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I can't tell you yet but I've just started reading a book by Bryan Sykes called Saxons, Vikings, and Celts. He probably knows.
I think he did say that the Irish had natural resources but after the British aristocracy took their land, they were reduced to potato farming.
BTW, the British aristocracy took the land from the Scottish too.
The British aristocracy also took the land from the masses, the British working class, the tenant farmers who, with no more chance to farm the land, were forced to live in filthy cities and practically starve to death while working from the age of 13 (or younger) in the mills that the rich people owned.
The British aristocracy was an equal opportunity destroyer.
I can't tell you yet but I've just started reading a book by Bryan Sykes called Saxons, Vikings, and Celts. He probably knows.
I think he did say that the Irish had natural resources but after the British aristocracy took their land, they were reduced to potato farming.
BTW, the British aristocracy took the land from the Scottish too.
The British aristocracy also took the land from the masses, the British working class, the tenant farmers who, with no more chance to farm the land, were forced to live in filthy cities and practically starve to death while working from the age of 13 (or younger) in the mills that the rich people owned.
The British aristocracy was an equal opportunity destroyer.
Not quite.
Since the beginning of feudalism in England all land belonged to the Monarch. He (or she) parceled out bits to various lords, princes, or whomever who in turn parceled it out to tenants who worked said land (farming, raising livestock, etc...) and so forth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_land_law
This all predates the mass movement of persons to English cities that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. True there were cities full of people such as Manchester, London and etc...., equally true there weren't the most hygienic places either; but you still had vast populations of people living in rural areas.
As for children working in the mills, they would have been working in the country on their parents tenant farm or something like it. Life was hard and often short back then with every member of a family from an early age expected to contribute.
Makes one think on how the Irish then related to agricultural land where some if it was arable and others simply were bog and wasteland. Geography was key there. Add that in with political developments of taxation and eviction which resulted in changes to the family and population. Kind of 'perfect Irish Storm' there. The suffering was immense to the rural populations during those 'poor' times.
Ireland was hurt by the Church of England who stole everything just
like they did in England from Catholic Church. As the English people eventually
over the course of generations acclimated into the Church of England
there was less internal support for the Irish. The strength of Ireland's
partners were eclipsed over time. For example you could read about
the Irish Brigade in French wars and about the Williamite War.
The gradual process was finished with the French Revolution and decline
of Spanish and Dutch sea power in face of England's rise to Empire status.
But it really all starts with Henry VIII/Elizabeth I.
Some may say it was because Britain stole Ireland's wealth. But where was its wealth? No mineral resources I know of. It was primarily agrarian.
early Irish economies were not sufficiently diverse. They relied heavily on cows, and struggled to grow grains and produce bread the way other Europeans did.
By the time the Irish economy started to diversify, it was controlled by Britain.
And there were some mineral resources in Ireland, mined throughout history -- but they were almost always exported, rather than used to support domestic industry.
Quote:
Despite the dislike many Irish felt to Britain, many of them migrated to the UK until quite recently. Interesting that.
The majority of the population in pre-famine Ireland had little or no access to land. They lived in appalling conditions. 40% of Irish houses in 1841 were one room mud cabins with natural earth floors, no windows and no chimneys. Furniture and cooking facilities in these hovels were primitive. Their inhabitants' diet was monotonous and increasingly inadequate. Apart from beggars and paupers, virtually landless labourers (cottiers) occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder: there were 596,000 of them in the 1841 Census, and they comprised the largest single occupational/social group in the country. They faced a shrinking demand for their services after the French Wars as domestic industry declined and corn-growing contracted. Before 1838, irregularly employed married men relied on small potato plots for survival. These were often rented on a yearly basis from local farmers and paid for by labour services, a system known as conacre.
Smallholders numbered 408,000 in 1841. Of these 65,000 had holdings of less than 1 acre, and were virtually indistinguishable from the cottiers. Many had to rely on access to income from elsewhere, such as peat-digging or using waste-land for common grazing, domestic industry (which was declining anyway), kelp collecting, fishing (where possible) or seasonal work on large farms. Smallholders with between 6 and 15 acres were classed as small farmers. Whatever the size of their holdings, virtually none had written agreements with their landlords to give them legal security of tenure. The sad plight of these groups dominates contemporary and much historical writing, but they did not constitute the entire population, and their numbers and economic significance declined from the mid-century.
Some 453,000 were returned in the 1841 Census as "Farmers" and ranked as men of some standing and wealth. They had a comfortable standard of living, participated in local and national politics, supported and financed the Catholic Church, arranged beneficial marriages for their children and provided social leadership in the absence of local landowners. Sometimes they were also landlords to the smallholders and cottiers, subletting land which they rented on long leases from the landowner.
Ireland was hurt by the Church of England who stole everything just
like they did in England from Catholic Church.
Something like that...
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
early Irish economies were not sufficiently diverse. They relied heavily on cows, and struggled to grow grains and produce bread the way other Europeans did.
Sort of…
From my readings the source of Ireland's Troubles began with the passage of the Penal Laws in the mid-to late 17th century, laws the prohibited Catholics from traveling abroad for study, the teaching or running schools in Ireland, purchasing land or inheriting it from Protestants. It also required that inherited lands be equally divided amongst the Catholic heirs which over time diluted Catholic land ownership in direct relation to their legacies. By 1778 Ireland's population was 80% Catholic but 90% of the land was in the ownership of Protestants.
By 1835 Irish poverty was so extensive it lead French sociologist, Gustave de Beaumont to comment that,
"I have seen the Indian in his forests, and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland...In all countries, more or less, paupers may be discovered; but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland."
Even with the development of a emerging linen and woolen industry Britain was able to out compete these Irish industries due to bans on Irish exports of wool and textiles, at least until the industry was totally in the hands of Protestants largely located in Ulster.
Of course the maladies of the Irish people were considered by the English can as a result of Irish laziness, lack of intelligence, ambition and sobriety (sound familiar) and not as a result of policies that would stifle the economic development of any people.
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