Guinness in the Irish Potato Famine

Blisterman

I was just thinking this. Guinness was a massive brewery around the time of the Great Potato Famine, exporting beer throughout the world.
This must have required vast fields of barley, to produce all this beer, on land that could have been used to grow food.

Could it be argued that this was a contributing factor to the famine?

Morlar

Blisterman wrote: »

I was just thinking this. Guinness was a massive brewery around the time of the Great Potato Famine, exporting beer throughout the world.
This must have required vast fields of barley, to produce all this beer, on land that could have been used to grow food.

Could it be argued that this was a contributing factor to the famine?

I don't know a lot about the company during that period but I doubt they were exporting in vast quantities at that time.

They could probably have argued that they provided steady employment in a labour intensive industry to otherwise vulnerable labourers. Would it have been more beneficial giving away their crop ?

I think if they had done that the result would have been one local employer goes under and therefore had to let go of all of it's workers (who would then have starved along with their families).

I am not aware of them taking any measures whatsoever (aside from providing employment) to alleviate the problems.

Another area of that time which interests me are the soup kitchens which operated for 6 months only and were withdrawn so as to avoid dependency. In the midst of a famine that seems pretty staggering attitude from todays perspective.

Morlar

I found this article which may be of interest;

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20080907/ai_n28085901/

My family's famine shame By JASMINE GUINNESS

FOR Jasmine Guinness the contrast in her family tree could not have been greater.

The brewing heiress traced her roots back to the Famine, only to discover that while her mother's family starved, her Guinness ancestors made fortunes. They brewed precious barley into stout for export as the country's population suffered the horrors of the Great Hunger.

But despite the shocking truth about her ancestors' conduct, stunning model Jasmine defends her family.

The 31-year-old, who looked back into history as part of a new TV show about the Famine years, also discovered that the Guinnesses exploited the plight of the starving who were fleeing the country by snapping up disused land at rockbottom prices to make the equivalent of millions of euro today.

Along with Cork economist Eddie Hobbs and journalist John Waters, Jasmine set out to trace how her family lived during the Great Hunger, when a million died and a million more were forced to flee the country.

In the show, Jasmine defends the actions of her millionaire ancestors even though they supported the British government policy of letting famine rage in Ireland.

Her forefather, Benjamin Lee Guinness, was in control of the famous brewery during the terrible years of 1845 to 1852.

But while later generations of his family became known for their charitable work and great philanthropy, he capitalised on the Famine to make himself the richest man in Ireland.

"Guinness was the first company to give its workers pensions, before pensions were commonplace, and they built hospitals and housing and schools," said Jasmine, a mum-of-two. "I was always very aware of that level of looking after the workers.

"I guess I was always brought up to know about philanthropy and to look after people, but the only thing I really know about Guinness in the 1850s is that they did have the brewery then."

But the Guinness family showed little of their famed philanthropy during the Famine years.

As millions of people starved, Guinness maintained an iron grip on the country's barley production - harvesting it not for food but to brew it into stout for the English market.

The starving would look on in despair as barges packed with precious grain sailed along the canals towards Dublin's St James's Gate, where the brewery even had its own canal basin.

As the full horrors of the Famine first began take hold in the first nine months of the year now known as "Black '47", Guinness exported nearly 300,000 GALLONS of their famous stout to Britain.

They also claimed a large share of the nearly 900,000 gallons of porter that were shipped to England in the same nine months.

The beer, along with exports of bacon, ham, livestock, barley and wheat, was shipped under armed guard to British ports such as Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London, even as the people who produced the food starved to death.

The money the Guinness clan received from these massive sales helped the family to take advantage of less well-off landowners.

As peasants died from hunger or fled from the country, many landlords suddenly found themselves owning large tracts of unfarmed and useless land. Soon they themselves were in financial difficulties, and the Guinnesses used their wealth to buy up a series of family estates in Ireland and England during the Famine and its aftermath.

In the show, Jasmine is read a letter written by Benjamin's father Arthur, who spent the Famine years in London.

Technically, brewery owner Arthur - son of company founder Arthur who died in 1803 - had moved to Britain leaving the business under his Benjamin's control.

In the letter, Arthur does express some concern at the conditions in Ireland, but Benjamin subscribed to the official British "laissez- faire" policy, which meant not directly intervening to alleviate the horrors of the starving millions.

Jasmine defends her ancestors on the grounds that they did contribute to Famine relief funds, even though they did not make any charitable donations.

"This is the thing... the Irish have always been very proud and I don't think you'd want hand-outs if you were a very proud person," she said.

"The Guinness side were very successful businessmen. They seem to have been quite protected, but at the same time they created employment, and housing later."

Arthur Guinness actually only made two donations to the relief funds. His first was just pounds 60, though he later made a second one of pounds 100. The Guinness contributions to Famine relief is the equivalent of less than EUR12,000 in today's money.

During the show to be screened tomorrow night, model and designer Jasmine also discovers how her maternal ancestors suffered through the Famine.

Coming from an impoverished background in rural Tyrone, their plight could not have been in greater contrast to the millionaire brewers on her paternal side.

"On the other hand, my Casey side, I should think was hit much harder," she admits.

Jasmine was joined on her quest to uncover their history by her mother Liz, who returned to Ireland from Spain to help unravel that side of the family history.

Tracing her family roots, she also discovers her greatgrandparents Joseph and Maeve Casey were forced to flee to Leixlip from Belfast as sectarian mobs went on the rampage against Catholics in the 1920s.

Their marriage certificate shows that they were Irish speakers - indicating that they were most probably Catholic nationalists and a complete contrast to the Protestant Ascendancy background of the Guinnesses.

Jasmine and her mother eventually tracked down their ancestors to Carrycastle in Tyrone, where they lived on a small landholding that formed part of the Caledon Estate during the famine era. During the Great Hunger, that region of south Tyrone was particularly badly affected.

At the height of the Famine, life was harder for John Casey than for most small tenant farmers. He married and his son Francis was born even as starvation raged through the county. Casey's landlord, the Earl of Caledon, was forced to set up soup kitchens to keep his tenants alive.

Where Was Your Family During The Famine? Tomorrow on RTE1 at 9 .30pm.

brianthebard

Morlar wrote: »

Another area of that time which interests me are the soup kitchens which operated for 6 months only and were withdrawn so as to avoid dependency. In the midst of a famine that seems pretty staggering attitude from todays perspective.

You have to remember the importance of liberal ideas of the time and the whole concept of 'standing on your own two feet', not making things too cushy for the poor, etc. Not defending it in any way, just saying that it would be impossible to understand these events without taking that into consideration.

Simarillion

It is unlikely that re-planting Guinness land to feed the poor could have had any relief effect. Remember that Guinness are located within Dublin City and it is probable that any land they owned for the purpose of growing barley was located somewhere in Leinster, in areas that in comparison to Connaught, Munster and North-west Ulster, were mildly afected by the famine.
Granted distributing this barley may have fed a large number of people in the city, the Guinness family was very giving to their tenants across the country. It was likely that their personal famine relief and work schemes were more beneficial.

The arguement that large spaces should have been used could be as easily applied to The Phoenix Park, Stephen's Green and parks in all towns.

MarchDub

This thread is a joke, right?

ejmaztec

Wasn't Murphy's Brewery in Cork singled out as being the largest exporter of grain during the famine?

cleremy jarkson

MarchDub wrote: »

This thread is a joke, right?

Why? Because it's interesting to read about?

delta_bravo

ejmaztec wrote: »

Wasn't Murphy's Brewery in Cork singled out as being the largest exporter of grain during the famine?

Possibly, as far as I know Guinness was not as popular back in the 19th century as it is now due to there being so many breweries in Ireland at the time. There was about 20 at the start of the 20th century.

This isnt really major news. I'm sure if any of us traced our genealogy we would find someone that blackened your family name

Dean Roche

It was the guinness, rich Irish famers, OH and the big one, the British as their always blamed. I have seen so many storeys and trends on the Irish famine, but at the end of the day the Irish will never blame themselves for their carelessness. The Irish starved because the common feckless Irish people had massive big families of often up to 14 or 15 heads! That they just could not afford. They ware no welfare handouts back in those days so if was survival of the fittest, it was as simple as that. Many Irish say it was the British that deliberately tried to exterminate the Irish but that bull**** falls flat on its face as Britain taking in 5,000 Irish a week! If Britain had not of taking in the Irish even more of them would have starved.
The more competent and carful Scottish and welsh had fewer children later in life so they ware able to afford to buy food and clothes for their smaller families and keep a roof over their heads, that’s why they did not starve like the Irish.
Back then many Irish sooner lived on a rotten and unhealthy diet of spuds 247 than have fewer children later in life and have the money to afford to buy some proper food and clothes and shoes for their children, and keep and roof over their heads. As well as that the famine is arguably the most embarrassing part of Irish history; it makes me ashamed to be Irish. The countryside back then was teaming with fish and Rabbits, Rivers seas abundant with fish, and land abundant with wild rabbits. It would have also helped if the Irish had of bin more adventures when it came to food.

silverharp

Dean Roche wrote: »

It was the guinness, rich Irish famers, OH and the big one, the British as their always blamed. I have seen so many storeys and trends on the Irish famine, but at the end of the day the Irish will never blame themselves for their carelessness. The Irish starved because the common feckless Irish people.........

With respect but if a whole population was denied property rights then how can one expect the people to be industrious. Had Ireland been a soverign state I'd agree with you but given that Ireland was run as a colony and was subject to the whim of GB economic policies eg the Corn laws how could one expect a different result?

SlabMurphy

Dean Roche wrote: »

It was the guinness, rich Irish famers, OH and the big one, the British as their always blamed. I have seen so many storeys and trends on the Irish famine, but at the end of the day the Irish will never blame themselves for their carelessness. The Irish starved because the common feckless Irish people had massive big families of often up to 14 or 15 heads! That they just could not afford. They ware no welfare handouts back in those days so if was survival of the fittest, it was as simple as that. Many Irish say it was the British that deliberately tried to exterminate the Irish but that bull**** falls flat on its face as Britain taking in 5,000 Irish a week! If Britain had not of taking in the Irish even more of them would have starved.

The more competent and carful Scottish and welsh had fewer children later in life so they ware able to afford to buy food and clothes for their smaller families and keep a roof over their heads, that’s why they did not starve like the Irish.

Back then many Irish sooner lived on a rotten and unhealthy diet of spuds 247 than have fewer children later in life and have the money to afford to buy some proper food and clothes and shoes for their children, and keep and roof over their heads. As well as that the famine is arguably the most embarrassing part of Irish history; it makes me ashamed to be Irish. The countryside back then was teaming with fish and Rabbits, Rivers seas abundant with fish, and land abundant with wild rabbits. It would have also helped if the Irish had of bin more adventures when it came to food.

Yet another wannabe funny man :rolleyes:

brianthebard

Dean Roche wrote: »

The more competent and carful Scottish and welsh had fewer children later in life so they ware able to afford to buy food and clothes for their smaller families and keep a roof over their heads, that’s why they did not starve like the Irish.

Look up the Highland famine.

Dean Roche

Silverharp2 wrote: »

With respect but if a whole population was denied property rights then how can one expect the people to be industrious. Had Ireland been a soverign state I'd agree with you but given that Ireland was run as a colony and was subject to the whim of GB economic policies eg the Corn laws how could one expect a different result?

It was Britain that was good enough to take in 5,000 Irish a week to save more of them from starving to death. What are you taking about? Ireland was never an industrialized nation despite the population dramatically lowered by mass immigration; most of the tiny remaining population of Irish in Ireland still lived in poverty for decades during the “Free State”. Going back as recently as the 5os pauper children going to school with no shoes was not an uncommon sight!. They still did not learn!, all they did was bring huge amounts of kids into the world that they could not afford instead of thinking ahead and trying better themselves and their country buy focusing on becoming “industrialised”. All most Irish ever done is drag themselves into poverty with their own stupidity, very high birth rates, alcoholism and carelessness, and blamed Britain for it.


The Irish starved during the so called famine because they had massive families that they just could not afford, it’s as simple as that, if you can’t feed them, don’t breed them. Why ware they having so many children that they could not afford in the first place? A tad feckless don’t you think? Families of up to 14 and 15 kids ware common! Where is the logic in bringing so many children into the world that could not be afforded? If the Irish back then had smaller family’s later in life they would have been able to afford to feed them with proper food and keep a roof over their heads and lived a better quality life. The smarter and more carful Scots and welsh had the right amount of children that they could afford, if they had of been careless like the Irish they would starved also.

With such bad breeding feckless ancestors like that its no surprise the metal illness,social problems and crime rates in this country are "grossly disproportionate" for the size of its population today. and not mention there is a lot of crime and social problems where the Irish settled and multiplied in the UK like Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and other parts. Most of the chav and pikey scumbags in the UK are of old Irish and newish Irish stock. Have you ever noticed Glasgow and Liverpool bare all the hallmarks of the slum ****holes we have in this country! And Ireland is still not an industrialized nation; we don’t make or produce anything of our own. We heavily depend on the EU for handouts, all our stupid government do is just waist and squander and pocket the money, noting seems to progress the way it should, this country is still very badly ran.

Dean Roche

SlabMurphy wrote: »

Yet another wannabe funny man :rolleyes:

Typical Irish response, attack the messenger but not the message.

Dean Roche

brianthebard wrote: »

Look up the Highland famine.

That was not really a famine, there is no record of mass starvation, it was mostly Scots immigrating to the new world mostly Canada. We certainly don’t ever hear of Scots going on about a famine. Now we all know an Irish famine happened, the Irish have not shut up about it since.

silverharp

Dean Roche wrote: »

It was Britain that was good enough to take in 5,000 Irish a week to save more of them from starving to death. What are you taking about? Ireland was never an industrialized nation despite the population dramatically lowered by mass immigration; most of the tiny remaining population of Irish in Ireland still lived in poverty for decades during the “Free State”. Going back as recently as the 5os pauper children going to school with no shoes was not an uncommon sight!. They still did not learn!, all they did was bring huge amounts of kids into the world that they could not afford instead of thinking ahead and trying better themselves and their country buy focusing on becoming “industrialised”. All most Irish ever done is drag themselves into poverty with their own stupidity, very high birth rates, alcoholism and carelessness, and blamed Britain for it.

Not revelant ot this discussion, start another thread if you want to discuss post Free State

Dean Roche wrote: »

The Irish starved during the so called famine because they had massive families that they just could not afford, it’s as simple as that, if you can’t feed them, don’t breed them. Why ware they having so many children that they could not afford in the first place? A tad feckless don’t you think? Families of up to 14 and 15 kids ware common! Where is the logic in bringing so many children into the world that could not be afforded? If the Irish back then had smaller family’s later in life they would have been able to afford to feed them with proper food and keep a roof over their heads and lived a better quality life. The smarter and more carful Scots and welsh had the right amount of children that they could afford, if they had of been careless like the Irish they would starved also.

Care to discuss property rights and land use in 19thC Ireland ?

Dean Roche wrote: »

With such bad breeding feckless ancestors............

Not relevant or coherent

SlabMurphy

Dean Roche wrote: »

Typical Irish response, attack the messenger but not the message.

Typical, pathetic Brit responce. If I had a cent for every silly f**king Brit who comes on trolling on boards.ie :rolleyes:

brianthebard

Dean Roche wrote: »

That was not really a famine, there is no record of mass starvation, it was mostly Scots immigrating to the new world mostly Canada. We certainly don’t ever hear of Scots going on about a famine. Now we all know an Irish famine happened, the Irish have not shut up about it since.

Its historically referred to as a famine and definitely caused starvation, if not on the scale of the Irish one. Obviously more Scots immigrated than Irish during each respective famine, so perhaps the Scots one was worse? Either way I would ask you to rethink your posting style and chose factual information for the basis of your posts over...whatever it is you're basing them on now. Mod.

ejmaztec

On a recent BBC2 programme about Scotland, Neil Oliver suggested that the effect of the Scottish famine was minimised due to the aid sent by monied Scots to those affected by the potato crop failure. The highlanders and crofters were apparently held in high regard after being constantly romanticised by the likes Sir Walter Scott in various novels.

There obviously wasn't much of this romanticising here.

SlabMurphy

ejmaztec wrote: »

On a recent BBC2 programme about Scotland, Neil Oliver suggested that the effect of the Scottish famine was minimised due to the aid sent by monied Scots to those affected by the potato crop failure. The highlanders and crofters were apparently held in high regard after being constantly romanticised by the likes Sir Walter Scott in various novels.

There obviously wasn't much of this romanticising here.

There was ships sent with food from America donated by the Irish there but where not allowed to land in Ireland by the British.

Ireland was one of the main producers of food for Britain and produced enough food to fed itself but instead it was taken to feed industrial England as the British ruling class didn't want the people who were slaves in their factories to start dieing and losing profit for them. Instead the Irish were sacrificed.

Dean Roche

Silverharp2 wrote: »

Not revelant ot this discussion, start another thread if you want to discuss post Free State







Care to discuss property rights and land use in 19thC Ireland ?



Not relevant or coherent

Corn Laws and property rights my arse, the feckless Irish could not afford noting because they had too much children, back in those days it was survival of the fittest. When the population was dramatically lowered the Irish still lived in poverty in the Free State for decades, having massive families that they could not afford was one of the big causing factors. You blame the British for the famine, next you will be blaming the British for the 10000s of children raped and beating in the Free State.


If you can’t afford to pay your land lord or buy food what will happen to you, you will lose your house end up out on the street hungry and begging, back in those times they ware no drop ins any real charity or welfare, it was much worse so you had to be smart to survive.

Bad breeding and fecklessness do makes sense think about it! What kind of retards would bring more than a dozen children into the world that they can’t afford? Think about it,think about it, just think!

Dean Roche

SlabMurphy wrote: »

Typical, pathetic Brit responce. If I had a cent for every silly f**king Brit who comes on trolling on boards.ie :rolleyes:

I am not British; don’t get your tracksuit bottoms in a twist SlabMurphy.

Dean Roche

brianthebard wrote: »

Its historically referred to as a famine and definitely caused starvation, if not on the scale of the Irish one. Obviously more Scots immigrated than Irish during each respective famine, so perhaps the Scots one was worse? Either way I would ask you to rethink your posting style and chose factual information for the basis of your posts over...whatever it is you're basing them on now. Mod.

Scottish famine I have never heard of any Scots go on about a famine, the Irish haven’t shut about it since, numerous books, TV docs, famine memorials est. est. we haven’t heard noting from the Scots. Many Scots immigrated to Canada the new world, but no records of them starving like the Irish. 1000s of Irish immigrated to Scotland every week alone, and the Scots ware good enough to take them in, so what does that say?

brianthebard

Dean, I've already given you a warning in this thread. This is your last warning; stop the insulting language and deal use facts to back up your opinions rather than concepts of 'fecklessness'.Mod.

ejmaztec

Dean Roche wrote: »

Scottish famine I have never heard of any Scots go on about a famine, the Irish haven’t shut about it since, numerous books, TV docs, famine memorials est. est. we haven’t heard noting from the Scots. Many Scots immigrated to Canada the new world, but no records of them starving like the Irish. 1000s of Irish immigrated to Scotland every week alone, and the Scots ware good enough to take them in, so what does that say?

Neil Oliver's a Scot, and he was very critical of the British attitude to the Irish famine during his Galway to Baltimore "Coast" episode. You probably hear a lot more about the Irish famine, for the simple reason that a hell of a lot more people died in comparison to the Scottish one.

convert

Silverharp2 wrote: »

With respect but if a whole population was denied property rights then how can one expect the people to be industrious.

Is it not over-generalising a bit to say that the 'whole' population was denied property rights?

And on the issue of the Guinness Brewery - while it may have used a lot of grain which could have been used to help feed those who were starving, would it not also be fair to say that it gave employment to people during the Famine, as a result of which those individuals employed by Guinness were able to support their families during those years?

silverharp

convert wrote: »

Is it not over-generalising a bit to say that the 'whole' population was denied property rights?

wrong turn of phrase on my part, I'll amend with the averge Irish tenant farmer was not rewarded for making capital improvements on the land he farmed although I believe in more Protestant areas the "rules" were different.

Dean Roche

ejmaztec wrote: »

Neil Oliver's a Scot, and he was very critical of the British attitude to the Irish famine during his Galway to Baltimore "Coast" episode. You probably hear a lot more about the Irish famine, for the simple reason that a hell of a lot more people died in comparison to the Scottish one.

You probably hear a lot more about the Irish famine, for the simple reason that a hell of a lot more people died in comparison to the Scottish one.[/QUOTE]




You have just proven my point, that’s because the Scots and welsh had fewer children later in life, most of them ware able to afford it. Unlike the Irish that had “unnecessary gigantic families” that they just could not afford to have, it’s just not logical to have loads of children if you can’t afford it, any reasonably intelligent person would know that. Back in those times it was hard; it was all about survival of the fittest.

The Irish with their naturally leftwing leaning play the victim mentality, like to blame the British for everything, the Irish will never blame themselves for anything, but at the same time the Irish always had a notorious fondness of getting one way tickets to Britain to live, the brits ware always good enough to take them in, their so called oppressors eh! They are more Irish living the UK than what they are in Ireland itself, this was due to years of immigration right up to the 80s, immigration that was brought on by the poverty environment that Irish too often created for themselves.

Dean Roche

Silverharp2 wrote: »

wrong turn of phrase on my part, I'll amend with the averge Irish tenant farmer was not rewarded for making capital improvements on the land he farmed although I believe in more Protestant areas the "rules" were different.

Why do you and people like you always forget that the Irish always ran to the UK for a better life? This is the Irish conspiracy theory of British oppression jokingly falling flat on its face, I never in all my life heard tell of the oppressed fleeing to their oppressors…..

ejmaztec

Dean Roche wrote: »

You probably hear a lot more about the Irish famine, for the simple reason that a hell of a lot more people died in comparison to the Scottish one.

You have just proven my point, that’s because the Scots and welsh had fewer children later in life, most of them ware able to afford it. Unlike the Irish that had “unnecessary gigantic families” that they just could not afford to have, it’s just not logical to have loads of children if you can’t afford it, any reasonably intelligent person would know that. Back in those times it was hard; it was all about survival of the fittest.

The Irish with their naturally leftwing leaning play the victim mentality, like to blame the British for everything, the Irish will never blame themselves for anything, but at the same time the Irish always had a notorious fondness of getting one way tickets to Britain to live, the brits ware always good enough to take them in, their so called oppressors eh! They are more Irish living the UK than what they are in Ireland itself, this was due to years of immigration right up to the 80s, immigration that was brought on by the poverty environment that Irish too often created for themselves.
[/QUOTE]


I think all that you have proven is that you've got a huge font.