the Famine in Clare
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2023 1:27 pm
In April 1846 as the Famine sets in, a report sent to the Chief Secretary in Dublin Castle gave details of the situation in South East Clare.
[Cottiers were people renting micro holdings from two to ten acres, sublet to them by farmers]
One fourth, and in many cases upwards of one third, of the rural population have no land, or at least less than half an acre, which is usually held under a farmer, or middleman. These people live chiefly by barter. They rarely have any money transactions, except, perhaps from the sale of a pig. They are usually employed part of the year by the farmers or neighbouring gentlemen. They take from the farmer, on the conacre system, a sufficient quantity of land, on which they plant potatoes for their support. If the farmer manures it, the amount charged varies from 5 pounds to 8 pounds an acre; but if the cottier has manure of his own, derived from the pig, scraping the road etc. he is rarely charged any rent for the part so manured. When unemployed, he has his potatoes to live on, and with the small potatoes he rears and fattens a pig, from the produce of which the family are clothed. Such is the state of dependence of at least one fourth, or probably one third, of the Irish people.
In the present year, owing to the potato disease, this usual resource has partially failed, and at the present moment the cottier class of this county, and of Clare, are bordering on starvation, and in the villages are in many cases actually without food. [House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers, Famine, Ireland, 5, 129]
[Cottiers were people renting micro holdings from two to ten acres, sublet to them by farmers]
One fourth, and in many cases upwards of one third, of the rural population have no land, or at least less than half an acre, which is usually held under a farmer, or middleman. These people live chiefly by barter. They rarely have any money transactions, except, perhaps from the sale of a pig. They are usually employed part of the year by the farmers or neighbouring gentlemen. They take from the farmer, on the conacre system, a sufficient quantity of land, on which they plant potatoes for their support. If the farmer manures it, the amount charged varies from 5 pounds to 8 pounds an acre; but if the cottier has manure of his own, derived from the pig, scraping the road etc. he is rarely charged any rent for the part so manured. When unemployed, he has his potatoes to live on, and with the small potatoes he rears and fattens a pig, from the produce of which the family are clothed. Such is the state of dependence of at least one fourth, or probably one third, of the Irish people.
In the present year, owing to the potato disease, this usual resource has partially failed, and at the present moment the cottier class of this county, and of Clare, are bordering on starvation, and in the villages are in many cases actually without food. [House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers, Famine, Ireland, 5, 129]