Tea at Trianon: The Irish Famine of the 1740's

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Irish Famine of the 1740's

An early famine which prefigured the Great Hunger one hundred years later. From Historical Writings:

It started with a Great Frost in December 1739 and went on to September 1741. Temperatures across Ireland and Europe plummeted to -12 °C indoors, and as high as -32°C outdoors. Little snow fell, as the winds increased, and temperatures dropped even further. Ireland and most of Europe had been affected, as rivers, lakes and streams froze, and the fish died in the first few weeks of this natural disaster.

Hypothermia was the greatest fear; people burned what they could to stay alive. Country dwellers fared better, as many properties were of wooden construction, and they burned trees to keep warm. In normal weather conditions, Ireland received shipments of coal from Wales and Scotland, but the weather temporarily suspended deliveries. By late January 1740, when shipments had resumed, prices had soared, above most people’s pockets.

Much machinery in those days was powered by water, and the sub-zero temperatures brought them to a halt. Like the food processing plants, cloth for the weavers, and paper for the printers. Then Ireland was plunged into darkness, when the oil froze, and the street lights were snuffed out.

Ireland had two main food sources; potato and oatmeal. Potatoes were grown in gardens and on farms, but most had been attacked by the frost and destroyed. In the spring of 1740, the rains did not come, the frost dissipated, but the fierce cold winds remained. If the cold had not killed off the livestock; sheep and cattle etc, the drought was the final straw.

In the summer of 1740, the people of Ireland faced a famine of the likes they had never experienced … The frost had killed the potato harvest. The drought killed off the grain harvest, cattle and sheep. People were starving, and food was becoming scarce. There started a mass exit out of Northern Ireland, heading to the south of the country, where beggars lined the streets. (Read more.)