Ireland: Famine, engineering and the contradictions of colonisation
- Luke
- Jan 8, 2021
- 4 min read
“We are a vibrant first-world country, but we have a humbling third-world memory.”
Mary McAleese, President of the Republic of Ireland, 1997
As a case of colonisation, Ireland’s historical relations with the United Kingdom offers a unique insight into the question of reparation and restitution. The history of Irish and British relations is a long and winding one, but the ten-year period from 1845-1855 provides a valuable snapshot of the actions and legacies of British colonisation. This period is synonymous with the Great Famine, where potato blight caused a failure of the potato crop from 1845-1849.
Although official death records were not kept at the time, more than one million Irish men, women and children died, with over one million more emigrating to America, Australia, and the UK. This represented a ~26% reduction in population. While pathogens caused the destruction of the potato crop, significant blame for the Famine rested with the Westminster government, who adopted the opinion that the market would resolve food shortage issues, and that the British state should not intervene (Woodham-Smith, 1962). To add to this, a large rural population in Ireland existed on poor agricultural land as fertile land had long been administered by landed gentry and British landowners (Graham, 1985).. Further exacerbating the Famine was the introduction of soup kitchens and labour houses for those requiring relief – however financing of such institutions fell on landlords who in turn sought to limit their liability by evicting tenant farmers. Throughout this period, Ireland continued to produce vast quantities of food for export to Great Britain, with an estimated 4,000 vessels carrying food produce arriving in British ports from Ireland in 1847 alone. What wheat and grain were imported, either required complicated milling for human consumption, or was mandated for animal feed.
During this period of untold death and despair came an altogether different paradigm – rail transport. Along the less affected, more affluent East coast, attempts were being made to connect Dublin with the South East of the country for the purposes of both leisure and economic connectivity. Ireland had largely missed the rapid technological advances of the Industrial revolution, so the building of a steam rail network was a significant technological achievement for the island. In creating an Eastern Rail corridor, rail engineers and entrepreneurs faced a significant challenge just 20km south of Dublin, near the town of Bray. South of the town lies Bray Head, a small yet steep mountain at the end of the Wicklow Mountains chain as it meets the eastern coastline. Rail engineers faced the daunting task of building the railroad around the Eastern, sea-facing side of the mountain along the sheer cliffs and rough swells of the Irish Sea. To achieve this engineering marvel, Isambard Kingdom Brunel the most accomplished British engineer of the 19th Century was employed to consult on the design of the railroad (Shepherd & Beesley, 1998). The treacherous work of building bridges between cliffs and over the sea, as well as the explosion of rock creating tunnels was begun in 1847, giving employment to locals otherwise greatly affected by the Famine (Davies, 1998). By 1855, the first journey from Bray southwards was completed, and thus the culmination of one of the greatest, and perhaps most underappreciated engineering masterpieces undertaken on the island. Although newer tunnels were bored and opened by 1918, significant portions of the original infrastructure are still used by rail traffic today, in an undertaking that would have been unlikely and challenging without British capital and expertise.
The period of 1845-1855 highlights both the worst of the Irish colonial experience, as well as the long-term positive legacies that colonialism endowed upon the country. The Great Famine remains one of the most significant human atrocities excluding war in modern European history, where although contentious, culpability rests with the powers of Great Britain. While the railway connection along the East Coast is but one project undertaken in Ireland, the economic, political, and cultural legacies of English involvement on this island are both tangible and tactile. The positive legacies of British activity in Ireland are not being forwarded in this piece as justification or restitution for the Famine, however the complicated strands of contrast between the barbarity of colonial concept and the structural economic benefits are very visibly highlighted by this period in time. Restitution or reparations are not a factor of discussion, seemingly as Ireland has no particularly grave need for it, neither seemingly is there a social or political appetite to push for such measures given Ireland’s dominant economic position today. Proximity, the entrenched position of the island of Ireland as a food basket for Great Britain, and the length of time colonisation occurred over have also played a role in why the question of Ireland, colonisation and reparations has not occurred. The case of Ireland provides a complex position on the damages and benefits of colonisation, and as importantly questions the mechanisms and justifications by which restitution and reparation should occur.
References:
Davies, K. (1998) Irish Historic Town Atlas: No. 9 Bray, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy
Graham, B.J. (1985). Anglo – Norman Manorial Settlement in Ireland: An Assessment. Irish Geography. 18. Pp 4-15.
Shepherd, E., Beesley, G. (1998). Dublin & South Eastern Railway. Leicester: Midland Publishing
Woodham-Smith, C. (1962). The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849. London: Hamish Hamilton
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