately he was to die this month
from fever, and leave a great gap in their leadership, as he was only just over
30 years
of age,
but his ongoing efforts on behalf of the
population in
Ireland
prior to this, were to be greatly appreciated by those who knew him and came to
know of him.
After his death, and without his overall balancing presence, there was to be no one
capable enough to keep the peace among thecommitted and
thoroughly dedicated
"Young Irelanders"
and the
Irish
Republicans
who were
among their numbers and they came into greater conflict with the peaceful democratic
ideals put forward by
Daniel O Connell
"The
Liberator" and his continuing ongoing
association with the
Whig Party,
in anticipation of gaining further democratic reform from them.
Hoping to continue on with his democratic way of doing
things,
previously
Daniel O Connell
"The Liberator," who was then an
Irish Patriot
first
and not really a
Nationalist,
was to
personally assail the
"Young
Irelanders"
for their strong revolutionary stance while trying to bring about total
Irish Freedom,
who were always to be frustrated due to the
continuing oppressive policies of the British Imperial Governments.
William Smith -
O Brien
at that time had
Daniel O Connell
remove his personal remarks, which had then helped to ease the tension
between them and
an emotional Thomas Davis also at that time then applauded
Daniel
O Connell
for doing so, while breaking down and
crying with genuine emotion, at which moment
Daniel O Connell
had
taken him by the hand and said,
"Davis, I
love you." The death of
Thomas Davis was to see
the end of the
Immoral Union Repeal Association.
John
O Mahoney,
from
Co.
Limerick
in the north - west of the
Munster Province,
was descended from a main branch of the
Heberian Eoghanacht Sept, whose original male ancestor was
110.Cian, a son of 109.Molloy / Mael Muad the
40th King of Munster,
and of 106.Sabdh
the daughter of
*105.Brian
Boru
the Heberian Dal gCais 175th High King of
Ireland. The main Sept / Family branch of the
O Mahonys had previously become
adherents to the Ascendancy Episcopalian Church of England to try and survive and hold on to theiroriginal territory
in Co. Cork in Southern
Munster, but as usual had since lost it any way to the English Land Lords the
Kingstons.
Therefore John O Mahoney as a non - Catholic had been allowed to be educated also at
Trinity College and
was a fully committed
"Young
Irelander"
and a member of the
Repeal
Association.
John
Mitchell, a son of an initial
Presbyterian minister from the
Ulster Province
who had since become a Unitarian, had also written articles for
The Nation,
and founded the
United Irishman
newspaper,
and he
was to be arrested and sentenced by the British Imperial Government to transportation to
Australia for his political outlook and
William
Smith -
O Brien
from the
English
O Brien
"survivors,"
who were now
set up in
Dromoland
Castle
in
Co. Clare
in the north - west of Munster,
had now taken over his role and was as fully committed to
Irish Freedom
as he was. Although James Stephens
who was also
a non - Catholic
from
Co.
Kilkenny
in the south - west of
Southern
Leinster
was with
John Mitchell
at the time of his arrest, he was not arrested, and was able to escape into exile into
revolutionary
France,
where he was to broaden his horizons and receive a
different outlook on how to resolve the problem of
the continuing
British Imperial Government's
ongoing oppression in
Ireland.
James Fintan Lalor,
who was of
Irish
Irian
descent,
had called on Sir
Robert
"Orange" Peel,
the British
Conservative Ascendancy Tory
Prime Minister, to
nationalise
all of the land in
Ireland
to stop any further
land agitation,
caused by the harsh treatment that was continually metered out by the greedy Land Lords on their Estates
against
their
tenant farmers and their
families, but as usual nothing was done to try and correct the cause of these ongoing
conflicts, and
James Fintan Lalor
then felt personally compelled to found the
"Irish
Tenant League"
in
Co. Tipperary
in the north - east of the Munster
Province
to try and support the besieged tenants there.
The
English Earl of Devon finally made his report to Sir
Robert "Orange" Peel and the British Conservative
Tory Government on the relations between the
Land Lords
and their
tenants
in
Ireland,
and he then
finally attempted to bring in a
Bill to
give the tenants some compensation
for any improvements
they had previously carried out on the Land Lords' Estates, but it came under attack by the powerful
Conservative
Land Lord
lobby and he had to withdraw it.
Because of the increasing and never - ending physical,
economic and
mental oppression on the population in
Ireland
the majority were
by now forced to grow more reliant
on the educated Catholic
priests for guidance, and a
devotional
religious revolution was now about to occur
in
Ireland
up to
1849 AD. (Once again if
you want to make anything stronger then continue to persecute it!)
The British Royal Commission reported that, "The sufferings of the Irish, born with exemplary patience, were greater than the people of any other Country in Europe had to sustain." But once again still nothing was done to change the situation, except that more "Absentee" Land Lords who had their Estates in Ireland continued to go off to live in London and their rent monies went with them, which only created further economic drain on the resources of Ireland and increased distress, as this new group of "Absentee" - Land Lords joined those who were already there doing the same thing by draining the economy of Ireland further making matters even worse then before. Sir Robert "Orange" Peel and the British Conservative Tory Imperial Government's only answer to all of this continuing misery and death in Ireland at this particular momentous time in Irish history, was to proclaim that, "If any tenant farmer in Ireland was to defend his farm, it is hereby denominated as Rebellion,"
The rural agricultural families in
Ireland,
increasingly, from now on were to be flung onto the bogs and
the
mountain sides, where they
had to try and survive on their own ingenuity, along with a lack
of shelter and any possible chance of sustenance, where their diet would
come to consist of
wild turnips, nettles,
chickweed, sorrel and
seaweed, (if they were lucky.) All of this misery was
also followed by increased exposure to the bitter Cold
and Wet conditions,
starvation,
and a lack of any vitamins, resulting in further
physical weakness and
subsequent fevers,
due to the loss of their small but warm
cabins,
and their eventual proximity to other distressed and infected human beings,
suffering the same fate, which
was also later on added to by a failure to be able to bury the numerous
deteriorating bodies of those along the way who were
to also succumb, rapidly, to these horrible terrible devastating conditions. Typhus
outbreaks began to occur, that were transmitted by Lice, and they were
also
already beginning to occur in
Co. Cork
in
Southern Munster,
and
Co. Kilkenny
in the south - west of
Southern
Leinster,
and all of this untold misery was
to be also accompanied by
dreadful diarrhoea
and and fatal dysentery.
Despite all of this
wretchedness
that was now occurring on the
population in
Ireland,
the total outrage
within the overall
population who were by now being affected by such miserable treatment would soon begin to subside, as the
"Great Famine"
continued to take a further grip on them,
with Yellow Fever and Jaundice
also beginning to occur. (The human anger and political protest within them would only return much later on when they would finally be able to regain some
of their physical strength back.)
November: Sir Robert "Orange" Peel the British Conservative Tory Government's Prime Minister, finally realising he had to do something showed some personal recourse when he decided to purchase 100,000 Pounds worth of American Indian corn on his own volition, against the wishes of the Conservative members of his Tory Party and it was to be eventually sent over to Co. Cork in Southern Munster, with a Relief Committee to be set up to reorganize the local committees there to distribute it at reasonable prices, but he still insisted that the export of Irish Beef, Irish Pork, Irish Lambs and Irish Grain, including Irish Corn, were continued to be transported out of Ireland to England. The British Conservative Imperial Government's control by the merchants either in or out of the Westminster Parliament with their continuing policy of Laissez - Faire (Let the Market Rule) was to be the main ongoing cause that allowed the terrible situation to continue on in Ireland. They were to refuse to place an embargo on the export of produce from Ireland, even during the worst times of the Great Famine, which finally brought not only many in Ireland, but also in Britain to the realisation that the Immoral Union meant nothing at all to the greedy merchants and their cohorts in the British Conservative Imperial Government, as this dreadful human tragedy would have never have been allowed if the "Great Famine" had occurred in England itself. Despite this pernicious attitude by those in control there, Sir Robert "Orange" Peel knew personally that he had to take some individual resposibility to remove the repressive "Corn Laws" with their high price structures that had been set to placate the insatiable merchants in England, due to the terrible circumstances now facing the population in Ireland, but his Conservative Tory Party was made up of Protectionists who discouraged any sort of relief schemes, and advised one and all that the reports of the "Great Famine" in Ireland that were being received in England were "exaggerated." Sir Robert "Orange"" Peel unfortunately now made a momentous and devastating decision when he put Charles Trevelyan, who was the Assistant - Secretary to the British Treasury, in charge of the Corn distribution and the Board of Works, to begin new road construction as he was a strong follower of the Laissez - Faire (Let the Market Rule) approach, and the people of Ireland were now to continue to suffer and die because of his personal attitude towards humanity and other unfortunate human beings.
Sir Robert "Orange" Peel the British Conservative Prime Minister in England was also still really desperate to win over the upper and middle classes in Ireland, and turn away any chance of Irish revolutionary independent aims that might have been picked up by the Catholic Irish priests who had previously had to be be educated in France and Spain and to this end he turned his attention to St. Patrick's Catholic College at Maynooth, founded in 1795 AD in Co. Kildare in Central Southern Leinster, were he increased their grant to 26,000 pounds from the 9,000 pounds previously given, and placed it in the Consolidated Fund so that it would be a permanent fixture to ensure continuity, and also gave them a further 30,000 pounds towards their building fund. This decision upset William Gladstone who was a fair - minded Scotsman, who resigned from Peel's Conservative Cabinet, but not because of any religious grounds to the grants themselves. Even at this early stage in his political career William Gladstone saw Ireland, due to the Immoral Union as a part of Great Britain that was being cruelly treated, and where entrenched injustices were being carried out by the continuing British Conservative Imperial Government authorities. He was also for the Disestablishment of the Ascendancy Church of England / Ireland altogether in Ireland and their draining "enforced" Tithes, and wanted an overall reform of the land system there on the Land Lords' Estates. Sir James Graham, who was Sir Robert "Orange" Peel's Home Secretary, was responsible for Irish Affairs at this time, and together with Sir Robert Peel he was to carry out fairly successful procedures into the next year to try and stabilise the challenging effect of the "Great Famine" in Ireland and a Relief Commission was introduced modelled on Irish Famine Relief 1836 AD - 1839 AD, but its Road Works and Poor Houses, were too slow being introduced and in the meantime 1,000,000 people were to die from starvation and typhus in Ireland and 1,000,000 were to emigrate up to 1846 AD.
Trinity
College / Dublin University
the previous
Ascendancy bastion was the only
University
in
Ireland
where degrees were now open to all, but its
scholarships and fellowships were still
only available to members of the
Ascendancy
Church of England / Ireland, and the costs to attend it
were far too high for the general struggling population in Ireland,
while in
Scotland
there were
5
Universities
catering to only a quarter of the
population that existed
in
Ireland.
Summer:
Sir Robert "Orange" Peel
the British Tory Prime Minister, put through a
Bill to create the
3 secular
Queen's Universities
that he had previously proposed in
Belfast
/ Ulster Province,
Cork
/
Munster Province
and
Galway
/
Connacht Province,
which would in theory be non - denominational. The University in
Belfast
in
Co. Antrim
in the north - east of
Ulster
would become a bastion for
Presbyterian
graduates, but later on in the
1960's it
was to foster
Irish
Catholic Civil Rights, when Irish
Catholics and
non - Catholics there were to combine in a common cause for all in the
6 Counties from the 9 in
the
Ulster Province
that would be artificially separated to continue on with the Ascendancy there. (As Thomas Davis
the recently deceased poet and leader of the
Young Irelanders
had stated, "You must
educate to be free.")
Daniel O Connell
tried to get his
Repeal
of the
Immoral Union
group to come out in
opposition to these secular Colleges who had no religious education, but he came up
against the
"Young Irelanders"
who were all for educating all
religious denominations together, as they wanted all
sectarian differences
out of
Irish
politics, but despite this they too were also not happy with the
Constitutions of the Colleges,
but still went along quietly in deference to
Daniel O Connell
as
Repeal
of the
Immoral
Union
was their main objective.
Sir Robert "Orange" Peel the British
Tory Conservative Prime Minister,
was now also politically in trouble in England, and he looked like being removed from government
there, so
Daniel O
Connell
was once again forced to ally with the
Whigs
John Henry Newman,
who was previously the
Ascendancy Church of England Vicar
at
Oxford University in
England, at this time,
became a Catholic
and would eventually become a
Catholic priest, and then a Cardinal,
and was to have a great wide spread educational influence in
Ireland,
when he would take over the running of the
Irish
Catholic University there.
1845 AD -
1926 AD, Over this period, 4,100,000 people
were to
physically
leave
Ireland
altogether,
with
3,000,000 of these
settling in the
U.S.A., 300,000
in
Australia
and New
Zealand, 200,000
in
Canada, and
60,000
in
Argentina, South Africa and other various places
of political refuge.