406 THE BRITISH ISLES. 



to ancient routine and a too minute subdivision of the soil caused the agricultural 

 resources of the country to be wasted. In Donegal and other parts of Northern 

 Ireland large farms used to be leased to a number of persons, by whom they 

 were subdivided according to the quality of the soil, a portion of each field 

 being allotted to a separate tenant. When the father died, his separate lots 

 were a^-ain subdivided according to the number of his children, until only , 

 a crumb remained to each. This method of subdivision, known as " rundale " 

 or "runrio-," could not, however, be applied to animals, which each of the tenants 

 was called upon to feed in turn. It is easily understood that the soil pro- 

 duced but little under so pernicious a system, and notwithstanding its natural 

 fertility and abundant rains, Ireland was incapable of feeding all her children. 

 Famine became permanent, and the animals hungered with their masters. 



Famines* have been of frequent occurrence in Ireland. The most terrible 

 famine of the last century was that which occurred in 1739-40, but more terrible 

 still was the great potato famine of 18-16-7, when over 1,000,000 persons 

 perished, notwithstanding the £10,000,000 advanced by Parliament for its relief. 

 The population became reduced by about 2,500,000, and out of the 1,180,409 

 persons who emigrated to America, 25 per cent, are stated to have died within 

 twelve months after leaving. The wages paid to agricultural labourers from 

 the close of the French wars up to the time of this dreadful visitation are 

 variously estimated by political economists at 3d. or 4d. daily, a sum still further 

 reduced by periods of enforced idleness. About the middle of the century, 

 when the purchasing power of money had already considerably fallen, Irish 

 labourers earned between 2s. 6d. and 5s. a week If And such a pittance was 

 to suffice for the wants of a whole family. Need we wonder, after this, that 

 the Irish peasantry were condemned to a potato diet ? That tuber had been 

 introduced into the island about the close of the sixteenth, or at the commence- 

 ment of the seventeentb century. J Ordinarily it yields an abundant crop, 

 but for that very reason has proved an affliction to the island, by rendering 

 its inhabitants improvident. The cultivator trusted to his potatoes to supply the 

 means of subsistence, and planted little else ; and when disease struck his staple 

 crop he was reduced to the necessity of eating his pigs, and that last resource fail- 

 ing, there remained nothing for him but to die. Shan Nan Yocht — " poor old 

 woman " — is the name which Irishmen mournfully bestow upon their native 

 country. § 



During the famine of the black '47 the unfortunate people sought to 



* Years of famine in Ireland since the birth of Christ: — 10 — 1.5; 76; 192 (first notice of emigra- 

 tion) ; 535—38 ; 664 ; 669 ; 700 ; 709 ; 768 ; 772 (famine from drought) ; 824-5 ; 895—97 (invasion of 

 locusts); 963-4 (parents sold their children) ; 1047; 1116 (people eat each other); 1153; 1188; 1200; 

 1209; 1227; 1262; 1271; 1295; 1302; 1314; 1316; 1317; 1332; 1339; 1410; 1433; 1447; 1491; 

 1497; 1522; 1565; 1586 (consequent on the -wars; human flesh eaten); 1588-9 (human flesh eaten); 

 1601—3 (cannibalism); 1650-51 (sieges of Limerick and Galway); 1G90; 1727—29; 1739-40; 1765; 

 1801; 1812; 1822; 1831; 1845 (£850,000 expended by Government in relief of suff'erers) ; 1846-7; 

 1879. (Cornelius Walford, " On the Famines of the "World," Journal of the Statistical Society, 1878.) 



t Buckle, " History- of Civilisation in England." 



% Dufferin, " Irish Emigration, and the Tenure of L nd in Ireland." 



§ Sullivan, " Xew Ireland." 



