Crop failure, famine and hunger make for painful memories in Ireland and if climate patterns are anything to go by, we may be looking forwards to their re-occurrence in years to come. While global warming has been a great concern for several years now, it turns out that historical warm times have been boom years, while ‘mini ice ages’ have caused the greatest deprivation for humankind.
Whatever you think about the modern mantra of climate change, there are measures to prevent the effects of climatic instability that are well worth taking up as a matter of course. I’m advocating a permaculture approach to food security and environmental care. To get prepared for an uncertain future it’s worth taking an historical look at Irish famines, as well as the climate patterns that resulted in crop failures.
Climate cycles
Recently I heard a radio interview that helped me to set the scene for several catastrophic Irish famines. It was refreshing to listen to one of Australia’s top climate change sceptic scientists. Ian Plimer, professor of geology at the University of Adelaide (interviewed by Michael Duffy on the Counterpoint program, which exists to air minority views) talked about his geological perspectives on climate change. (The other most prominent sceptic scientist in Australia is also a geologist.)
‘Climate change is normal!’ said Plimer. Some periods in the past have seen greater and faster change than this one, which is boring to a geologist, he declared! He spoke of past sea level changes in the region of a wapping1500m (- no wonder ancient human structures are found beneath the sea!) and evidence of a ten degree rise in temperatures over a mere 10 years.
‘There are short and long climate cycles at work, related to various factors such as sunspots’ Plimer explained, ‘and sometimes they co-incide and the effects get extreme!’
Plimer gave recent examples of climate change, with the well known European medieval warm period, which followed a very cold period. The warm period spanned from around the year 900AD to 1280. It was all over in 23 years, with a very rapid change to a cold cycle. From after around 1280 and up until about 1850 it was common for rivers to freeze over in winter and be used as skating rinks, as depicted on classic scenes on Christmas cards. In the time of the Roman Empire, and also the Egyptian and Minoan periods, people enjoyed warm times, characterised by empire rising, great cultural achievements and expansive economies.
‘Global warming is good for you!’ Plimer chuckled. “In the warmer periods we know there was less war, less disease…. people really did prosper and enjoy them!”
So why is science adhering to the current concept of climate change, which is depicted as “alarming!” and other disturbing superlatives? Why are other scientists also not “bored” by projected levels of climate change?
‘The nature of science today is ideology driven… Science is driven by funds and fame’, explained Plimer. (When he first studied the sciences it was driven by curiosity.) The most alarming reports are bound to generate the highest levels of funding.
It sounded plausible to me, but presumably Plimer doesn’t live at the seaside, or he might be a little alarmed. At a recent conference in Australia on climate change it was said that historically, a one degree rise in temperature has rapidly resulted in a 4m sea level rise and that the predicted global 2 degree rise would presumably swamp up to 10% of the world’s population, those living in coastal areas. But then again, we can’t always be sure of the scientist’s predictions.
‘Scientists today don’t want to put in the hard slog, they just put data into computers and it’s never questioned,’ Plimer said. He is the author of ‘Heaven and Earth – global warming, the missing science’, published by Connor Court.
As for carbon dioxide and its relation to climate change, Plimer says that – ‘Nature is the greatest emitter of CO2’. He explained how CO2 belches out of volcanoes in enormous amounts. 85% of this volcanic activity is happening unseen by mankind, deep under the sea, and isn’t being put into the equation. This CO2 is eventually emitted by the oceans. And then there’s the largest biota in the world, the microorganisms under our feet, going down to 4 kilometres below, the rock-eating bacteria that emit enormous amounts of CO2. These, not people, are the actual biggest sources of CO2, he emphasised. CO2 is a gas which enables plants to grow and without which we wouldn’t exist. At one period of time when the Earth was covered by lush jungle vegetation, there was 25 times more of it than is presently found in the atmosphere, said Plimer.
Getting back to the general picture, we are in a warming period at this point in time and had better get to terms with it quick, whatever the cause. We need to design our homes and our settlements for the likely consequences….
But our famine story begins back in the 18th century in Ireland, during the ‘mini ice age’, when Christmases really were white and food security was totally inequitable, thanks to the greed that was legitimised by colonial masters across the Irish Sea.
Diet and famines in the past
The Irish were traditionally accustomed to eating a range of grains, (known collectively as corn), root and leaf vegetable crops, the wild herbs of the meadows, wild nuts and tubers, a little fruit and small amounts of meat and dairy products. Nettles, sorrel, docks and watercress, growing so prolifically in the wild and being delicious, were rightly relished! These plants might well be called ‘super-foods’ for the nutritional goodies they offer. But they came to be associated with poverty and deprivation, at least by the foreign chroniclers of the day.
There are also English, and no doubt also disparaging, references from the 16th century onwards of a fermented drink made by the peasants of Ireland, Scotland and northern England, called sowens. This was made by soaking husks of bran from oats or barley for a few days until a slight ferment was produced. It was drunk after straining (and was probably mildly alcoholic) or was boiled until it became a jelly.
Grains were considered sacred in pre-Christian Ireland and the greatest corn god of them all, in the Iron Age at least, was Crom Cruach (also known as Crom Dubh), the god of the harvest and the underworld. Cruach means corn-rick, or stack. Crom’s few remaining sacred stones, such as the Killycluggin Stone now kept in the Cavan Museum at Ballyjamesduff, are shaped like the old type corn stacks and are decorated with carvings in the La Tene style.
There were many agricultural goddesses once honoured too, although these were more prominent in earlier eras. At some point the institution of kingship took to borrowing from the role of the divinities. It then became the general belief that a good harvest of fruit and corn would ensue as the result of the good justice of the local king.
Great festivals of feasting occurred at Crom Cruach Sunday/ Lughnasad around August 1st, at the start of harvest, which degenerated into less pagan berry picking fests in Christian times; and at Samain, when excess numbers of livestock had to be reduced before the lean times of winter.
In early Christian times it was the monasteries that were the most important institutions and settlements (apart from ports). Some monks practised monastic vegetarianism and asceticism, living purely on barley bread, watercress and hot water; or on water and the herbs of the land only. Which seems to reinforce my assertion that those herbs were excellent food. People forced to live on such herbs during famine times were reported to develop a noticeable green hue.
The monastic diet was most severe at Lent (spring Lent, Lent before Christmas and 40 days after Pentecost), when monks lived off bread and water alone. Lay people were expected to refrain from meat eating during the three Lents and also twice weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays. This was basically because there wasn’t enough food to go around and meat production takes up an awful lot of space and inputs. The spring period of Lent fitted in with the farming cycle, when the store of corn and salted meat was waning and milk production not yet underway.
Famine may well have been a regular and normal fact of life in Ireland during the ‘mini ice age’ period. People developed strategies to cope with crop failure. It is well documented from the 16th century onwards, for instance, that the blood of cows was drunk in times of scarcity.
There was a general taboo about eating dogs, badgers and cranes; but in famine times the rules went out the window. Ancient annals record that in times of dire scarcity, both dog eating and cannibalism were practised, including the selling of children for food. (A fear of being eaten in Europe survives in the children’s tale of Hansel and Gretel.)
In the particularly cold winters of the ‘mini ice age’ cattle often died from cold and starvation. No special provisions were afforded them. It was only after the Norman conquest in the 12th century that the skills of hay making were imparted to the Irish farmers and this allowed much improved survival for the cattle. It didn’t help the ordinary people of the land however. Quite the opposite.
The colonial masters greatly favoured livestock rearing over tilling the land and this amounted to genocide for the disempowered peasantry, many of whom were displaced by cows. (The same happened in Australia, with indigenous people losing great tracts of their territory to cattle barons, so that they were unable to continue supporting themselves from the land and became virtual slaves, outlaws or were institutionalised in mission stations). It was such a situation of enforced poverty that forms a grim backdrop to the untold suffering of the Irish famines of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Corn crops had always grown pretty well in the lush Irish climate. Hence they became tithable commodities, part of the crop being payable as rent (and expensive rent at that), with landlords who often lived across the Irish Sea and had little interest in their vast estates of stolen land. Good crop land was being rapidly replaced by pasture for cattle in the early 1700s and there were few suitable places left where ordinary people could grow food and eke out a simple living.
Hello potato
Fortunately the potato came onto the scene, introduced possibly around 1586, although it took a while to catch on. The fact that it was never a tithable commodity and could be grown on the more marginal lands, in bogs, on mountain sides etc, made the potato eventually become extremely popular. But to the elistist writers of the day, the potato was firmly associated with peasantry and poverty, even considered to be a low-grade food, barely fit for animals.
Despite their assumptions, by the early 1700s potatoes had become a mainstay of the survival for many, particularly for those people pushed onto the marginal lands. The humble potato could provide four times as much food on a given area than any other crop. This was just as well, because the people were in for very hard times. In the 1720s King William III, at the bidding of the British parliament, destroyed Irelands flourishing woollens trade, by enacting a duty on their exportation, and navigation laws became another de-facto form of prohibition, bolstering the British industry at Ireland’s expense. (A later imposition of duties on linen manufactured in Ireland killed off that industry too.) Over 40,00 jobs were lost as a result. Together with the reduced amounts of tillage in the land, this caused extreme want.
To cap it off, there was a series of very bad harvest from 1725 to ’28, and these caused “scenes of wretchedness unparalleled in the annals of any civilised nation”, O’Rourke, the author of ‘The Great Irish Famine’ noted in 1874. Emigration became very popular in 1728. Times were generally pretty tough between 1720 and 1740, probably peaking with the worst weather. A pamphlet published in 1740 cited “12 bad harvests with slight intermission.”
Extreme weather
Prior to 1740 it was traditional to wait until the potato stems had withered, then to mound up some extra earth on top of them in their beds. They would then be left in the ground until Christmas, at which time they would be dug up and stored.
In early November 1739 an extremely cold north-westerly wind was blowing and this was followed by the severest frost in living memory. The cold snap entirely destroyed the potato crop, the frost penetrating down to 9 inches below the surface, it was reported in the south. Turnip crops were also destroyed, although parsnips survived. Rivers froze up and were used as highways and had festivals held on them. Shrubs and trees died, as well as birds and shrimps. Wool fell from the backs of the sheep, which also died in great numbers.
At the end of December a violent storm struck. The extreme frost continued on for 8 – 9 weeks. The mills and rivers were so frozen that no corn could be ground (Ancient, hand powered corn grinders were long out of fashion and unavailable.) All employment ceased. Robber gangs stole food. If they were caught, they were killed.
Some landlords helped out with handouts, but there was no government help whatsoever. The Lord Lieutenant, Duke of Devonshire, gave a monetary donation to help starving Dubliners and forbade any exportation of corn, meal or bread. Except, that is, to England.
Over that frozen winter and into spring there was very little rain – it was a drought! The rivers only started to unfreeze in early February. The next year, 1741, proved little better and famine continued. Starvation and disease combined to kill off one eighth of the Irish population. And all the while food was being exported to Britain. The depopulation of the countryside welcomed by landlords, greedy for more cattle pasture.
The weather must have improved after 1741 as the amount of potato growing was on the increase. By 1776 it was reported that potato growing had increased 20-fold over the previous 20 years. For 9 months of the year the people of the land were able to live quite well from a basic diet of potatoes and milk. By 1780 the potato was recognised as a staple food, the ‘apple’ variety being the most popular that century, as it had the best quality and stored the best.
But the cold period was not yet over. In 1821 in the south and west of Ireland springtime was extremely wet and stormy, retarding normal outdoor activities and crop planting. The summer that followed was not much better, with May being cold and June frosty with a cold north wind and sometimes scorching sun. Autumn was extremely wet and floods caused devastation, whole crops being washed away. Potato pits, now the order of the day, were inundated. (These had become the norm after 1740, with deep storage pits dug down to 10 feet, and the stored potatoes mounded up on top, covered over and looking like a hayrick.)
The winter and spring in 1822 continued to be very wet. But this time there was some assistance from the British Government, and 1400 tonnes of seed potatoes were sent over. However, although the potato crops failed, the cereal crops did ok and it was export business as usual. The poor could not afford to buy the export grains. In all the nearby countries where potatoes were grown, there had been potato crop failures every 2 or 3 years after 1821. However it was normal then in other European countries to cease all food exports during famine times.
It was in 1845 when the ‘Great Famine’ began, caused partly by the Potato Blight, Phthytophera infestans, that somehow blew in from the Americas, where the potatoes originally came from. Humid conditions fostered its spread. Uniform potato genetics didn’t help. The indigenous South Americans traditionally plant dozens of genetically diverse varieties in a field, as a hedge against climate extremes. Different varieties can handle different seasonal climate variations.
In 1845 the potato crops withered, half of them totally destroyed, and in the next year worse was to follow – their was total destruction. People opened their storage pits to find the frightening spectre of a stinking, black slimy mess of rot. But meanwhile, oat crops thrived. These were usually earmarked to pay the rent. If you didn’t have a home, you were as good as dead in those times, so people starved to death while oats sat in storage. Few landlords waived rental arrears. Some encouraged their tenants to emigrate. So-called relief at soup kitchens was means tested. If you had just one quarter of an acre or more of land you were not eligible. So in order to obtain ‘relief’ people had to give up their land, and more and more land found its way into the hands of the graziers. Government relief came too late, was too little, ill-planned, and too mean to be much use.
“It was all but the avowed, nay, truth compels me to say,” wrote O’Rourke, “the frequently avowed policy of England to keep Ireland poor and therefore feeble, that she might be held more securely.” It was a genocide. Between 1845 and 1851 over 2.4 million people had either died of starvation, associated disease or had emigrated, O’Rourke tells us.
Such a shocking scourge has occurred in modern times elsewhere in the world. And also not totally because the Earth has withheld her bounty. In Brazil, we are told in the 1989 edition of The Great Famine’s introduction, 3 to 4 million peasants died from starvation and disease between 1979 and 1984, “all the while food was being exported to richer markets, while arable land was producing cash crops for foreign consumption.” It has been called ‘O Genocidio do Nordeste’.
Greed, gardens and beyond cows
So what can we conclude from these sobering facts? Perhaps that the desire for self-sufficiency isn’t such a bad idea after all, compared to slavery to the cash economy, as has been inculcated by colonial powers worldwide. Or better still – fostering community co-operation and interdependence, as happened in Cuba, when the lifeline to petroleum was cut and they had to re-invent society, and now food is produced closer to where it’s consumed, on roof tops even, and human powered carts carry loads around the city.
Learning to curb that basic human instinct of greed is always going to be a battle. It seems to me that a driving force in the modern Irish psyche is an over-reaction to the fear of want, a deep fear stemming from the those hideous memories of famine times that has been converted into degrees of selfishness and greed. People aspire to live in concrete fortresses, seemingly modelled on the mansions of their old colonial oppressors and with unsustainably high expectations of material gain. Now for many people, at the time of writing in late 2008, the capitalist economic system has failed them and they are frozen in panic, unequipped with the necessary survival skills.
Western society has been fostering competition for too long now. It’s time we encouraged and taught mutual interdependence to our children. The joys of creativity and self-reliance, as well as community and co-operation. The embrace of permaculture ethics – care of people and the Earth, the free sharing of surpluses, and an ideal of limits to growth, rather the mantra of unsustainable, cancerous economic and population growth. For if our Earth ship sinks, we all go down together!
The other important lesson is to produce a much greater diversity of food crops and to encourage all people to grow some sort of food around their homes. To rip out the lawn and create edible landscapes – a key goal of the permaculture movement.
Eat your weeds too! Nettles and other juicy herbs are probably going to be healthier for you than the vegetables sold in the shop. (Find out how unhealthy mass produced food is in Graham Harveys’ excellent book ‘We Want Real Food’, which is going to be reviewed in the next issue of Living Lightly. Permaculture UK can sell you a copy.)
And unsustainable foods need to be boycotted. Cows remain a big problem! There are far too many taking up far too much space and resources. A high consumption of meat is totally unsustainable for the health of people and planet alike. Cows have ruined much land in Ireland and elsewhere. Meat production is a high producer of greenhouse gas emissions* and uses large amounts of dwindling water supplies as well. We just don’t have enough planets available to produce the amount of meat that people want to eat.
Cutting down on meat consumption and people’s insatiable and unsustainable desires generally, the cultivation of food gardens, and the art of finding contentment with the simple things of life, are important steps to take, if we want to create a happy and healthy future.
© Alanna Moore, November 2008.
References:
Kelly, Fergus, ‘Early Irish Farming’, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1998.
O’Rourke, Canon John, ‘The Great Irish Famine’, 1874, 2nd edition 1989, Veritas Publications, Ireland.
* Shun meat, says UN climate chief
Livestock production has a bigger climate impact than transport, the UN believes. So people should consider eating less meat as a way to tackle global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist. Read all about it at:
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7600005.stm