.
Cormac O Grada, The Great Irish Famine, Cambridge University Press (1989) 1.
had survived the famine. The switch to livestock was important because it was profitable for with the resources to take advantage, between 1850 and 1870 the prices of store cattle, mutton and pork rose varying between thirty three and fifty per cent, while grain prices advanced little.
Irish direct imports from sources other than Britain had remained virtually static between 1825 and 1845 at a level of one and a half million pounds. Thereafter they rose dramatically the figure for 1850 was just over six million and twenty years later it was almost nine million pounds. The increase from 1845 onwards was made up mainly of the extra wheat and indian corn that had come initially in response to the great famine and the repeal of the corn laws and then continued to find a place because of the fall in Irish tillage production and changing dietary habits. The new economic system not only rendered older patterns of commerce obsolete b t extended the scope of commercial activity at the expense of substance living. People who formerly would have lived almost entirely on the produce of their own land began to buy flour or indian meal for at least part of the year and so for the first time or at least to a greater extent than before, became part of a wider money economy.
The Famine and ensuing depopulation undoubtedly had some negative consequence. Paradoxically, it may well have reduced the average living standard of those survivors who remained in Ireland. Simple economic theory suggests that the losses to landlords may have exceeded the gains to surviving labourers and farmers. The reason for this is that those who perished were mostly landlords. Between 1850 and 1900 the national average yield fell below three tons per acre. Poor harvests brought severe hardships but few died. The civil register, while incomplete, indicates that no area was hit by literal starvation in 1879 and after.
