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Essay Subject: Analyzes effects in Ireland (1845-1849) & on Irish culture including rural depopulation, emigration, social reforms, British response.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analyzes effects in Ireland (1845-1849) & on Irish culture including rural depopulation, emigration, social reforms, British response. Paper Introduction: EFFECTS OF THE POTATO FAMINE ON IRISH CULTURE This research paper traces, discusses and analyzes the effects of the blight of the potato crops and the resulting famine in Ireland in 1845-1849 on Irish culture. The most direct and immediate effects of the famine and the inadequate response of the authorities to it were widespread suffering, privation, starvation and deaths, primarily among the most impoverished groups of small Irish farmers and laborers in the west and southwestern parts of Ireland who depended on the potato crops for subsistence. The famine also produced and accelerated massive emigration from, and depopulation of, much of rural Ireland. Nearly three quarters of a century and many intervening events were to transpire before Catholic Ireland achieved independence and Ireland was partitioned so no direct cause and effect Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The Twentieth Century A World History. Peel took limited measures in 1845-1846 which are generally creditedwith preventing the famine from resulting in any deaths during that year.He secretly purchased 1 , pounds worth of Indian corn from the UnitedStates to keep grain prices down in Ireland which was distributed somewhatbelatedly at nominal prices. occurred is deeply engraved on the memory of the Irish race;all hope of assimilation with England was then lost, and bitterness withoutparallel took possession of the Irish mind" (4 7). F. 2 9- 259.Percival, John. "The Great Famine And Its Interpretations." Irish Hunger. It benefitted from thestrong demand and high prices for agricultural products during theNapoleonic wars. Boulder: Roberts Rinehart, 1997.Kinealy, Christine. Trevelyan and other English leaders sufferedfrom the misguided delusion that only minimal government aid was neededbecause market forces and depopulation would provide a remedy for England'sfailure to come to grips with the problem of Irish rural poverty andunderdevelopment, which the Irish have had to solve themselves as they havepainfully adjusted to the modern world. The popularity of the potato increased as land plots became smaller.Subdivision of lands by absentee landlords and their middlemen and bytenants through inheritance increased due to changes in inheritance andelectoral laws. It caused widespread economic disruptionand human suffering, including over one million deaths (more than one inevery eight Irish) due to related starvation and disease, and massiveemigration, about 1.5 million between 1845 and 185 , most of whom went toNorth America and the rest to other parts of the British Isles or to theAntipodes (Quinn 37). Early marriage and higher birth rates ensued. Not enough was done . . Theblight returned with a vengeance in 1848. The government grudgingly expanded its public works program, butreduced its share of its cost from the level set by Peel. Public pressures in Britain and the United States, as well as inIreland, finally forced the Russell government to abandon in early 1847 itscivil works program and to provide in the summer of 1847 outdoor relief tothe destitute and starving in the form of soup kitchens, and to finance theexpansion of workhouses and fever hospitals. EFFECTS OF THE POTATO FAMINE ON IRISH CULTURE This research paper traces, discusses and analyzes the effects of theblight of the potato crops and the resulting famine in Ireland in 1845-1849on Irish culture. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.Poirteir, Cathal (Ed.). Foster said at least 2 million pounds worth oflands changed hands in the 185 s (336). Craig estimated that one in 2 emigrantsdied en route, such as the 5294 who died in the summer of 1847 on shipsquarantined at Gross Isle near Quebec (54). "The Great Potato Famine And The Transformation of Irish Peasant Society." Science & Society 61 (Summer 1997): 193-215.Connolly, S. Dudley Edwards and T. "Ireland's Famine Museum." History Today 46 (Dec. ., but it is doubtful if any government in Europe . However, by the 188 s and 189 , the Irishnationalist movement began to take a different, and more sectarian cast,Catholic and separatist in most of the emerald isle and staunchlyProtestant and Unionist in Ulster. . Inadequacy of Governmental Efforts to Cope The backwardness of Irish agriculture and the wretched state of theIrish peasantry was noted by various commissions of experts, notably theDevon Royal Commission of 1843-1845 which suggested modest land reforms.Sir Robert Peel, then Tory Prime Minister, endorsed legislation toinstitute tenant right, but it failed to pass because of the opposition ofthe propertied classes. Unfortunately, rural Ireland before thefamine was never an instructive model for the future, but Ireland underwentseveral decades of bloody conflict before its problems could berealistically addressed by the modern Irish state. Boston: Roberts Rinehart, 1995.Neal, Frank. Land Leagues in Ireland combined with the Fenians and the IrishM.P.s in Parliament, then led by the charismatic Charles Parnell, whoespoused both the cause of tenants' rights and Home Rule. Economic power graduallyaccumulated in the hands of Catholic farmers and shopkeepers. Reform of the Irish agricultural system occupied a very low order ofpriority in Westminster prior to the famine. New York: New York UP. The 1838 Poor Lawprovided for limited public relief to be provided for the destitute in grimworkhouses, but space was provided for only 1 , , a tiny fraction of thepoor even before famished hordes clamored for admittance after 1844. However, she said that after 1847, she could not "reconcileexpediency with duty and moral principle" (4 8). Tom Hayden. 1997): 36-51.Silvester-Carr, Denise. As the effects of the famine spread during 1847, Kinealy said"although the demand for relief was highest in the west, severe distresswas also apparent in other parts of the country, including some of thewealthy [poor law] unions in the north-east of Ulster" (128). With thedecimation of the small leaseholder and itinerant farm labor class, theholdings of small farms declined sharply. "Flight From Famine." Royal Geographical Society Magazine 7 (Jan. was beingemployed to achieve other purposes," namely, the imposition of a Malthusiansolution to the problem of Irish rural overpopulation (355 and 357).Donnelly in 1997 said "British officials and Irish landlords mentallyinsulated themselves against the inhumanity and often murderousconsequences of mass evictions by taking the view that clearances were nowinevitable, and that they were essential to Irish economic progress" (128). Hesaid "the dissolution of Irish rural life resulted in a bleak, narrowsociety of late marriage and of dowries carefully passed to single heirs"(45). Social and Economic Impacts The famine did not produce a social revolution in the countryside butit did reduce popular respect for established authority. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1957.Hayden, Tom (Ed.). Braa said "the creation ofEnglish estates in Ireland during the 17th century included a massiverelocation of native peasants to the more marginal areas of westernIreland. Conclusion The famine had many effects, most of them horrendous, human sufferingon a massive scale, loss of life, forced emigration, a deepening of theemotional chasm between the Irish and their English overlords, economic andsocial dislocation, increased sectarianism, narrow nationalism andeventually a bloody revolution, civil war and partition. Various tenant protection societies which were formed inthe early 185 s were a direct outgrowth of tenant resentment at the massevictions which occurred during the latter stages of the famine. For example, in 1959,Edwards and Williams said "what is obvious and uncontroversial today wasdark and confused a century ago to many persons of good will" (viii). . Little else was done other than to staff a fewagricultural colleges, and undertake minor civil works. . In the late 187 s, agricultural prices fell, disastrous harvestsoccurred in 1877 and 1879 and agrarian unrest increased. The impact of Britain's response to the famine on Irish attitudestoward Britain was unmistakeable. In the 185 s the Irish movement for HomeRule in Parliament was led by Isaac Butt and other upper and middle classIrish Protestants, but gradually the Catholic middle classes took controlof the movement. The secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), theforerunner of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the Fenian Societyfounded in the United States in 1858 raised the flag of Irish separatism,the goal of an independent Catholic Ireland, but it remained a fringemovement until the late 187 s. A review of the historical literature reveals that the verdict ofmost historians on the English reaction to the famine has grown harsherover time which may suggest that present day standards are being unfairlyapplied to the English politicians of the 184 s. The potato wasoriginally introduced in the late 16th century as a food supplement. A few absenteelandlords had behaved well during the famine, but Foster said "by andlarge, the class who possessed most did least" (33 ). From 182 to 184 , Irishnationalists under the leadership of M.P. From 1767 to 1841 the population of Ireland nearlyquadrupled, from 2,544,276 to 8,175,124 (Freeman 13). The famine contributed tothe development of separatist movements and Irish cultural nationalism. The emigrants of the late 184 s and 185 s were primarily fromthe Catholic lower classes and the rural areas hit hardest by the famine.The United States was the first choice for most emigrants, but many went toCanada and those who could not afford the cost of trans-oceanic passagewent to Scottish and English cities, where the number of Irish residentsrose from 419,256 in 1841 to 733,866 in 1851 (Foster 345). She pointed out thatthe total expenditures of the English government on famine relief, about 1 million pounds, amounted to less than one half of one percent of Britain'sannual GDP (295). Another important adverse effectof the Treasury's zealous rate collection campaign was that tenantevictions doubled between 1847 and 1851. The blight was minor in 1847 but the potato crop was small. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1998.O'Neill, Thomas P. Dudley, and T. Public works wereallowed to expand because for the leading Whigs almost anything waspreferable to the dole, e.g. J. According to Quinn, "the famine represented the greatestconcentration of civilian suffering and death in Western Europe between theThirty Years' War and the Second World War" (37). In their collective memory, they had beenremoved from their traditional homeland by the famine and Britishoppression. An elaborate relief organisation was set up, public works were started on a scale never attempted before, and what was, for the time, a very large sum of money indeed . . Ed. Sandy and rocky soils, often with poor drainage, became the landbase for many Irish peasants" (194). Dublin: Mercier P, 1995. Thefamine also produced and accelerated massive emigration from, anddepopulation of, much of rural Ireland.Nearly three quarters of a century and many intervening events were totranspire before Catholic Ireland achieved independence and Ireland waspartitioned so no direct cause and effect relationship can be establishedbetween those developments and the famine; however, the famine undoubtedlyembittered Anglo-Irish relationships. Trevelyan prematurely closed downthe food depots and declared the famine over in 1848. One wasrising rack rents. Somefairly tepid land reforms were enacted by Parliament in 187 by theLiberals under William Gladstone, which acknowledged for the first time themoral principle of tenant right. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.----------------------- 18 Ireland hadbeen relatively prosperous during the 18th century. In1962, Woodham-Smith stated that in 1845-1847: the Government behaved with considerable generosity. gave the impression that he was more alarmed lest the Irish should bedemoralized by receiving too much help from the government than lest theyshould die of starvation through not receiving enough" (338). "The Organization and Administration of Relief, 1845- 52." The Great Famine Studies in Irish History 1845-1852. "Pre and Post-Famine Landscape Change." The Great Irish Famine. Despite the spreadof diseases such as typhus, relapsing fever (yellow fever) and dysentery totowns, the eastern part of agricultural Ireland which depended on cattleraising and crops other than potatoes and the partially industrializedeconomy of most of Ulster were spared the worst effects of the faminebecause they "could cope with local crop failure" (Foster 321). . Introduction/Statement of the Problem The famine stemmed from a then unknown fungus disease, phytophthorainfestans, which ruined most of the Irish potato crops in 1845 and 1846.Then following a small lightly damaged harvest in 1847, the fungus wreakedhavoc on the 1848 crop. Laws passed by Parliament in the late 184 s facilitated the sale ofencumbered estates but did not lead to immediate improvements inagricultural productivity because, according to Beckett, they "failed tointroduce new capital . 34-49.Craig, Simon. However, Kinealysaid "by the end of 1846 even the most ardent supporters of the publicworks realised that the system of providing relief in return for labor hadfailed" (1 ). . Strokestown, a town in Roscommon County in thewest, lost 88 percent (Braa 2 4; and Silvester-Carr 3 ). Emigration Emigration from Ireland preceded the famine; however, its scale,nature and consequences were altered by the famine. Desmond Williams. The power of theCatholic Church, which allied itself with the interests of smallshopkeepers and farmers, increased, as did sectarian (Protestant) power inUlster. free relief for the poor. The famine weakened the traditionalpolitical, economic and social order in rural Ireland and led to theemergence of different patterns of land ownership, usage and political andeconomic power. Archaic legal devices, known as rundale (tenancyin common) and conacre (license to use land), facilitated land subdivision.According to Woodham-Smith, in 1841, 45 percent of all Irish landholdingswere less than five acres, and in the west plots of half an acre or lesswere not uncommon (34). It could becultivated much more cheaply than cereal grains and thrived in Ireland'swet climate and less arable southern and western soil; it satisfied mostnutritional needs. In 18 1, Parliament atWestminster destroyed the last vestige of Irish autonomy by abolishing theIrish Parliament under the Act of Union. Death ratescontinued to climb even after the harvests had begun to return to normal in185 , ranging from 6.4 percent in 1845 to twin peaks of 18.5 percent in1847 and 17.9 percent in 1849 and remained at 12.2 percent in 185 (Kinealy168). Desmond Williams (Eds.). Daniel O'Connell focused onCatholic Emancipation, the removal of the political and legal disabilitieson Irish Catholics, which was finally accomplished in 1829 and Repeal ofthe Union which the British Parliament rejected. According to Foster, emigration and religious secularism reinforcedrural conservatism, and "enabled the development of a strong farmer class,as well as sustaining uneconomic western farms" (37 ). New York: New York UP, 1957.Foster, R. The effect of this unrealistic policywas to wreck many landlords financially. Tenants' rightsand land reform, on the one hand, and Irish Home Rule, then became majorissues in the British Parliament where during much of the 188 s the IrishM.P.s held the balance of power between Tories and Liberals. Development of the Potato Monoculture and Obstacles to Reform The sustained potato blight of 1845-1849 caught political leaders andgovernment officials by surprise because previous crop failures had beenlocalized, and because, according to Percival, in the early 19th century,"the potato crop had never failed for two years running" (42). The Great Hunger. Percival said the whole system of land tenure "was a recipefor rural decay and neglect" (25). "The Tragedy of Bridget Such-A-One." American Heritage 48 (Dec. As emigres, many of them felt alienated and became afertile source of funds for various nationalist and/or revolutionarymovements in Ireland, such as the Clan na Gael (1867) and the NationalLeague of America (188 s). In August 1846 Trevelyan minuted that "the supply of the home[Irish] market may be safely left to the foresight of private merchants"(O'Neill 222). 1996): 3 -32.Whelan, Kevin. . Black '47 Britain and the Famine Irish. Because, however, of delaysand switches in government programs and Trevelyan's niggardly approach toimplementation, a great deal of unnecessary suffering and hundreds ofthousands of deaths occurred. Another wasoverpopulation. London: Faber and Faber, 1966.Braa, Dean M. Dublin: Mercier P, 1995.Quinn, Peter. O'Connellsupported tenant rights; however, he never pressed land reforms nordisplayed much interest in the plight of the Irish poor. The specter ofanother famine and determined, organized defense of rural interests throughthe withholding of rent and boycotts as well as the threat of terrorism,which first appeared in the form of the 1882 murder of a British officialin Dublin by the IRB, persuaded successive Liberal Governments to enactvarious land reform laws and to propose home rule. The primary victims of the famine were poor smallfarmers and farm laborers; however, disease was no respecter of class oroccupation. According to Kinealy, "in the early months of1847, the relief provided by the Society of Friends [the Quakers] oftenproved crucial in keeping people alive, as other systems of relief failed"(158). The Great Irish Famine. So, while British governmentexpenditures for poor relief went up, from 1,732,597 pounds in 1848 to2,177,651 pounds in 1849, so did the death rates (Kinealy 135). Tenant tenure was insecure. She said that British leaders handled the famine with theutmost "opportunism, arrogance and cynicism" and "were not willing to admitopenly that the suffering of many people in Ireland . 1998): 53-56.Donnelly, James S., Jr. The blight struck hardest in the west and thesouthwest, especially in Clare, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Mayo,Roscommon and Tipperary Counties. . This Great Calamity The Irish Famine 1845-52. Cathal Poirteir. Ed. Kinealy echoed in 1995 the contemporary view. A cultural revival movement becamepopular, led by the Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884, whichsponsored ancient sports, and the Gaelic League (1894), which favored theuse of the Gaelic language. . According to Neal, thepopulation of Ireland fell from 8,2 , in 1841 to 6,552,255, andaccording to Foster, to 4,4 , in 1911; however, many factors inaddition to the famine, primarily the attractions of a higher standard ofliving abroad, accounted for this later decline (3 and 323). Modern Ireland 16 -1972. According to Woodham-Smith, "the historyof what . Irish emigrants encountered agreat deal of discrimination wherever they went and generally filled thelowest paid jobs. After 1847,Irish relief authorities found it increasingly difficult to obtainfinancial support from London because of political turmoil in England, the1847 financial panic and the negative reaction of English public opinion tothe abortive and feeble attempt by the Young Irelanders to revolt againstBritish rule in 1848. . The Irish peasantry was tooweakened by disease and impoverishment to give much support to the YoungIrelanders, but one of the latter's leaders, James Lalor, gave voice totheir resentment when he said that the famine had 'dissolved society' andended the right of the landlord class to rule it (Foster 381). According to Kinealy, theeconomic benefits of Union for the Irish were largely "illusory," and "thebottom third of the population grew more impoverished" (6). Peel's successors insisted that local landlords in the areas mostseverely hit by the famine bear the main share of the cost of reliefthrough increases in the poor rates. The results were skyrocketing food prices and acute foodshortages. Although O'Connell'scampaigns appealed to the Irish masses, they were exerted primarily onbehalf of the emerging Catholic propertied and middle classes. 17-33.Woodham-Smith, Cecil. Connaught Province in the northwest lost nearly 7 percent ofits pre-famine population. Over many centuries, dating back to Tudor times and the conquest ofIreland by Oliver Cromwell in the 164 s, the best land had been awarded toEnglish and Scottish nobles loyal to the Crown. 117-134.Edwards, R. This nostalgia for anidyllic pre-famine Celtic Ireland was a distorted and delayed reaction tothe traumatic memory of the famine. In March 1847, she said "fever, on agigantic scale, was now beginning to ravage Ireland" (187). However,the potato could only be stored for a few months, then it rotted. Even Peel's limited efforts were frequently hampered by hisChancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Trevelyan, whom Beckett said "at times. The Liberals in the late 183 s reduced slightly thetithe, an unpopular tax imposed on peasants to finance the ProtestantChurch of Ireland. Except in Ulster,tenants did not have the right upon termination of their tenancy to becompensated for improvements they had paid for (so-called tenant right);nor were landlords, most of whom lived abroad, incentivized to invest inimprovements. The combined effect of deaths and emigration on some regions wasdevastating. Under the conditions of agricultural distress of the early 19thcentury, a number of factors further impoverished the Irish peasantry andcreated a situation in which, according to Percival, "very large numbers ofpeople competed for relatively small areas of available land" (33). Agrarian Unrest and The Irish Question Despite sporadic outbreaks of violence over evictions and otherperceived injustices, the Irish countryside was relatively quiet during the185 s and 186 s. Works CitedBeckett, James C. After Peel fell from power over the repeal of the Corn Laws, the Whiggovernment of Sir John Russell with Trevelyan still at the Exchequer dealtwith the famine. It wasalso costly to transport. London: Penguin P, 1988.Freeman, T. It represented a form of nationalism whichPonting said "was about the preservation of a Catholic, conservative andrural nation from the corrupting influence of the modern world personifiedby Britain" (22 ). Freeman saidthat in 1845 "poverty was stark, housing wretched, trade inadequate,agriculture backward, industry faltering" (4). The Great Famine Ireland's Potato Famine 1845-51. "The Great Famine and Irish Politics." The Great Irish Famine. Whelansaid "by 18 , it had become a staple food all the year round for thecottier and small farm class" in the west and southwest where more thanhalf the population depended on it for daily subsistence. He established a Relief Commission which beganfunctioning in early 1846, and he pushed through Parliament a modest civilworks program. In times of agricultural distress, subdivision was used asa means of raising rents. By the fall of 1846, Woodham-Smith said "famine in Ireland hadnow reached the point where general disorganization was setting in" and"children began to die" (14 ). However, the reformsfailed to settle the basic issues in the Irish countryside and Home Rulefailed, largely because of the opposition of Ulster Protestants orUnionists in combination with the Tories. W. According to Beckett, these reforms"failed to convince the majority of Irishmen that their interests could besafely entrusted to a British parliament" (375). Socially, the depopulation of the countryside decreased the pressureon the land, temporarily (in the 185 s) held rent increases down and,according to Braa, "helped forestall agrarian unrest and crisis" (2 3). Russell like Peel before him was a firm believer in the"prevailing doctrine of laissez-faire, in essence the belief thatgovernment should not interfere with market forces [which] discouraged avigorous response to the suffering" of the Irish peasantry (Craig 54).Russell and Trevelyan clung more rigidly to economic orthodoxy than Peelhad, despite the growing desperation of the situation which developed in1847-1849. Woodham-Smith estimated that Irish rents were 8 -1 percent higher than in England during the early 184 s (33). Boulder: Roberts Rinehart, 1997. Nevertheless, the British didsponsor some improvements in rural Ireland, such as new roads and schoolconstruction which drastically lowered illiteracy, and under Tory ArthurBalfour in the 189 s aid to 'congested districts.' Many of the leaders of the Irish nationalist movement in the 18th andearly 19th century, including many of the Young Irelanders of 1848, hadbeen northern Irish Protestants. Dublin: Mercier P. . The Making of Modern Ireland 16 3-1923. Bereft of tariff protection forits infant industry, Ireland became a market for English manufactured goodsand a low cost source of food and raw materials. The Great Famine Studies in Irish History 1845-1852. The reason,according to Connolly, was that he and 7 percent of the Irish M.P.s atWestminster were landlords (35). However, according to Whelan, after 1815, "agriculturalprices halved" and "the linen industry was dislocated by the advent offactory-spinning and weaving" (25). Beckett said that after the 1848 uprising, "publicopinion in Britain was coming to regard the Irish as irresponsible,ungrateful and treacherous, unfit to govern themselves" (35 ). R. Foster said "the idealization of the lifestyle of thewest became the theme of the Gaelic League zealots, where [British]administrators saw an economic disaster area, the League saw the remnantsof a Gaelic civilization that implied a spiritual empire far greater thanEngland's tawdry industrialized hegemony" (448). Thereafter, the pace of immigration accelerated,becoming in Woodham-Smith's words, a "headlong flight from Ireland,"between 213, and 368, in each of the years 1845-1852 (215; andKinealy 298). The most direct and immediate effects of the famine andthe inadequate response of the authorities to it were widespread suffering,privation, starvation and deaths, primarily among the most impoverishedgroups of small Irish farmers and laborers in the west and southwesternparts of Ireland who depended on the potato crops for subsistence. . The famine became acalamity of such magnitude and it struck certain areas so hard whileleaving others relatively unscathed, due to the interrelationship between(1) the historical and other reasons for the development of a potatodependent culture; and (2) the ways in which Great Britain and localauthorities coped with the famine, both its likely eventuality and itsincidence. Eds. Pre-Famine Ireland A Study in Historical Geography. Irish Hunger. Farms of one to five acres fellfrom 44.9 percent of land in 1831 to 15.5 percent in 1851 while holdings ofover 3 acres rose from 17 to 26 percent (Foster 334-335). Between 1879and 1883 more evictions of tenants occurred than in the 3 years since thefamine. Ed. would have done more (4 8). Belfast and its environs prospered dueto the introduction of power looms in the linen industry. The hazards of the trans-Atlantic passage in 'coffin ships,' wherefood and water were inadequate, berths overcrowded and the risk ofepidemics constant, were great. Almost all ofIreland other than Ulster remained agricultural. This basically inhumane policyhelped hasten the end of English control over one of its most importantcolonies. Cathal Poirteir. The famine wasproduced by a freak of nature, but its effects were magnified by ill-advised colonial policies. Most Irish then and nowbelieve that no English government would have allowed suffering on such ascale to take place in England nor would any authentic Irish governmenthave allowed it to happen in Ireland. , was advanced. By this time, Fostersaid "overcrowding [in the workhouses] was horrific" and about 6 countydispensaries and a system of centrally controlled county fever hospitals"could hardly cope with the conditions" (327). New York: Viewer Books, 1995.Ponting, Clive. The importanceof the potato declined somewhat due to the planting of other crops such asoats and wheat and the increased use of land for pasturage. [or] raise agricultural standards" (312).Foster said "the problem of rural poverty remained" (342). Many landlordsemerged from the famine deeply in debt and at least 1 percent of them wentbankrupt (Foster 336). It also triggered sectarian controversy and led toincreasing agrarian discontent and demands for Irish home rule, which,despite some social reforms and economic progress, were left largelyunsatisfied toward the end of the 19th century. Between 1815and 1845 an average of about 5 , Irish a year emigrated, mostly Scotch-Irish Protestants, from northern Ireland to Canada and the southern UnitedStates (Foster 345). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.