Chapter I

The Potato--Its introduction into Europe--Sir Walter Raleigh--The
Potato of Virginia--The Battata, or sweet Potato--Sir John
Hawkins--Sir Francis Drake--Raleigh's numerous exploring
expeditions--Story of his distributing Potatoes on the Irish coast
on his way from Virginia groundless--Sir Joseph Banks--His history
of the introduction of the Potato--Thomas Heriot--His description of
the Opanawk a correct description of the Potato--That root in Europe
before Raleigh's time--Raleigh an "Undertaker"--The Grants made to
him--The Famine after the War with the Desmonds--Introduction of the
Potato into Ireland--Did not come rapidly into cultivation--Food of
the poorest--Grazing--Graziers--Destruction of Irish
Manufactures--Causes of the increasing culture of the
Potato--Improvement of Agriculture--Rotation of Crops--Primate
Boulter's charity--Buys Corn in the South to sell it cheaply in the
North--Years of scarcity from 1720 to 1740--The Famine of
1740-41--The Great Frost--No combined effort to meet this
Famine--Vast number of Deaths--The Obelisk at Castletown
(_Note_)--Price of Wheat--Bread Riots--Gangs of Robbers--"The
Kellymount Gang"--Severe punishment--Shooting down Food-rioters--The
Lord Lieutenant's Address to Parliament--Bill "for the more
effectual securing the payments of rents and preventing the frauds
of tenants"--This Bill the basis of legislation on the Land Question
up to 1870--Land thrown into Grazing--State of the
Catholics--Renewal of the Penal Statutes--Fever and bloody
flux--Deaths--State of Prisoners--Galway Physicians refuse to attend
Patients--The Races of Galway changed to Tuam on account of the
Fever in Galway--Balls and Plays!--Rt. Rev. Dr. Berkeley's account
of the Famine--The "Groans of Ireland"--Ireland a land of
Famine--Dublin Bay--The Coast--The Wicklow Hills--Killiney--Obelisk
Hill--What the Obelisk was built for--The Potato more cultivated
than ever after 1741--Agricultural literature of the time--Apathy
of the Gentry denounced--Comparative yield of Potatoes a hundred
years ago and at present--Arthur Young on the Potato--Great increase
of its culture in twenty years--The disease called "curl" in the
Potato (_Note_)--Failure of the Potato in 1821--Consequent
Famine in 1822--Government grants--Charitable collections--High
price of Potatoes--Skibbereen in 1822--Half of the superficies of
the Island visited by this Famine--Strange apathy of Statesmen and
Landowners with regard to the ever-increasing culture of the
Potato--Supposed conquest of Ireland--Ireland kept poor lest she
should rebel--The English colony always regarded as the Irish
nation--The natives ignored--They lived in the bogs and mountains,
and cultivated the Potato, the only food that would grow in such
places--No recorded Potato blight before 1729--The probable
reason--Poverty of the English colony--Jealousy of England of its
progress and prosperity--Commercial jealousy--Destruction of the
Woollen manufacture--Its immediate effect--William the Third's
Declaration--Absenteeism--Mr. M'Culloch's arguments (Note
A.)--Apparently low rents--Not really so--No capital--Little
skill--No good Agricultural Implements--Swift's opinion--Arthur
Young's opinion--Acts of Parliament--The Catholics permitted to be
loyal--Act for reclaiming Bogs--Pension to Apostate Priests
increased--Catholic Petition in 1792--The Relief Act of
1793--Population of Ireland at this time--the Forty-shilling
Freeholders--Why they were created--Why they were abolished--the cry
of over-population, 1