Phytophthora infestans

On 13th September 1845, the editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle, held up publication to make a dramatic announcement:

'We stop the Press with very great regret to announce that the potato Murrain has unequivocally declared itself in Ireland. The crops about Dublin are suddenly perishing…where will Ireland be in the event of a universal potato rot?'

The potato ‘murrain’ or blight was phytophthora infestans, a microscopic fungus spread by the wind and the rain, particularly during mild and humid weather. This previously unknown disease, brought from America, rapidly turned the potato stalks black and reduced the tubers in the soil to a stinking pulp. As the crop was being lifted during the autumn of 1845 reports of failure came from across the island.

The Belfast newspaper, the Vindicator, made this prediction on 22nd October: 'The failure of the potato crop in Ireland… is now confirmed… A large portion of the crop turns out to be quite useless for purposes of food. A dearth is inevitable; and a famine is extremely probable…The Irish peasantry rely almost exclusively upon potatoes for their subsistence; and when the crop fails, they have nothing to fall back upon but grass, nettles, and seaweed.'

The failure of the potato crop in 1845 was not total, however. Parts of Ulster and much of the Atlantic coast escaped. Over the whole island between one quarter and one third of the crop had been lost. The real worry was whether or not the potatoes successfully saved would escape the blight. News began to come in that potatoes were rotting in clamps and stores.

The medical officer for Coleraine workhouse reported: 'Nothing else is heard of, nothing else is spoken of…Famine must be looked forward to.'

Sir Robert Peel, the Tory Prime Minister, acted swiftly by the standards of the day. In November 1845 he set up a central relief commission and, fearing criticism from his colleagues, he secretly arranged the purchase of £100,000 of maize – then known as ‘Indian corn’ – from the United States.

As the cargoes arrived from February 1846 onwards, Peel made more money available and got the Army commissariat to set up depots across the country to store 44 million pounds of corn. The plan was not to give out the corn free but to sell it at cost price. The effect was to keep down the price of other foodstuffs.

This ‘yellow meal’, as the Irish called it, was at first condemned as ‘Peel’s brimstone’. But a government halfpenny pamphlet, telling people how to cook it, sold in tens of thousands. Peel also set up a scientific commission which issued completely useless advice on how to protect stored potatoes from infection. The experts of the day were quite unable to find a way of halting the blight.

The Prime Minister also put bills through Parliament in January 1846 to fund public works for the destitute so that they could earn money to buy food.

Then, in June 1846, Peel committed an act of political suicide. With the aid of the Whig opposition, he got rid of the Corn Laws in an attempt to encourage the importation of cheap grain into Ireland. For the Tory grandees this was unforgivable treachery.

The Duke of Wellington was outraged: 'Rotten potatoes have done it all – they put Peel in his damned fright.'

Peel had no choice but to resign. In July the opposition Whig leader, Lord John Russell, formed a government. Russell turned for advice to Charles Trevelyan, the civil servant at the head of the Treasury.

Trevelyan recommended a drastic reduction in the distribution of subsidised food and a major extension of public works. Free market forces must not be disrupted by government interference. The poor must work for their food.

In his memorandum to the cabinet on 1st August 1846 Trevelyan advised that 'the supply of the home market may safely be left to the foresight of private merchants.'

At the same time, a disaster on an unprecedented scale was unfolding in Ireland. One of the many who recorded it was the Reverend Samuel Montgomery, the rector of Ballinascreen in Co Londonderry.

He made this entry in the parish register: 'On the three last days of July and the first six days of August 1846 the potatoes were suddenly attacked, when in their full growth, with a sudden blight. The tops were first observed to wither and then, on looking to the roots, the tubers were found hastening to Decomposition. The entire crop that in the Month of July appeared so luxuriant, about the 15th of August manifested only blackened and withered stems. The whole atmosphere in the Month of September was tainted with the odour of the decaying potatoes.'

Underneath his signature, he wrote this prayer: 'Increase the fruits of the earth by Thy heavenly benediction.'

This time no part of Ireland escaped.