Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:37:38.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Irish grain trade, 1839-48

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

P.M. Austin Bourke
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As a step towards a fuller understanding of the food situation in Ireland on the eve of and during the great famine it is necessary to analyse the exports and imports of grain and grain products in those years.

There are a number of major obstacles to doing this. To begin with the available statistics on the Irish grain trade are neither orderly nor complete. The most extensive of the relevant series covers each calendar year during the period 1839–48. Monthly figures are available only for the year 1846 and apply to exports only. Other official returns refer to isolated periods of varying length.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 78 , September 1976 , pp. 156 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The relevant official summaries of grain traffic into and out of Ireland, which will hereafter be referred to as return (a), return (b), etc., are as follows :

  • (a)

    (a) exports and imports for each of the ten calendar years 1839–48 in H,C. 1849.(588),4,403

  • (b)

    (b) exports for each of the three calendar years 1844–6 in H.C. 1847 (24), Mx, 523

  • (c)

    (c) exports for each month of 1846 in H.C. 1847 (32), lix, 493

  • (d)

    (d) exports for each of the last two quarters of 1846 in H.C. 1847 (132), lix, 517

  • (e)

    (e) exports for the first quarter of 1847 in H.C. 1847 (543), Lix 519

  • (f)

    (f) exports for the second quarter of 1847 m H.C. 1847 (726), lix, 521

  • (g)

    (g) exports in the calendar year 1846 in table 9 of H.C. 1847 (259), Lix, 479

  • (h)

    (h) imports totalled over the period 29 August 1846 to 3 July 1847 in H.C. 1847 (725), Ivi, 291

  • (i)

    (i) imports totalled over ithe eleven month period ending 5 Dec. 1846 (table 9), exports in the same period (table 10), and a comparison of these exports with ’the annuail exports in each of the years 1843–5 (table 11) in H.C. 1847 (I), lix 469.

The amount of detail varies considerably from document to document. Table 9 in return (i) refers only to wheat, flour, maize and maize meal. At the other extreme, return (a) covers each individual grain, as well as peas, beans and malt which were at that time classified in the corn trade.

The fundamental document is clearly return (a), which is the basis of tables 2 and 3 in the present paper The trade in peas, beans and malt has not been taken into account here. Figures for small quantities of buckwheat have been incorporatedwith wheat, buckwheat meal with flour, aned bere with barley.

Table 10 of return (i) is importat in that it shows that direct exports of grain from Ireland to foreign countries were negligible, and hence that statistics for the trade from Ireland to Great Britain may be accepted as total exports.

2 Compare the figures for July-September and October-December 1846 in return (d) with the totals for the corresponding months in return (c). Another inconsistency is that the exports of wheat and barley over the first eleven months of 1846 in table 10 of return (i) are shown as greater than those for the full year in return (c) and elsewhere. Further, there is a minor discrepancy between oatmeal exports in 1846 as recorded on the one hand in return (a) and on the other in returns (b) and (c). This carries over into a corresponding difference in the statistics for combined oats and oatmeal exports in 1846 as given in table 9 of return (g) and in return (b) respectively.

3 First report on agriculture, 1836, p. 2, q. 16–18; p. 10, q. 155–7 (H.C. 1836 (79), viii, I).

4 Bourke, P.M.A., ‘The potato, blight, weather and the Irish famine’ (Ph.D. thesis, N.U.I., 1965), app. 4.Google Scholar

5 Distress correspondence, 1847, p. 1, H.C. 1847 (761); I.

6 Bourke, P.M.A., ‘Notes on some agricultural units of measurement in use in pre – famine Ireland’ an I.H.S., xdv, no. 55 ((Mar 1965), pp 236–45Google Scholar;

7 Irish Farmers’ Journal (newspaper section), 1846, p. 391

8 Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1846, p. 153.

9 Distress correspondence, 1847, P. I

10 Distress correspondence, 1846, pp 51, 53, H.C. 1846 (735), xxxvii, 41.

10 Second report on agriculture, 1836, p. 81, q. 6003–5, H.C. 1836 (189), viii, 225; Third report on agriculture, 1836, p. 286, q. 14781–3, H.C. 1836 (465), viii, I

11 Drummond, J C. and Wilbraham, A., The Englishman’s food: a history of five centuries of English diet (London, 1939), pp 350–51.Google Scholar

12 Baker, A, A vindication of the case of the corporation of bakers (Dublin, 1756).Google Scholar

13 The Patriot, 10 Nov 1814, market note.

14 Poor inquiry (F), 1836, p. 284, H.C. 1836 (38), xxxiii, 1

15 Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1844, p. 27; 1846, p. 606.

16 Approximate weights and measures ‘as used in the public departments in England for purposes of conversion’ and quoted in Distress correspondence, 1847, p. 1, include the following equations

The first two of these conversion rates, and also the following

are applied officially in returns (b) and (i).

17 Third report on agriculture, 1836, p. 309, q. 15276.

18 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, iv (1832–4), pp 48–53.

19 Poor inquiry (E), 1836, pp 2, 36, H.C. 1836 (37), xxxii, 1

20 Dowdall, F. in the Dublin Evening Herald, 10 Nov. 1846.Google Scholar

21 Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1846, p. 606. A whole range of equivalents is given here, not only for grain meals but also for pea and bean meal.

22 Distress correspondence, 1846, pp 51, 63.

23 Ibid. In table 9, return (i) of note ι, a figure of 62,338 cvvt of maize meal is equated with 18,182 qtr of maize. This is difficult to explain other than in terms of an error of calculation or a misprint.

24 Doyle, M., A cyclopaedia of practical husbandry (Dublin, 1839), p.30.Google Scholar

25 This is an amended and expanded version of table 12 in app. 3 of Ρ M. A. Bourke, Ph.D. thesis.

26 Census of 1851, pt v, i, 360, H.C. 1856 (2087–1), xxix, 261

27 Second report on agriculture, 1836, p, 82, q. 6037

28 Distress correspondence, 1846, p. 218.

29 Distress correspondence, 1846, pp 92, 218–9 , Trevelyan, C.E., The Irish crisis (London, 1848), p. 75 n.Google Scholar

30 Distress correspondence, 1846, p. 121

31 See note 2. The difference arises according to whether the figures for the last quarter of 1846 are taken from return (c) or return (d) of note I

32 Return t(h) of note 1

33 Distress correspondence, 1847, p. 97.

34 Woodham Smith, C., The great hunger, : Ireland 1845–9 (London 1962), p. 123.Google Scholar The conversion rate of one-fifth as used here is valid only for maize grain (see table 1).

35 Return (c) of note 1

36 Return (d) of note 1

37 Table 9 of return (i) and return (a) of note 1.

38 O’Neill, T.P., ‘Food problems during the great Irish famine’ in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 82, pt ii (1952), pp 99–108.Google Scholar

39 P. M. A. Bourke, Ph.D. thesis, app. 4.

40 Freeman’s Journal, 29 Oct. 1845.