At 11:35 AM 7/16/97 +0800, you wrote:
>> Didn't the Irish survive only on the potato, for centuries, and a tiny bit
>> of eggs or buttermilk, when times were good?
>>
>
>No!  Potatoes were introduced to Ireland from South America during
>the modern era.  Even during the Famine (1847-1850 approx) lots of
>other food was being produced in Ireland and exported.  Why this
>happened is a political/historical debate. There is not any doubt,
>however, that many disenfranchised Irish were forced to subsist on a
>diet of primarily potatoes, buttermilk, and whatever they could
>scavenge in the way of intertidal sea creatures and plants.  They
>died in great numbers from this insufficient diet.
>
>Molly Ni/Da/na

Molly's right.  Lest we forget, the potato is a new world vegetable, and
didn't
'catch on' nearly as quickly as, say, tobacco.
The population of Ireland balooned between the late 1600s and the mid
1800s, which, of course, stretched the resources of the country; moreover,
according to English law at the time, Catholic families had to divide the
father's estate at death equally between the (male) children, rather than
having the farm go to the eldest child (which was the English tradition).
This was mandated by the English as a deliberate attempt to divide farms
into smaller and smaller parcels -- which, of course, would support less
cattle, etc.

So that's another factor in the whole mess.

The English deliberately practiced policies from medieval times through the
modern era that were designed to drive the Irish into poverty and political
weakness, but this process accellerated with Cromwell, and increased even
more when the Catholic Irish supported James II instead of William of
Orange.  William, of course, decided to crush this possible source of
resistance and unrest.

Anyway, enough on politics.

Corbie
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I am *NOT* a rabid feminist!  I had my shots last year.