Why did our Caswells leave Ireland

EXODUS: THE POTATO FAMINE

     I felt it important to understand some of the reasons for the potato famine and its possible impact on our Caswells.  (I have misplaced the reference for the following excerpt.)

     “The conditions which produced this famine are complex. Briefly, however, during the Eighteenth century agriculture developed rapidly in response to the demand from Britain for food. The increase in tillage required an increased work force, and thus there was a period of relative prosperity for smallholders and labouring classes. Another significant development was that the Irish peasantry became increasingly reliant on the potato as their staple food. Since an entire family could support itself on a small area of land, a social revolution occurred. The average age at marriage dropped as it became possible for younger men to support a family by renting a small plot of land on which to grow potatoes (to eat) and cereals (to sell for rent money).”

     “During the nineteenth century there was a consequent large increase in population. In 1687 it is estimated that the population was around 2.2 million. By 1725 it had exceeded 3 million, and by 1772 it was almost 3.6 million. In 1781 it was just over 4 million, and from then until 1820 the rate of increase was approximately 17 percent per decade. The population reached over 8 million in 1841, the highest it had ever been before that time (or has been since).”

     “The two major factors which were to change significantly this situation were (a) a decline in the value of agricultural produce and (b) the increasingly common destruction of the potato crop by the potato blight.”

     “The potato crop partially failed many times between 1800 and 1845. However, in the four years between 1845 and 1848 the crop failed three times, causing what became known as the Great Famine.”

     “The result was the death of a million people by starvation or disease and a flood of emigration. It is estimated that in 1847 alone, around 230,000 people left Ireland for North America and Australia and further thousands for Britain. Some 2 million left between 1845 and 1855, and the process of emigration continued for the remainder of the century and beyond.”

     It is unknown what effect the potato famine had on our Caswells in Armagh.  Our ancestors lived in one of the poorest section of Ulster;

     “…in districts like the Fews, in County Armagh, the standard of living was as low as anywhere in the country.  The wretchedness of the country is well displayed by the census of 1841, in which housing was placed in four categories, the lowest being ‘windowless mud cabins of a single room’.  Nearly half of the rural housing fell into this category.”

     We will never know whether it was hunger that drove Andrew and Mary Jane Caswell from their home, or letters of encouragement from relatives that had preceded them to Canada. Andrew’s brother William had taken his family to Canada in the 1830’s.  Certainly Andrew & Mary Jane’s move to Canada came at the height of the potato famine emigration.