Potatoes - Who Needs 'Em? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Potato plant leaves turned black, then curled and rotted

The fungus Phytophthora infestans actually came from North America to England in cargo ships, and was then dispersed by the wind across the sea to Ireland, with the first manifestations appearing in the countryside near Dublin in September of 1845, and spreading quickly.

When the fungus settled on a plant's leaves, it caused the leaves to ferment, turning black and emitting a foul odour, as it produced spores that were carried on the wind to nearby plants. The weather was ideal for fungus propagation, being warm(ish) and moist.

When potatoes were harvested, the tubers were found to be affected by the fungus, and the potatoes soon shriveled and rotted.

Answer: It was a blessing in disguise from God, meant to help the Irish diversify their agricultural practices

There were some English social reformers who held that view, but the locals never saw it as anything other than a disaster. While Divine Retribution was a popular suggestion for the origin of the blight, opinion differed as to who was actually being punished - the people as a whole, the farmers specifically, or (somewhat circuitously) landlords and representatives of English owners who had been exploiting the people who worked the land.

The blight arrived at a time when English-Irish relations were tense, following the arrest of Daniel O'Connell in 1843 for leading a movement that demanded self-government and the repeal of the Act of Union.

Answer: Corn Laws

The Corn Laws, enacted via the Importation Act 1815, were designed to protect domestic grain producers in the United Kingdom by making imported grains subject to a high tariff, and restricting the quantities that could be imported. They had already been opposed by those who suffered from the consequent increase of food prices, but the wealthy and powerful members of society who benefited from them managed to keep them in place until they were repealed via the Importation Act 1846. Corn, in British usage, means any grain that can be ground, and is commonly used to refer to wheat, not just the crop that North Americans refer to as corn, which is called maize in many parts of the world.

Answer: Charles Edward Trevelyan

Trevelyan (1807-1886) was the son of a Cornish clergyman who worked for the East India Company as a civil servant in Delhi from 1826 until 1840, when he took up the Treasury appointment which he held until 1859. He was involved in widespread reforms to the British civil service system, and has been credited with establishing it in its modern form.

His time as administrator of relief efforts in Ireland, however, was not one of the high points in his career. Whether because (as some contend) he was prejudiced against the Irish, and happy to avoid expediting relief measures, or because (as his supporters claim) his scrupulous attention to detail and lack of trust in the abilities of his subordinates led him to try to complete too much work to be accomplished in a timely manner, it was certainly the case that there was widespread discontent due to the inefficacy of the effort.

In the spring of 1846, his attempt to set up a public works program with a central office in Dublin, rather than using the previous regional centres, proved to be unworkable, and led to a number of disturbances serious enough to lead to having British troops called in to control the crowds.

Answer: An increase in anaphylactic shock due to allergies

The prime minister did not consult his party on this matter, knowing that they would refuse to sanction it. However, the gesture turned out to be less valuable than hoped, for a number of reasons, including those listed above. Even when the maize had been ground twice (in the process damaging the millstones due to its coarse nature), the grain proved a poor replacement for potatoes, especially as a working man might have consumed as much as six kilograms (fourteen pounds) of potatoes in a day, providing satisfying bulk as well as basic calorie requirements. Potatoes also contain vitamin C, especially in these quantities, which was missing in the maize, so scurvy increased.

Not only was maize harder to cook than potatoes, it also had a tendency to cause indigestion and produce diarrhea in digestive systems unaccustomed to it.

Then there was the cost of the meal - the Relief Commission sold it to local committees at a penny a pound, and that was the cost to citizens, but even that proved to be too expensive for many.

Answer: Laissez-faire

The term 'laissez-faire' is French, and means 'let it be'. As a political policy, it advocates non-intervention, and is most commonly applied in situations where involvement might be seen to pose potential political problems for those in power. The rights of private businesses and property owners were seen as being more important than the alleviation of social ills, which were hoped to sort themselves out. (Often, they sorted themselves out when the sufferers died, or emigrated to become someone else's problem.) Applied to Ireland, laissez-faire meant that the provision of food and financial relief was not going to happen. Even more seriously for the Irish, the English-controlled export trade was allowed to continue to export large quantities of wheat, barley and oats grown in Ireland, to be sold at a profit in overseas markets, while the Irish people were literally starving to death. Farmers who were desperate for cash to pay their rent were forced to sell their crops rather than use them for food, and the food then left the country.

Answer: Eviction of tenants

The crops were small, although blight-free, because farmers hadn't planted in the spring for a number of reasons: a harsh winter had delayed planting, tenants knew that whatever they grew would be taken by the landlord for back rent and would not be available for their own use, some had been too busy in public works to earn some money to have time for planting, some were too ill, some had eaten their seed potatoes in desperation to avoid starvation, and alternative crops were much too expensive for most farmers to buy the seed. The 1847 crop was about a quarter of the usual crop, and did not offer any kind of security for farmers.

Landlords, needing a source of income now that the tenants were not paying, wanted to change to farming other crops, or turn to grazing sheep or cattle. They could not do this efficiently while the small tenants' plots covered the estate, so it was necessary to move them out in order to make it work. Some were evicted by legal judgment - the man would go to gaol for failure to pay rent, and the family would end up in the streets. Alternatively, many landlords induced their tenants to emigrate, having given them the expectation that conditions would be vastly improved; sadly, this was rarely the case. It is estimated that half a million people were evicted during the period of the Famine.

Answer: Coffin ships

The first ships carrying Irish emigrants headed to Quebec, arriving between one and three months later with a shipload of passengers in varying degrees of ill health. Contagious diseases such as typhus spread rapidly under the shipboard conditions, and many either died or arrived very sick.

They were packed in, with little provision made for adequate food or health care during the voyage, and many already suffered from severe malnutrition. On arrival, sick passengers were supposed to go to a quarantine station on Grosse Isle, about thirty miles from the city.

However, the screening stations had limited manpower, especially as more and more doctors fell ill after exposure to the sick patients, and at one point in June of 1847 there were over 14,000 immigrants on ships that were lined up for miles along the St Lawrence River, waiting for weeks in a sort of shipboard de facto quarantine.

Unfortunately, this also increased the exposure of heretofore healthy passengers, increasing the fatality count dramatically.

Many ill passengers managed to make their way to the Grosse Isle facility, but it only had 150 beds, so most were accommodated in quickly-constructed sheds, which basically only provided them with a place to die. It didn't take long for authorities to give up the attempts at quarantine, and simply move the immigrants along as fast as possible to cities such as Montreal and Toronto. From there, many made their way to the United States, to escape from life under a British flag. It is estimated that about 20% of the 100,000 Irish immigrants that set sail for British North America in 1847 died during the voyage, including over 5000 at Grosse Isle.

Answer: Young Irelanders

Successful uprisings against hated governments had taken place in many northern European countries in 1848, and there was a sense of changing times that led the Irish nationalists to hope they might also free themselves from British rule. In the event, it fizzled, only amounting to a gunfight lasting several hours (on 29 July 1848) between rebels and Irish constabulary. The advance rumors, however, had made the British fear a major rebellion, and led them to take a number of harsh restrictive measures: the Treason Felony Act 1848 made those who engaged in public speech against the Crown or Parliament subject to transportation (a great source for outspoken Irish convicts in Australia!); Habeas corpus (which offers protection against unlawful detention in prison) was suspended for a year starting in the spring, and troops were shipped in to place "difficult" areas under martial law.

The failure of the rebellion led to many of its leaders fleeing to America, where they agitated for support for their cause. There James Stephens set up the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and its American branch, the Fenian Brotherhood, in 1858. Sinn Fein, established in 1905, was associated with the struggles for Irish independence during the 20th century.

Answer: 60%

This figure comes from estimates of what population growth would have normally been expected to be in 1851. In the ten years since the official count of 8.2 million in 1841, the population had dropped to 6.5 million in 1851, an actual decrease of 1.7 million.

However, without the Famine, growth predictions would have placed the figure for 1851 at about 9 million. This means that around 2.5 million people left the population in excess of what would have happened under normal circumstances. (This is over a quarter of the population!) It is estimated that about a million emigrated, leaving 1.5 million extra deaths during that time, attributed to the effects of the Famine.

The western part of the country, being the most rural, was hit the hardest, with children and the elderly being especially vulnerable.