# Irish Potato Famine - Let them eat fish?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 26, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022 "2002-10-26T20:43:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/1 "2002-10-26T20:43:49Z")
MrsIteki raised a fairly good question today, that I had no real answer for. She was wondering why, during the potato famine in Ireland, the Irish did not eat fish (it being an island and all that).
As I understand it, one of the main issues of the famine was not that there was no food, but rather that the Irish could not buy the food that was there due to the collapse of the potato-based economy (amongst other factors), like there was plenty of meat, dairy products etc. Those living by the coasts had the sea and it’s bounty at close hand, and all of those who took the Coffin Ships would have had to get to the coast anyhow. Considering that people ended up eating grass to fill their bellies, why not fish ?
FUN FACT LEARNED WHILE TRYING TO FIND MY OWN ANSWER:
The Choctaw tribe in North America sent $710 to Irish Famine Relief at the time. How cool is that? Belated thanks.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/2 "2002-10-26T21:15:00Z")
Fish aren’t quite as easy to harvest as potatoes.
---
### Author:  [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/3 "2002-10-26T21:26:16Z")
Cecil Woodham-Smith discusses this at length in _The Great Hunger_. Her answer is that many local fishermen **did** eat fish themselves; the problem was that the **fishing industry** , as it was, was woefully inadequate to feed a large population. The main problem as I recall was that the boats were too small and not suitable for the kind of deep-sea fishing that would be required. Other problems were that the other types of fishing equipment used were very primitive; that there was no advanced railway network (or any, in the west of the country) to transport any surplus caught; that many desperate fishermen had to sell their gear to pay their rents; and that - it always comes down to this - the British government refused to assist the fishing industry, in keeping with their typical _laissez-faire_ policies of the famine era.
I will note that some subsequent historians have taken issue with some of Woodham-Smith’s assertions, but I’m not familiar enough with the counter-arguments to present them.
---
### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/4 "2002-10-26T22:12:37Z")
**Mangetout** , I don’t buy that. Fish are a renewable resourse, and at the time I have strong doubts that the costal sources would have been overfished. Physically it takes a lot less effort to get up enough fish to feed you and yours for a day, even if it perhaps takes more time/skill/luck.
**ruadh** , that is fairly in-line with my explaination to the Mrs. That while sure we had fishermen and good ones at that, we did not have a fishing industry per se, nor a tradition as largely depending on fish due to our less harsh climate and broad agriculture (her comparison was Iceland and the Scandi-countries).
The issue of having sold their gear to pay the rents hadn’t crossed my minds, with the evictions that would have been a priority of course.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/5 "2002-10-26T22:42:10Z")
It does not take less effort to harvest fish than potatoes when you are a farmer who does not posess the equipment to catch fish or the funds with which to acquire it.
---
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/6 "2002-10-27T01:28:07Z")
In point of fact, Ireland _exported_ more than 4 times the calories of food needed to fully support the population during the Famine.
Exported in the form of wheat, beef, milk, cheese, non-tater veggies, and fish.
Exported to England.
And taken at bayonet-point by British soldiers, & Irish Protestant paramilitary forces.
Taken as payment of rents to absentee landlords.
Remittence of rents could have _totally_ prevented the Famine, or at least nearly so. This was never considered.
The Famine was created by a fungus that destroyed potatos. It was _caused_ by English Government policy.
---
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/7 "2002-10-27T03:04:05Z")
I’m reading Woodham-Smith’s book right now. It’s sitting just a few inches away from my mouse. Fabulous book so far.
One thing to remember-most of the Irish were rural and dirt poor. How were they going to GET fish if they weren’t on the coast? And how could they afford it otherwise?
☹
---
### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/8 "2002-10-27T03:12:23Z")
The 1943-45 Bengal Famine was another one _deliberately caused_ by British government policy. Nature was not to blame as there was no drought, flood, or crop failure. It was entirely the result of British orders to confiscate the food supply in Bengal (because of the war).
The number of deaths is estimated from 1.5 million to 4 million. Everyone talks about the Jewish Holocaust, but does anyone remember the Bengal Holocaust? If our “allies” do it, does that make it all right?
IMHO the British Empire has a hell of a lot to answer for.
---
### Author:  [@Snugglebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snugglebear)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/9 "2002-10-27T03:45:48Z")
Fish and chips had not yet been invented…😃
---
### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/10 "2002-10-27T09:07:08Z")
According to a Hammond World Atlas I have, the British had created an emblem, in British India, a form of self-praise; a circular emblem with the motto, “Heaven’s Light our Guide.”
Sick!
In the sixites I had an unusual joke book titled \*Race Riots,\*illustrated by Bill Hoest. In the section about the English, a missionary in India is trying to convert an elderly Hindu man to Christianity.
The missionary asked, “Don’t you want to go to Heaven when you die?”
The Hindu may shook his head in polite regret.
He answered, “I can’t imagine that Heaven would be any good, or the British would have grabbed it long ago.”
Hoest’s cartoon shows British soldiers raising the Union Jack at the pearly gates. I wrote on the flag, in my copy of the book, “Deus Manifestus.” :mad:
---
### Author:  [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/11 "2002-10-27T11:02:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \*
> \*\*Everyone talks about the Jewish Holocaust, but does anyone remember the Bengal Holocaust? \*\*
Interesting you mention it, since when I was looking for information to answer my question I one of the most extensive pages I found was at the Nebraska Dept of Education.
[http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish\_pf.html](http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html)
The document is “Approved by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on September 10th, 1996, for inclusion in the Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum at the secondary level.”
---
### Author:  [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/12 "2002-10-27T11:39:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \*
> **And taken at bayonet-point by British soldiers, & Irish Protestant paramilitary forces.**
Who exactly are you thinking of here? The term “paramilitary” is not commonly applied to any of the violent organisations in existence at the time, and I can’t recall reading of any that assisted the British in removing food from Ireland. Since most of these groups were agrarian-based, it would seem extremely unlikely for any of them to do so.
---
### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/13 "2002-10-27T12:01:26Z")
This thread is about fish, not the British. And I think it has been answered. To wit a) the fishing industry was not sufficiently developed to feed the entire island and b) other foods left the country under circumstances best left to Great Debates. Is that pretty much it?
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/14 "2002-10-27T12:06:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \*
> **The 1943-45 Bengal Famine was another one _deliberately caused_ by British government policy. Nature was not to blame as there was no drought, flood, or crop failure. It was entirely the result of British orders to confiscate the food supply in Bengal (because of the war).**
While there is no way I would defend the appalling policies adopted during British involvement in Ireland at the time of the famine, it should be rememebered that the _cause_ of the famine was botato blight. It is stretching the imagination to imply that the blight was deliberately imported to kill the Irish. British inaction towards the starving and the export of cash crops to Britain was at best criminal negligence, and perhaps even opportunism, but not the ultimate _cause_.
It should also be remembered that there was considerable protest in Westminster during the famine, which was stoked by some British landowners in Ireland, and British and Irish MPs, as well as widespread popular sympathy from the English public, but all too late, and to no avail.
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/15 "2002-10-27T12:08:55Z")
On the OP - according to an amateur historian and fisherman I know in Connemara (so I don’t know how good his cources are), people in the West of Ireland wouldn’t eat shellfish at the time, either, so lost a large potential source of protein.
---
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2002, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/irish-potato-famine-let-them-eat-fish/134022/16 "2002-10-27T12:20:29Z")
“sources”, not “cources”. :smack: