THE OTHER IRISH FAMINE - Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World - page 103

But two entirely unconnected, epochal events of mid-1815—the eruption of Mount Tambora
in April followed by the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in May—combined to destroy
Ireland's fragile economic growth. As one famine historian puts it, “the fall in agricultural
prices after 1815 punctured the veneer of wealth and exposed the frailties beneath.” 13
Families that had enjoyed an affluence unknown to their own grandparents were suddenly
cast into poverty in 1815 and 1816. That fine Sunday suit was quickly sold or worn every day
until it hung like rags. Thus, when the bad weather came in the summer of 1816, it fatally
amplified already severely depressed social conditions. “Seldom,” reflected another eyewit-
ness of the post-Tambora misery in Ireland, “had such a multiplication of evils come togeth-
er.” 14
In The Black Prophet , William Carleton offers a vivid description of the impact of crop-des-
troying rains in 1816: “[They] took a short path across the fields, whilst at every step the wa-
ter spurted up out of the spongy soil, so that they were soon wet nearly to the knees, so thor-
oughly saturated was the ground with the rain which had incessantly fallen.” 15 From Kerry
to Cork, and Donegal to Clare, the unfortunate farmers of 1816 witnessed the full gamut of
rain-damaged crops, including waking to find their corn crop caked in red volcanic dust. 16
Most direful of all, the saturated soil created a toxic environment for the peasantry's subsist-
ence food, the usually hardy potato. In damp ground, the watery film on a growing tuber's
surface will restrict oxygenic diffusion. But once depleted of air, the cell membranes of the
plant begin to collapse and leak, reducing resistance to infection, at which point a multitude
of pathogens may stake their claim. Blackleg, soft rot, white mold, and powdery scab are just
some of the picturesque names given to potato blight in overirrigated conditions. In short, the
extended periods of heavy rain during the summer of 1816 first exposed the fallibility of the
Irish potato crop. Tragically, few measures were subsequently taken to reduce Irish reliance
on potatoes, with calamitous consequences in the 1840s.
Ironically, the potato was widely considered a breakthrough subsistence crop in Europe
because it was less vulnerable to meteorological variability. What this view did not take into
account, however, was climate change—when the potato crop faced a sustained period of ex-
treme weather events outside the range of natural variability. In good years, the rural popula-
tion subsisted on meals of potato, buttermilk, and oatcakes, but in 1816 and early 1817 even
these subsistence foods became scarce and expensive. Starving people roamed the woods in
search of “ramps”—a wild onion considered disgusting in ordinary times. Girls shaved their
heads and sold their hair to peddlers for a pittance, while families bled their half-starved
cattle, feeding on the blood mixed with a little barley—truly a soup of the damned. 17
In 1816, the soaked earth also ruined the quality of peat soil on which the peasantry
relied for heating their cabins. No dry straw to sleep on—instead just the damp earth. It was
thus in the first winter after Tambora that the disease ecology specific to typhus began to
emerge from the deteriorated living conditions of the Irish poor. Clothes turned filthy from
overwear, while threadbare coats and blankets were shared among the family. As the cold
weather settled in and with no fuel to burn, families huddled together in their cabins for
warmth, often not venturing out of their beds for days at a time. One doctor in County Tyrone
reported to have “frequently found all the members of the family laid in the same bed with
a patient labouring under fever, owing to their having but one or two blankets.” 18 Even as
famine conditions subsided with the improved harvests of 1817, the Irish peasantry faced the