The Great Famine

Summary

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Dan Snow’s History Hit – "The Great Famine"

Date: February 9, 2026
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Professor Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University, Founding Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dan Snow explores the causes, context, and consequences of the Great Irish Famine of the mid-19th century. With guest expert Professor Christine Kinealy, the conversation delves into how such a catastrophe unfolded at the heart of the world’s largest empire, examining the unique vulnerability of Ireland, political failures, societal impacts, international responses, and the enduring legacy of the famine on Irish identity and British-Irish relations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: Colonial Context and Vulnerability

Timestamps: 01:18–06:27

• Ireland as a Colonized Nation:

  • Ireland’s colonization stretches back to the 12th century, intensifying under Elizabeth I by 1603.
  • Its relationship with England shaped land ownership, governance, and repeated weaponization of food during conflict.
  • The 1800 Acts of Union dissolved Ireland’s parliament, placing all decisions in London’s hands.

• Dan Snow:

  • “Ireland was a largely unwilling participant in that United Kingdom project. It was a colonial possession. More than an equal partner.” (01:18)

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “Ireland’s relationship with England really begins in the 12th century... The political context is important... Ireland is governed directly from London. And at the time of famine, all major political decisions come from a government that is hundreds of miles away from what is happening.” (05:20–06:27)

2. Agricultural Economy and Reliance on Potatoes

Timestamps: 08:07–10:49

• Ireland was not a backward, subsistence economy—it exported vast food quantities (grain, eggs, alcohol) to Britain, producing a surplus for export even while the poor starved.

• Massive dependency—nearly half the population relied on potatoes, not from ignorance or laziness but necessity, after centuries of dispossession.

• Potatoes, highly nutritious and prolific, supported the health and height of the Irish populace.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “Ireland is exporting enough grain, wheat, barley, oats to Britain to feed 2 million people... and yet, within Ireland, there are many, many people who are dependent on one crop, the potato.” (08:07–09:41)
  • “...this is not a people who are emaciated. This is a people who... actually thought to be the tallest people in Europe, really.” (10:49)

3. Potato Blight, Government Response, and Catastrophic Failure

Timestamps: 11:10–14:55

• The potato blight (Phytophthora infestans) arrived from America, fatally affecting the crops for seven consecutive years.

• 1845 saw limited impact and an active government response under Prime Minister Peel, including importation of food and relief works—averting mass death at first.

• British government’s attitude changed with a credit crisis in 1846, followed by Peel’s ouster and Whig ascendancy under Russell—whose government cut relief, favored laissez-faire principles, and restricted intervention.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “By the second year... people really need external intervention, whether it's from landlords, local merchants, or the government in London. So public works were made the main form of relief after 1846... the cruelest form of making people who are hungry and exhausted do hard physical labor 12 hours a day, six days a week for minimal wage. And... the winter of 1846–47 was the coldest for 100 years.” (18:56–20:28)

4. Laissez-Faire Policy and Selective Intervention

Timestamps: 16:47–18:42

• The Whig government’s commitment to laissez-faire economics was cited to justify non-intervention—even as the government selectively intervened elsewhere, for instance, in the Opium Wars and Navigation Laws.

• Relief caprices: strict limits on wages for public works, refusal to close ports to food export, and loans rather than direct aid.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “The British government in the 1840s was the most interventionist government in the world... They intervened selectively. So laissez-faire, they intervened a lot... But as you say, the wider picture was, let's not interfere in the marketplace. Ireland doesn't need our intervention because the food will pour in. It didn't pour in. And what food did come back into Ireland was really expensive.” (17:32–18:42)

5. On-the-Ground Impacts: Death, Public Works, and Emigration

Timestamps: 18:56–21:01, 37:22–38:41

• Mortality: No deaths in 1845; from 1846, mass starvation and disease as public works failed to suffice and the blight endured.

• Public works described as “roads that lead nowhere and walls that surround nothing” (20:36), grueling, pointless labor designed more as a “test of destitution” than genuine help.

• Emigration: Not the very poorest but those who could scrape resources together fled; many died en route or in port cities.

• By 1851, Ireland had lost around two million people (a quarter of its population), either through starvation, disease, or emigration.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “You know, people would often walk to the Port of Dublin... then in Liverpool, they might have to wait... people get on what were called coffin ships… people died, they were thrown overboard... we know in Liverpool there are at least 7,000 Irish people buried there from 1847, 1848 period, and the same in Grosse and the same in Montreal. So there were massive Irish graveyards outside of Ireland as well as inside Ireland.” (37:45–38:41)

6. Charity and International Relief

Timestamps: 25:09–28:16

• Philanthropy filled gaps as official help faltered. Quakers (Society of Friends) were especially noted for early, non-proselytizing aid. Soup kitchens, partially established by Quakers, were eventually adopted on a large scale by authorities.

• Internationally, remarkable donations flowed in:

  • Queen Victoria gave £2,000 (relatively modest for her wealth), while the Sultan of Turkey was persuaded to reduce his donation to avoid outshining the Queen.
  • Indigenous communities in Canada and the Choctaw Nation in the US also sent funds, despite their own poverty and trauma.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “The famous one is the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma... they both sent money to Ireland... Many tribes in Canada sent money to Ireland in 1847, even though they themselves were subject to broken treaties... So they're pretty remarkable stories.” (25:20–28:16)

7. Media, Communication, and (Lack of) British Shame

Timestamps: 28:16–29:56

• The crisis gained unprecedented international visibility thanks to rising media, steamships, newspapers, and the telegraph—but British authorities largely resisted the shaming or intervention pressure.

• The British government invoked arguments of providence (divine punishment) and reform (Malthusianism) to justify non-intervention, seeking—often cynically—a drastic reduction of the Irish population.

• Christine Kinealy:

  • “Trevelyan says it very bluntly. We must not criticize what we really want to achieve in the end, which is this regeneration of Ireland. And the argument was, Ireland, as it is, is this potato grown country, is an embarrassment to the United Kingdom.” (29:56)

8. Aftermath, Memory, and Political Legacy

Timestamps: 38:41–43:36

• The famine irreparably damaged the legitimacy of British rule in Ireland and became central to nationalist memory and subsequent agitation for independence.
• For decades, there was relative silence and little commemoration, influenced by trauma, poverty, and political sensitivities—until a revival of interest in the late 20th century.
• Population loss and emigration had long-lasting demographic and political repercussions; today, Ireland’s population has never returned to pre-famine levels.

9. Is It Genocide?

Timestamps: 42:42–43:36

• Christine Kinealy:
  • “As irresponsible as the British government may have been, it's very hard to prove intent. I think it's fine to have a debate, but I personally would not use the word genocide. I think it's a term that needs to be very carefully applied and needs to be applied in its full legal context.” (42:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dan Snow (on colonial inequality):

  “All parts of that United Kingdom were not entirely considered equal. Ireland was a largely unwilling participant in that United Kingdom project... More than an equal partner.” (01:18)

• Christine Kinealy (on blame and laissez-faire):

  “When I think of laissez-faire, I have to see it in a wider context. The British government in the 1840s was the most interventionist government in the world at that stage... They intervened selectively... But Ireland doesn't need our intervention because the food will pour in. It didn't pour in.” (17:32–18:42)

• Christine Kinealy (on the pointlessness of relief work):

  “In Ireland, we say roads that lead nowhere and walls that surround nothing... It was a public [work].” (20:36)

• Christine Kinealy (on communications and awareness):

  “Ignorance is absolutely no excuse... Charles Trevelyan... was very well aware of what was going on in the ground.” (24:13)

• Christine Kinealy (on genocide):

  “As irresponsible as the British government may have been, it's very hard to prove intent... I personally would not use the word genocide.” (42:55)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 01:18–04:43 – Introduction; the famine’s scale and initial context.
• 05:06–10:49 – Ireland’s political status, economic structure, and dependence on potatoes.
• 11:10–14:55 – Outbreak and effects of the blight; government response; the public works system.
• 16:47–18:42 – Laissez-faire economics, government rationalization, and selective interventions.
• 18:56–21:01 – Human impact: death, public works, and the bitter experience of aid.
• 25:09–28:16 – Global philanthropic response and international awareness.
• 38:41–43:36 – Legacy, memory, population impacts, and the genocide debate.

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Conclusion

This rich discussion, both scholarly and empathetic, underscores the tragedy’s roots in colonial history, the catastrophic consequences of political and societal indifference, and the lasting scars on Ireland’s people and diaspora. The episode is especially powerful in centering contemporary voices—like Christine Kinealy’s—on the importance of historical nuance and responsibility.

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For further reading and resources:
Check out Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute and Professor Kinealy’s published works on the famine.
For feedback or questions, contact the podcast at [e-mail].

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Christine Keneally]

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[Matt]

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[Dan Snow]

They called it the Great Hunger. Perhaps a million people died. Despite it all taking place more than 150 years ago, the country's population has never recovered. It was a terrible famine, and yet, bizarrely, it took place at the center of the largest empire the world had ever seen, the United Kingdom, the world's largest economy. You're listening to Dan Snow's history, and in this episode, I'm going to ask how the great Irish Famine could possibly have happened. How did the United Kingdom, with all its boasts of modernity and its technology and its ability to project power across the other side of the world, how did it allow perhaps a million of its own people to die during repeated crop failures? Well, that's what we're going to answer in this podcast. And the answer obviously begins with the observation that all parts of that United Kingdom were not entirely considered equal. Ireland was a largely unwilling participant in that United Kingdom project. It was a colonial possession. More than an equal partner. The Irish had their own language, their own religious, social, cultural identities. And so crop failure there wasn't quite the same as if there had been a catastrophic crop failure in Worcestershire or Midlothian, and even the politicians at the time acknowledged it and knew about it. It was this strange dislocation at the heart of the British Imperial project. Here's Benjamin Disraeli, soon to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and he was writing in 1844, just before the famine hit, that Ireland was suffering, in his words, from a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien established Protestant church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. And that, as I say, was before the potato harvest failed, because fail it would. The following year in 1845, people said in certain parts, there was a sort of dense blue fog that settled over puddled potato fields. It rained even more than usual for Ireland. It rained a lot in that autumn, that fall, and there was a smell of. An odor of sort of rot, of decay. It was everywhere. And it soon became clear that the potato crop was failing. It had been infected by, or forgive my pronunciation, by the fungus, the Pythophthora infestans. And this would eradicate great swathes of potato plantations. And as you'll hear, the people of Ireland were unduly reliant on potatoes for their diet. Countless numbers of people died, vast numbers of people emigrated, and millions of people never, ever forgot. The potato famine shredded whatever legitimacy the British government had in Ireland, and it contributed to the eventual separation, where what ended up at the Republic of Ireland broke away from the United Kingdom. We've got Christine Keneally. She is a professor of history at Quinnipiac University. She is the founding director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute. So she is definitely the person to talk to. Very brilliant, and it's great to have her on the podcast. Here it is, the great famine.

[Christine Keneally]

T minus 10 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Christine, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

[Christine Keneally]

I'm delighted to be here, I guess.

[Dan Snow]

Let's start with, can you tell me about why Ireland was so vulnerable to this in terms of its politics and its society and indeed its diet? What does Ireland in the 19th century look like, and why is it dependent on this crop?

[Christine Keneally]

So, really, in order to understand Ireland at any period, but particularly the 19th century, you have to place it in the context of a country that's been colonized and being colonized for centuries. So Ireland's relationship with England really begins in the 12th century, the coming of the Anglo Normans. It goes through various phases of conquest. Famine. Food shortages are not new. In fact, pretty well. Every generation underwent food shortages, and one of the methods of war, food was always weaponized. So in any conflict, food was often burned, whatever. So Irish people were very used to food shortages by the Time we get to the 19th century. But again, the political context is important because it's generally accepted by historians that the complete conquest of Ireland didn't take place till the Tudor period, till the period of Elizabeth I, who died 1603. And again, there were various wars, various conflicts. There was a rebellion which unfortunately, from my perspective, failed. And by 1603, all of Ireland is subjugated to English control.

[Dan Snow]

And as you mentioned, Bud, just famine. Huge part of that terrible conflict as well. That's a generational struggle, and particularly at the end of the 16th, early 17th century.

[Christine Keneally]

Absolutely. And one of Elizabeth's advisors, Spencer, who is a poet who wrote about the Faerie Queen, he actually advised Elizabeth, don't send soldiers. They're just going to die. Just destroy the crops. Starve the Irish into submission. So that was sort of there in the background. The relationship changes after 1798. In 1798, very much inspired by events in America. America. In France, there was a revolution for republican uprising in Ireland. And of course, it failed, as all the Risings do. Wolf tone famously associated with it. But in the wake of this Rising, the British decided they had to change the relationship with Ireland. And up to that point, Ireland had its own parliament in Dublin. Now, it was subject to the London Parliament, but it was a parliament with some independence. In 1800, the relationship changed, and the Acts of Union were introduced. And by the act of Union, Ireland became part of the United Kingdom and lost its Parliament in Dublin. So by the time we come to the 19th century, Ireland is governed directly from London. And at the time of famine, all major political decisions come from a government that is hundreds of miles away from what is happening.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. And that feels very important. We're going to come back to that a few times, I think. What about the people? What about the majority of the population working on the land, not undergoing the same kind of industrializing process that you're seeing in England and Wales and Scotland at the same time?

[Christine Keneally]

Absolutely not. Although the worst centers of industrialization, the north of Ireland is very famous for linen production. The northeast of Ireland, and also an emerging shipbuilding industry, which becomes massive as the century goes on. And then in Dublin or various industries, and probably Porter or Guinness is the most famous and most successful. Successful. And the Irish whiskey. So Ireland was a country that was actually exporting very successfully linen, alcohol, and also massive amounts of food. So when we think of Ireland again in 1845, this is a country that is not a subsistence country. It's a country that is exporting enough grain, wheat, barley, oats to Britain to feed 2 million people. So Ireland is actually feeding the industrial classes of Britain in 1845. So importantly, island is producing an agricultural surplus. But to come back to your question, there was a vulnerability because as we know, almost 50% of the population depended on one crop. Not because they were stupid or lazy, as there was the British perception, but because after centuries of their land being taken, then being dispossessed, marginalized and moved, the potato was a super crop, which for poor people, it made sense to rely on. So 1845, we have the situation of Ireland is exporting massive amounts of food, 90 million eggs a year to Britain, massive amounts of alcohol to Britain. But within Ireland, there are many, many people who are dependent on one crop, the potato.

[Dan Snow]

So it's almost like this sort of industrial farming, you'd almost call them modern agro businesses, that's all being sent abroad. And then in the sort of rougher, more marginal land where lots of people live and have been pushed to the fringes, potatoes grow in that kind of. You can coax potatoes to life in that kind of soil. And they're a staple, right?

[Christine Keneally]

Absolutely. Potatoes, they're not indigenous to Ireland. It's generally assumed they came late 16th century, maybe sir Walter Raleigh, who had states in west of Ireland. But they came as food to the middle classes. But very quickly it became obvious it was a super crop. If you've ever grown potatoes, they can grow in sand, they're very prolific. So from one potato you might get as many as 60, 70 potatoes, and as you know, pretty delicious. And the other important thing about potatoes is they're highly, highly nutritious. If you eat them with their jackets on, which Irish people did. And the basic diet was potatoes and buttermilk. And that provides every vitamin nutrient you need for a healthy diet. So again, one of the ironies of Ireland, 1845, this is not a people who are emaciated. This is a people who actually thought to be the tallest people in Europe, really.

[Dan Snow]

So actually, the diet is working out well for them.

[Christine Keneally]

It is, but what comes with that is the vulnerability. But the potato would fail intermittently. But what makes what happens after 1845 unusual, unique, is that it fails for seven consecutive years. That's why we call it great famine, as opposed to the many famines Irish people had experienced.

[Dan Snow]

So 1845, there is a, well, the beginnings of this potato failure. Crop failure. Tell us why. What's the science there?

[Christine Keneally]

So there were reports of a disease, a new type of disease on the crops in America. It seemed to spread to Europe, 1845, then down into south of England and then over to Ireland. So it came to Ireland late in the season in 1845, which was a good thing. But no other country had the high dependence on potatoes that Ireland had, so that was a bad thing. And at the time, nobody knew what this mysterious disease was. They knew that it blackened the crop, they rotted and they smelt. The smell was a real giveaway sign. And the potatoes essentially were inedible. And 1845, the British government, under Sir Robert Peel, appointed a scientific commission to try and understand what was going on and to try and find an antidote. And they came up with various weird solutions, none of which worked. And so essentially, when this disease kept coming back in successive years, people were vulnerable. The crop was just destroyed.

[Dan Snow]

So, 1845, this partial crop failure, the British government are doing something. I mean, they're announcing investigation. 1846, catastrophic failure. First of all, tell me about the hardship that causes. I mean, what are we talking about here?

[Christine Keneally]

Yeah. So again, Irish people were pretty resilient. They'd been used to food shortages. So 1845, they defaulted to what they normally did, which was if they had a pig in common or a cow in common, they might slaughter it, they might sell it, if they had a wedding ring, they might pawn it, they might pawn their clothes, their blankets, their shoes, et cetera, their fishing tackle, in the expectation, which was a reasonable expectation, that the disease, the blight, would only last for one year, that the following year would be fine. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. And the other thing that really made a difference was 1845. The Prime Minister was Sir Robert Peel, a man who'd actually lived in Ireland in Dublin Castle for a number of years. So he sort of knew Ireland, not that he was sympathetic, but he put in place a series of measures that were pretty successful, and nobody died. 1845-46. So in some ways, the famine, as we call it, doesn't commence till 1846.

[Dan Snow]

And what are those measures that essentially welfare? Is it imported food? Is it cash payments to try and support communities?

[Christine Keneally]

Yep. So if relief committees were set up in a community, they would be given 100% matching funds. Some public works were set up and a very limited amount of food was imported into Ireland, but not to be available till spring. And the idea was to stabilize food prices. And the food that was chosen to be imported was called Indian corn, and it was what we would call pellagra today. So maize, which is not very nutritious.

[Dan Snow]

So there are some efforts going on to protect the Irish from the severe consequences of this blight in. There is some blight as well around the rest of the uk, isn't there? So this is something that politicians would have been dealing with. It wasn't seen as exclusively an Irish problem at this stage.

[Christine Keneally]

No, but again, the high dependence on potatoes is only in Ireland, but the Highlands of Scotland, which had some resemblance to Ireland and they'd undergone mass evictions in the 18th century, but they also depended on potatoes. So the Highlands of Scotland and Ireland were the areas that were suffering. What complicates the issue and doesn't really help, it's like a perfect storm of things going wrong, is that after 1846 there's a credit crisis in Britain, there's a trade slump, so things go wrong which actually compound the problem of the potato blight.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. And this is the bit that is so fascinating historians disagree about is this a malicious act on behalf of the British occupiers of Ireland or is there just an omni crisis that smashes into Britain at this stage and just completely overwhelms the, the fiscal and administrative capabilities of this state? Tell me a bit more about that crisis that hits the financial world and government finances in 1846.

[Christine Keneally]

Yep. And goes on 1848. There's a credit crisis, too much spending on railways. So again, various factors come together, unfortunately, and bad weather as well, factors into it. The coldest winter on record, 1846-47. But yes, there was a short term financial crisis, but I think it has to be seen in the context of an empire that is the richest empire in the world, that is resource rich and that could call on resources from other parts of the empire where there is no crisis. So just looking narrowly at Britain, I think it needs to be seen in a wide context of a British Empire and a British Empire that at the end of the day only spent just over £8 million in famine relief. And if you think just a few years later it spent 63 million pounds in Crimean War and a decade earlier it spent 20 million pound pounds giving to former slave owners. So in terms of how much it spent, it was over a six year period, it was minuscule. And most of that money was a loan. It wasn't even given by the British government. Most of the money spent in Ireland after 1845-46 was a loan that was then put on Irish taxpayers.

[Dan Snow]

Comparing it with those other bills that were paid by the British government at the time is remarkable. So the response though by that British government, the Prime Minister has to resign. The Whigs takeover, was there an embrace of sort of laissez faire economics. Let's see how the market forces sort of handle this catastrophe.

[Christine Keneally]

Yeah. So Sir Robert Peel, he repealed the Corn Laws, a protective measure, 1846, much to the anger of his party, and so he had to resign. And that brought in the Whig party. But they didn't come in on an election, they came in as a minority government that would have to face an election in 1847. So I think that gives them a vulnerability and as you know, most governments love to do, they promised cheap, cheap taxation, whatever, whatever. So Russell comes in as a fairly weak Prime Minister. I think he's. As a person, he's pretty weak anyway. But his situation makes him more vulnerable and a.

[Dan Snow]

He's weak, he's vulnerable. He doesn't want to raise taxes, he doesn't want to spend money. But is he also by inclination opposed to big state interventions?

[Christine Keneally]

He is. And this is often called the age of laissez faire. I think when we use laissez faire and the idea that the market will intervene or we don't need to, people in Ireland asked that the ports be closed to keep whatever food there was within Ireland. And the argument was, no laissez faire. If we allowed food to go out, the invisible hand will bring it back in, so we don't need to intervene. So it was an excuse. But again, when I think of laissez faire, I have to see it in a wider context. The British government in the 1840s was the most interventionist government in the world at that stage. They intervened selectively. So laissez faire, they intervened a lot of the banks, the opium wars, the 1840, 1841, they intervened to force China to take opium that China did not want. The navigation laws said that food could only come into the United Kingdom if it was carried on an English registered ship. So there was interventions, but again, it was selectively. But as you say, the wider picture was, let's not interfere in the marketplace. Ireland doesn't need our intervention because the food will pour in. It didn't pour in. And what food did come back into Ireland was really expensive.

[Dan Snow]

Right. So the market is failing to solve this catastrophe. The government doesn't feel it can spend money because the government's creditworthiness is being questioned on international markets. And so what's that like on the ground? What happens on the ground in Ireland?

[Christine Keneally]

People die. So as I said, there were no deaths. But 1846, under the Whig government relief measures were made more stringent, even though the need was more desperate, because famine is cumulative. You can maybe survive a few months, you can maybe survive a year, you cannot survive indefinitely. So by the second year, where the potato failure was even more extensive, people really need external intervention, whether it's from landlords, local merchants, or the government in London. So public works were made the main form of relief after 1846. And public works, if you think about it, are the cruelest form of making people who are hungry and exhausted do hard physical labor 12 hours a day, six days a week for minimal wage. Again, this is where the government does intervene. They intervene to say wages cannot go above a level. So they're very willing to intervene at times. So wages were low at a time that food prices were rising and people simply couldn't afford them. And then the amount of calories people used on public works. And as I said, unfortunately, the winter of 1846-47 was the coldest for 100 years. So people were working outdoors, doing hard physical labor that had no purpose except to act as a test of destitution. And they were dying, literally dying, and people were queuing up to take their place as they died. And initially it was to be men on the public works, but wages were so low, conditions were so desperate, women and children also worked on them.

[Dan Snow]

And it's a slightly old fashioned expression, public works, but what we mean by digging embankments and just sort of slightly pointless, moving mud around at the behest of the government.

[Christine Keneally]

In Ireland, we say roads that lead nowhere and walls that surround nothing. So they served no purpose. At a time when they could have been done to help build railways or an infrastructure, the government believed they should serve no purpose. So again, just useless roads. If you go to CRO Patrick, you'll see a little road halfway up a wall. And it's no purpose. It was a public.

[Dan Snow]

Jason Dance knows history, talking about the Irish Potato Famine. More coming up. Activecampaign is the marketing automation platform built.

[Christine Keneally]

For big swings and big dreams.

[Dan Snow]

Generate ideas in seconds, import your brand.

[Christine Keneally]

And create full campaigns with simple prompts. Get started for [e-mail] hi, this is.

[Matt]

Matt from P1 with Matt and Tommy, and this episode is sponsored by ebay. The cars you'll find on ebay are just different. They come with a story that you can't wait to share. Like this 1973 Dodge Charger on ebay that has been tucked away in an Arizona Barn for over 40 years, only 55,000 miles and somehow in great running order, it even has a rare sunroof. Suddenly, a car that was hidden for decades and is being delivered in just a few clicks with ebay's secure purchase, all the paperwork handled. There are thousands of cars on ebay, from unique finds like the Pontiac Grand Prix SJ to daily drivers. And now with a new way to buy them, ebay, things people love.

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[Dan Snow]

Okay, this is the bit where we sort of have to ask about both the kind of national differences between those on the ground and those making decisions back in London, and also just the geographical remoteness. Would this have been different if it had been in Norfolk, if it had been in Suffolk?

[Christine Keneally]

Oh, absolutely. So we know from even Scotland that the people who were directing governance relief, mainly Charles Trevelyan at the treasury, he was the main person in the charge of the distribution of relief. He felt Scottish people were more worthy of relief and being assisted than Irish people. He was providentialist, evangelical Protestant, as were a number of powerful people in the government. And they believed that this was a punishment of God. They actually sent this. So they saw what was happening in Ireland through a religion and a racial prism, that Irish people were lazy, undeserving, and they had brought this misery on themselves.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. Okay. So there's an active desire to accept this providential gift that means there'll be less Irish people. And what about that? Just geographical remoteness. Is there a case that the people just weren't aware this was happening in Westminster, where.

[Christine Keneally]

No, there totally were. So if you look at the newspapers at times, which is unsympathetic, they absolutely knew what was going on in Ireland, the regional newspapers, what was happening in Ireland was. But the other thing is postage service at the time to get a letter from Dublin to London. It took one day. So people were very well informed. And Charles Trevelyan, who was in charge of the treasury. And he was the man, unfortunately, a civil servant, who was put in charge of relief from 1845 onwards. I've read his extensive, extensive correspondence. He was very well aware of what was going on in the ground. So ignorance is absolutely no excuse. And if you look at the debates in Parliament, not many people were sympathetic, but the sympathetic voices, again, were very well aware of the consequences of what was happening in Ireland. And there were some Irish representatives in the British Parliament, of course. Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

How does anyone survive at this point? I mean, is there a big philanthropic effort? I've been in Ireland, I've seen inscriptions on church walls where they actually end up thanking grand families for sending soup kitchens and things. I mean, is it to come down to charity?

[Christine Keneally]

Largely at this point, charity plays a massive role, especially in 1847. So charity begins to get underway at the end of 1846. Some of the first people involved are the Quakers, the Society of Friends, who in Ireland, they number about 3,000. But they had a very strong business network and a very strong philanthropic philosophy. And also they didn't proselytize. There were some Protestant groups who went to Ireland at this time, really, to convert people. In Ireland, we call it superism. They came with the Bible in one hand and soup in the other hand. But most of the philanthropy was not to convert people. And so 1847, really, a massive international relief network gets underway, and it's the first one on such an international scale to come to the aid of a national tragedy. And it's just incredible and remarkable in its scope. Some of the big names who give. Queen Victoria is persuaded by her minister she should Give. She gives 2,000 pounds, which is not that much given her income, her massive income. This is the same year, 1847, where she built a balcony on Buckingham palace, because she considers the palace isn't big enough for her family. And the famous balcony we see, that was built in 1847, the same time the public works are taking place. But a few weeks later, the Sultan of Turkey, he offers to give £10,000 to famine relief. And he is told by diplomats in Constantinople it would defend royal protocol to give more than the Queen. So he is forced to reduce it, his donation to 1000 pounds. The Pope actually says Mass for the Irish people. He feels very sympathetic because they're Catholic. And he donates his autograph and rosary beads to be auctioned off to raise money for Ireland. And he sends his own donations. So a variety of the great and the good give money. But this relief effort just goes beyond that. The famous one is the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. The Choctaw people and four other tribes, as they were called, had been removed from their land in the 1830s and removed from their rich land in the Mississippi, taken to the poor land in what was called Indian Territory, Oklahoma. And a quarter of their people had died on this horrendous journey. But the Choctaws and the Cherokees were told of what was happening by their Indian agent, as he was called, and they both sent money to Ireland. And the Choctaw donation particularly has been commemorated and remembered in Ireland. CHEROKEE DONATION NEST so, and then we're still discovering things about the famine. About three years ago, an archive was discovered in Canada that had been lost, and it was of the indigenous peoples in Canada. Many tribes in Canada sent money to Ireland in 1847, even though they themselves were subject to broken treaties, they'd been moved from their ancestral homes, et cetera. So they're pretty remarkable stories.

[Dan Snow]

So it's extraordinary. International crisis at the time, is that connected with the changing media, the changing technology of China? Journalism?

[Christine Keneally]

Yeah. So this is an age of great newspapers. Every small ballygo backwards had a newspaper and they would carry news from everywhere. They would know such things, plagiarism, they just lift stories from wherever. And then this is the age of steamships, of railways, of telegraphs. So there is a level of communication that has never been present before. And again, this is all available to the British government, who know very well what's going on in every part of the Empire.

[Dan Snow]

Was it not very embarrassing for the Brits to have this going on in what was supposed to be part of their home? You know, this is, after all, part of the imperial centre, the United Kingdom, and there's Turks trying to give more money than Queen Victoria. Were the Brits not shamed into taking further action?

[Christine Keneally]

No. And I think the other thing they could hide behind, as well as laissez faire, was that they said, this is going to lead to the economic regeneration of Ireland. There was an argument, the Malthusian argument, that Ireland was overpopulated, there were too many people, et cetera. And there'd been various investigations in the decades before saying, ireland, we need to more people emigrate, but we don't want to pay for them to emigrate. So this was seen as a way of actually solving the Irish problem because it would get rid of the population. Now, cynically, we know that also meant people dying, not just emigrating, but that was the argument. Trevelyan says it very bluntly. We must not criticize what we really want to achieve in the end, which is this regeneration of Ireland. And the argument was, Ireland, as it is, is this potato grown country, is an embarrassment to the United Kingdom.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so this was seen, as you say, a providential opportunity to just reshape Ireland entirely. And on top of that deal once and for all with separatism in Ireland, was this seen as a political opportunity?

[Christine Keneally]

No. Well, it was seen as in terms of religious opportunity, an opportunity for conversion, because as I said, the providentialist attitude of a number of government ministers, civil servants, and they really believed that God had sent this judgment on the Irish people just in 1845, Maynooth, now Maynooth University, it was a seminary, had been given a grant by the British government. And again, this was used as an excuse. We're being punished for actually allowing Catholic priests to be trained. So all sorts of arguments were marshaled to justify what was happening.

[Dan Snow]

So we go into 1847, just things are appalling. 1848 and 9, the blight still gripping the country.

[Christine Keneally]

So 1847 is really interesting because the public works failed. It's very clear. Thousands of people are dead by the end of 1846, more as the winter progresses into 1847. So at the beginning of 1847, the government made a decision. They were closed to public works. They were actually pretty inefficient, they were so heavily bureaucratic, et cetera. And at the middle of 1847, the summer of 1847, for the first and only time, Irish people were given free food. So the beginning of summer 1847, a massive undertaking was underway to open soup kitchens throughout Ireland. And soup kitchens had first been used by the Quakers and now they were used by the British government to give people free food as a temporary measure. And By July, over 3 million people every day in Ireland, so over 40% of the population were getting free rations of soup and bread. And what this shows to me is that logistically, administratively, the British government had the ability to feed the people of Ireland. They chose not to because the soup kitchens were closed. August 1847. And after that, the Poor Law, based on the workhouse system, was made responsible for all relief in Ireland. And at that point, the British government said, the famine is over. Which, as we know, as you've said, it wasn't. The blight came back 48, 49, 50, et cetera, emigration increased, evictions increased, etc. But for the British government, the advantage of the Poor Law was that Ireland had been divided into Poor law unions, each with a workhouse. And those poor law unions were self financing. So it meant that after the autumn of 1847, Ireland was responsible to pay its taxation to finance all poverty. So that was for the British government, it was a way of shifting responsibility totally back onto Ireland. Now it didn't work because mortality was so high. There had to be a few more interventions, but the interventions after 1847 were minimal. And as I said, they were loans.

[Dan Snow]

There's more great famine coming up after this.

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[Dan Snow]

It's an interesting example of that scary human propensity to say, well, we won't interfere. This is just the natural world taking effect and we don't want to interfere too much. And it's the market, whereas the entire plantation economy, as you say, the whole becoming an exporter of agricultural products to neighboring Britain, that's all totally artificial. We are constructing these systems and then blaming their failure on, oh well, that's just nature, let's let it take its course. So remarkable.

[Christine Keneally]

Absolutely. And again, the wider debate, and we see it today, is that in England, Wales and Scotland, they had poor laws that dated back mostly to time. Elizabeth I. Ireland didn't have a system of poor relief. So one was introduced in Ireland, 1838, so just on the eve of the Great Famine. But the debates that led up to the introduction of this system of poor relief in Ireland was, poverty is the fault of the individual. It's not because of anything in the system, it's because they're lazy, feckless, Catholic, whatever. So, again, the whole mental attitude surrounding poverty was to be unsympathetic. And we saw that in England as well. I mean, Charles Dickens captured it in Oliver Twist, which he wrote as an objection to the English poor law. So that prevailing idea that poverty was the fault of the individual, not the responsibility of the government, how many people.

[Dan Snow]

Died over those terrible years?

[Christine Keneally]

We don't know precisely. And again, there were a few sympathetic voices in the British Parliament. And George Bentinck, who died 1848, he was a member of the Conservative Party, but he believed that investment was the way to help Ireland by investing in railways, giving people real jobs, helping the infrastructure. Of course, the government didn't accept that, but he allied with Disraeli, and the two of them consistently asked Lord John Russell, why are you not telling us how many people are dying? And Russell would say, it's too difficult, we can't. And they would say, this is the empire that knows every pig who's exported. You can't count the deaths. So they didn't. And we really don't know how many people died. But based on the census information, which is an underestimate, up to 1851, the census year, about 2 million people had been lost from Ireland, so about a quarter of the population. The population had been eight and a half million. And then what compounds the tragedy is Ireland doesn't recover. The number keeps on dropping. And by 1901, there's only four and a half million people in Ireland. So the devastation of the famine continues. And then very famously, as people point out, the population of the whole of Ireland today is still smaller than it was in 1841, 1845, which is unique, astonishing.

[Dan Snow]

And what is your sense about the proportion of those people that would have emigrated compared to perished?

[Christine Keneally]

It's difficult again, because when we think of emigration, it's never the very poorest who emigrates. It's people who have the resilience, the resources, the energy to emigrate. Because emigration was not a simple process.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, you don't just run out of food and stagger onto a boat. I mean, that's just. Yeah, that's not how it works.

[Christine Keneally]

No. You know, people would often walk to the Port of Dublin. From Dublin, they do that horrid journey on the Irish Sea because it's quite rough, get to Liverpool and then in Liverpool, they might have to wait 48 hours or two weeks if they were going to America or Canada. 1847, more people went to Canada than America because America was imposing all sorts of. Of tariffs or restrictions to stop people coming in. But then people get on what were called coffin chips, essentially, and go to Canada. And that journey could be very rough and could take four weeks, it could take eight weeks. And people died, they were thrown overboard. And again, we don't count them. But we know in Liverpool there are at least 7,000 Irish people buried there from 1847, 1848 period, and the same in Grosse and the same in Montreal. So there were massive Irish graveyards outside of Ireland as well as inside Ireland.

[Dan Snow]

So astonishing demographic impact. What about on the politics of Ireland? Was this a blow from which the union with Britain could never recover?

[Christine Keneally]

Yes, I think it was. Unfortunately, at the time the famine, Irish politics was slightly fractured. Daniel o', Connell, the great nationalist leader, was getting up in age and was actually quite ill, but he fell out with a group of people called Young Island. So at this time, there were two nationalist groups in Ireland, Young island. And then O' Connell represented Old Ireland, and he died 1847, a broken man. And his very final speech was made in the House of Commons 8 February 1847. And in it, and apparently his voice was raspy, he looked physically very weak, but he appealed for intervention from the British government. And he said, if you not help my people, 25% of them will perish. And he was right. And he wanted to see the Pope before he died. And he didn't make it to Rome, but he died in Genoa in May 1847. So that left a massive vacuum in Irish politics and then British politics. We talked about when Peel was forced to resign, the Conservative Party split, so there were two Conservative parties. So again, British politics was fractured at a time when really strong leadership was needed. But in Ireland, the famine sort of became the mantra of subsequent generations of nationalists about how badly Ireland was governed and Ireland needed to be completely independent.

[Dan Snow]

And how is it still marked today?

[Christine Keneally]

It's gone through various phases. So during the period of the Troubles, people actually do a lot of silences. And, in fact, the historiography of the famine is very interesting because there were one or two accounts of it in the 19th century, mostly a very Catholic perspective, but not much was written about it. And it almost seems people were traumatized and just surviving in the late 19th century and then the 20th century, as Ireland gained semi independence again. How this new nation that's coming into existence, how does the famine fit into your historical past? And it's not something that's easy to deal with, especially when Ireland in the early 20th century was still very impoverished. I mean, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the Free State, as it was then called. And it's really not until quite recently that Ireland has confronted its past in terms of its horrific past. Because when I was a student, the 1980s, there were only two major books on the famine, which is incredible. One had been commissioned by the Taoiseach, Amanda Valera. He had paid two academics in Dublin to write the history of the famine for its 100th anniversary. And clearly they didn't want to do. They paid people to ghostwrite it. They decided in the introduction not to talk about unpalatable things like mortality and the role of the British government. So it's a very partial, sanitized view of the famine. Took 11 years to come out. Came out in 1956, and then just a few years later, a woman who is not an academic but a very great research and scholar, Cecil Woodham Smith, wrote a book called the Great Hunger. It came out in 1962 and became a bestseller. And her research was incredible, but it was a very emotional, engaged account of the suffering of the Irish people. So a lot of scholarly, dry academics didn't like it. They felt it was too emotional. So we had these two extremes and really very, very little came out then until the mid-1990s, which was sesquicentenary, the 150th anniversary of the Famine. And I think the context is important because at that point we were moving towards peace in Northern Ireland. There was a massive cultural revival, if you think Riverdan, Seamus, Heaney, et cetera, and. And then Ireland, for the first time for centuries, was doing well. Ireland was about to go into the period known as the Celtic Tiger period. So Ireland, I think, at that stage, was willing to confront a very unpalatable, sad part of her history.

[Dan Snow]

Interesting. Well, I guess last, because the word is so powerful nowadays and people like to apply it and ask about it and investigate historical examples of it. Do you think it constitutes a genocide?

[Christine Keneally]

I don't. So when we talk about genocide, genocide is a term that really dates from the Second World War. It was codified in the Geneva Convention. Of 1948, but it was not to be used retrospectively. But if you look at the definition of genocide, very close reading of it, it is a legal definition, and in it you have to prove intent. And as irresponsible as the British government may have been, it's very hard to prove intent. I think it's fine to have a debate, but I personally would not use the word genocide. I think it's a term that needs to be very carefully applied and needs to be applied in its full legal context. So I wouldn't apply that term loosely at all.

[Dan Snow]

Well, okay. Well, thank you so much, Christine Kanli, for coming on the podcast.

[Christine Keneally]

You're very welcome. It's great to talk to you.

[Dan Snow]

Thanks so much for listening, folks. We, we really hope that this has helped you better understand what's going on, given you a bit of context. And if you think your friends, family, colleagues would enjoy that, then please, please do share with them. Whatever your podcast player, whatever you're listening on, it will let you share this as a link or even a WhatsApp message that sharing is the lifeblood of this podcast and what keeps us going. So thank you for listening and thanks for sharing. Join us next time for another episode of Dan Snow's History here.

[Christine Keneally]

Sarah.