The Great Famine in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration that had a huge impact on Ireland’s demographic, political and cultural future.

In total, around 1 million people are reliably estimated to have died of starvation and epidemic disease between 1846 and 1851, and some two million emigrated in a period of a little more than a decade (1845-55).  As a result, the island’s population fell by between 20% and 25%. 

In most famines of recent times, only a small fraction of the population of the affected country or region is exposed to the risk of famine, and then typically for only one or two seasons.  In the Irish famine, by contrast, successive bouts of potato blight deprived over 30% of the population of their normal means of subsistence as much as four or five years in a row.

The effects of the Famine were severely worsened by the actions and inactions of the Whig government, headed by Lord John Russell in the crucial years from 1846 to 1852.  The associated political, ethnic, religious, social and economic factors have led to the famine entering folk memory, becoming a rallying point for various Home rule and United Ireland movements.

The diasaster has been memorialised in many pieces of writing and art, in Ireland and abroad.  One such, is the Famine sculpture that stands in the north-east corner of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

This 1967 bronze sculpture by the Irish artist Edward Delaney was commissioned by the Irish government.  It is produced by the lost-wax (cire perdue) method of bronze casting, typical of Delaney’s works of that period, allowing faithful reproduction of fine details.

Despite the size and angularity of the sculpture, I found it strangely moving and lifelike.

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For a list of other famine related artworks see here.

Posted as part of Frizztext’s Tagged F Challenge, ABC Wednesday and Alphabe Thursday.