Karl Marx

[Draft of a Speech on the Irish Question, Delivered at the German Workers’ Educational Society in London on 16 December 1867]

I

What distinguishes Fenianism? It actually originates with Irish Americans, Irishmen in America. They are the initiators and <leaders>. But in Ireland itself the movement struck root only (and still has its real seat) in the popular masses, the <lower classes>. That is what characterises it. In all earlier Irish movements the people merely followed the leadership of aristocrats or <bourgeois> and always the Catholic priests. In the rising against Cromwell, Anglo-Irish chieftains and priests; in the war against William III even the King of England, James II, at the head; in the revolution of 1798, Protestant republicans from Ulster (Wolfe Tone, Lord Fitzgerald); finally, in this century, the <bourgeois> O’Connell, relying on the Catholic clergy, who also play the leading role in all earlier movements, with the exception of 1798. <Fenianism> has been placed under a ban by the Catholic clergy. They gave up their resistance only when they began to fear that, because of it, they would lose all influence over the Irish popular masses.

II

What surprises the English is this: compared with the former oppression of Ireland by England, they find the present regime to be mild. Why, then, precisely now, this most determined and irreconcilable form of antagonism? What I want to show, and what is a secret even to the English – why I take the side of Irish nationality and its right to secede from England – is that since 1846 the [oppression], although less barbaric in form, is in substance annihilating and leaves no other way out than the voluntary emancipation of Ireland by England or a life-and-death struggle.

III

As for past history, the <facts> can be found in every history book. I shall therefore give only a few hints, as far as is necessary to make clear the difference between the present epoch and earlier ones, and secondly to highlight a few points concerning the character of what is now called the Irish people.

a) The English in Ireland before the Protestant Reformation

1172. Henry II. conquers not yet
1
/
3
of Ireland. <Nominal conquest.> Gift of Pope Adrian IV (an Englishman). About 400 years later another pope (under Elizabeth) (1576) – Gregory XIII; takes back the grant from the English (Elizabeth). The <
“English”
>
Pale”
. <Capital>:
Dublin
. Intermingling of the English <common colonists> with the Irish, of the Anglo-Norman magnates with the Irish chieftains. Otherwise the war of conquest waged like that against the <red Indians> (originally). Until 1565 (Elizabeth) no English reinforcements sent to Ireland.

b) <
Protestant epoch.
>
Elizabeth. James I. Charles I. Cromwell. Plan of colonisation (16th-17th century)

Elizabeth. The plan was to exterminate the Irish, at least as far as <the river> Shannon, and to put English colonists in their place, to take away their <land>, etc. In the struggles against Elizabeth, the <Anglo-Irish> who had remained Catholic fought together with the <natives> against the English. The avowed plan of the latter: <
To clear the island of the natives and to settle it with submissive Englishmen.
They succeeded only in settling a landed aristocracy. English
Protestant “adventurers”
(merchants, usurers), who received the confiscated lands from the English crown, and “enterprising noblemen”, who were to settle the estates ceded to them with English families of native origin.

James I. Ulster.
(Jacobite colonisation, 1609-1612.) British entrepreneurs are to “populate the confiscated, stolen lands with Irish”.> It is only from
1613
that the <Irish> are regarded as <English subjects>, until then as <“outlaws”> and <“enemies”>, and <
the Irish parliament
> governed only within the
Pale
. Thereby persecution against the Catholics.

<
Elizabeth
settled
Munster
,
James I. Ulster
, but
Leinster
and
Connaught
have not yet been cleared.
Charles I.
attempted to clear
Connaught
.

Cromwell: First national uprising of Ireland, its second and complete conquest. Partial recolonisation (1641-1660).

Irish revolution of
1641
.
In August 1649, Cromwell’s landing in Dublin.
> (After him, Ireton, Lambert, Fleetwood, Henry Cromwell). <
In 1652 the second, complete conquest of Ireland is concluded. Division of the spoils
in accordance with the
Acts of the English Parliament of 12 August 1652 and 26 September 1653
: the government itself, the
“adventurers”
who had lent £360,000 in the 11 years of war, the
officers and soldiers
. “Exterminate the Amalekites of the Irish nation root and branch, and once more settle the again devastated lands with Puritans brought in entirely anew.”> Bloodshed, devastation, depopulation of entire counties, transplantation of their inhabitants into other areas, sale of many Irish as slaves to the West Indies.

Through the Irish conquest Cromwell overthrows the English Republic.

Since that time, mistrust of the Irish towards the English popular party.

c) <
Restoration of the Stuarts. William III. Second Irish uprising and capitulation on certain conditions. 1660-1692

{2}
>

At that time the <British> most numerous in Ireland. <Never more than
3
/
11
, never less than
2
/
11
of the Irish population.

1684. Charles II. begins to favour the Catholic interests of Ireland and to recruit a Catholic army.

1685. James II. gives the Catholics of Ireland a free hand. The Catholic army grows and is favoured. The Catholics soon began to declare that the Acts of Settlement must be repealed and the rights of the proprietors of 1641 restored. James summons some Irish regiments to England.

1689.
William III. in England.
12 March 1689:
James landed at Kinsale at the head of Irish soldiers.
Limerick capitulates to William III. in 1691.
Shameful violation of the treaty already under William III., even more under Anne.

d) Ireland betrayed and degraded to the extreme. 1692 - 4 July 1776

a
. All intentions of “settling” the country with English and Scottish yeomen or tenants were abandoned.> Attempt to settle <German and French Protestants>. <French Protestants in the towns (woollen manufactories)> driven out by the <English protective tariff and mercantile system.

1698. The Anglo-Irish parliament, like submissive colonists, enacted, on the order of the mother country,
a prohibitive duty on the export of Irish woollen goods
to foreign countries.

1698. In the same year the English Parliament imposed a
high tax
on the import of Irish products into England and Wales and
completely prohibited their export to other countries
. England destroyed the manufactures of Ireland, depopulated its towns and drove the population back to the land.

The
Williamites
(imported lords)
Absentees
. Revolt against
the absentees since 1692
.>

Likewise <
English legislation against Irish cattle breeding
>.

1698: <
Molyneux pamphlet
> for the <independence> of the <Irish parliament> (i.e. of the <
English colony in Ireland
>) against the English. Thus began the
struggle of the English colony in Ireland and the English nation
>.
At the same time
<
struggle between the Anglo-Irish colony and the Irish nation
. William III. resisted the disgraceful attempts of the English and of the
Anglo-Irish parliament
to violate the
Treaties of Limerick and Galway
.

b
.
Queen Anne (1701-1713; George until 1776).

Penal Code, worked out by the Anglo-Irish parliament with the approval of the English Parliament. Most disgraceful means to convert the Irish Catholics to Protestantism through
“property”
regulations. A law for the
transfer of “property”
from Catholics to Protestants, or to make
“Anglicanism”
a
legal title to property
. (
Education. Personal legal disabilities.
No Catholic capable of being a common soldier.) To teach the Catholic religion was a serious crime punishable by

deportation; to convert a Protestant to Catholicism was an act of treason. To be a Catholic archbishop meant banishment; return from banishment meant high treason; he was hanged, disembowelled alive and then quartered.
An attempt to force the Anglican religion upon the mass of the Irish nation. Catholics were deprived of the right to take part in the election of members of parliament.

This Penal Code strengthened the power of the Catholic clergy over the Irish people.

The poor fell into habits of idleness.

During the heyday of Protestant rule and the decline of Catholicism the number of Protestants did not exceed that of the Catholics.>

e) 1776-1801. Transitional period

a
) Before we come to this transitional period, what was the result of the <English terrorism?

The immigrant English were absorbed by the Irish people and converted to the Catholic faith.

The towns were founded by the English Irish.

No English colony (except the Scottish settlements in Ulster), but English landowners.

The North American Revolution forms the first turning-point in Irish history.

b
)
1777
the British army surrendered at Saratoga Springs to the American “rebels”.
The British cabinet was forced to make concessions to the nationalist (English) party in Ireland.

1778. Roman Catholic Relief Bill (enacted by the
Anglo-Irish parliament
). Catholics were still deprived of the right to
acquire freehold by purchase or lease
.

1779. Free trade with Great Britain. Almost all the restrictions imposed on Irish industry swept away.

1782. The Penal Code further restricted in its effect. Adherents of the Roman Catholic faith were allowed to
acquire freehold for life
or
as allodium
and to
open schools
.

1783. Equal rights for the
Anglo-Irish parliament
.

Winter 1792/93. After the French government had annexed Belgium and England resolved on war against France, a further part of the Penal Code was abolished. The Irish could

become colonel in the army, received
the right to vote for the Irish parliament
etc.

Rising of 1798. Belfast republicans (Wolfe Tone, Lord Fitzgerald). Irish peasants not mature.

The Anglo-Irish House of Commons voted for the Act of Union, which was passed in 1800. Through the union of the legislative bodies and the customs system of Britain and Ireland
the struggle between the Anglo-Irish and the English was ended
. The colony protested against the illegal Act of Union.>

1801-1846

a)
1801-1831.
During this period (after the end of the war) the movement for Catholic emancipation (1829), shared by the Irish with England.

Since
1783, legislative independence of Ireland, <shortly thereafter
various articles
of foreign production were subjected to duties, with the openly avowed intention of enabling a certain part of the Irish population to find partial employment for its surplus labour-power, etc. The natural consequence was that Irish manufactures gradually disappeared when the Act of Union came into force.

Dublin

Owners of woollen manufactories

1800

-

91;

1840

-

12

Workers employed therein

1800

-

4,918;

1840

-

602

Owners of wool-combing mills

1800

-

30;

1834

-

5

Workers employed therein

1800

-

230;

1834

-

66

Owners of carpet manufactories

1800

-

13;

1841

-

1

Workers employed therein

1800

-

729;

1841

-

0

Weavers working on silk looms

1800

-

2,500;

1840

-

250

Kilkenny

Owners of wool blanket manufactories

1800

-

56;

1822

-

42

Workers employed therein

1800

-

3,000;

1822

-

925

Balbriggan

Calico looms in operation

1800

-

2,500;

1841

-

226

Wicklow

Handlooms in operation

1800

-

1,000;

1841

-

0

Cork

Braid weavers

1800

-

1,000;

1834

-

40

Worsted weavers

1800

-

2,000;

1834

-

90

Stocking weavers

1800

-

300;

1834

-

28

Wool combers

1800

-

700;

1834

-

110

Cotton weavers

1800

-

2,000;

1834

-

220

etc. The linen industry (Ulster) no compensation.

“The cotton manufacture of Dublin, which employed 14,000 workers, has been destroyed; the 3,400 silk looms have been destroyed; the production of serge, in which 1,491 workers were employed, has been destroyed; the flannel production of Rathdrum, the wool blanket production of Kilkenny, the camlet trade of Bandon, the worsted manufactories of Waterford, the ratteen and the frieze manufactory of Carrick on Suir have been destroyed. Only one single trade has remained! … This fortunate trade, which was not shattered by the Act of Union, this favoured, privileged and promoted trade is that of the Irish coffin-maker.” (Speech by T. F. Meagher, 1847.)

Thus, whenever Ireland was on the point of developing industrially, it was struck down and transformed back into a mere agricultural country.

According to the last general census of 1861:

Agricultural population of Ireland

(including all cottiers and agricultural labourers with their families)

4,286,019

In the 798 towns (many of which are in fact mere market towns)

1,512,948

5,798,967

Hence roughly (1861) 4/5 purely agricultural, in fact perhaps 5/6 if the country towns are counted.

Since, then, Ireland is purely agricultural: “Land is life.” (Judge Blackburne). Land became the great object of all striving. The people now had the choice, to take the land at any rent whatsoever or to die of starvation. System of usurious rents.

“The proprietor of the land was thereby in a position to dictate his own terms, and hence one could hear of a payment of 5, 6, 8 and even £10 per acre. Enormously high rents, low wages, giant holdings leased by greedy and indolent owners to monopolising land speculators, so that these oppressive middlemen sublet the land for five times its value to the unfortunate ones who starve to death on potatoes and water.”

State of general hunger.

Corn Laws in England grant a monopoly up to a certain degree for the export of Irish corn to England. The average grain export in the first 3 years after the adoption of the Act of Union was about 300,000 qrs.

1820 over 1 million qrs.

1834 annual average of 2 1/2 million qrs.

Sum of the rent payable to absentees, and mortgage interest (1834) over $30 million (about £7 million). The middlemen accumulated wealth which they would not invest in the improvement of the soil, and which, under a system that destroyed industry, they could not invest in machinery etc. They therefore sent their entire accumulated wealth to England. An official document published by the British government shows that the transfers of British securities from England to Ireland, i.e. the investment of Irish capital in England, amounted to many millions of pounds sterling in the 13 years following the introduction of free trade in 1821; thereby Ireland was compelled to contribute cheap labour-power and cheap capital to the erection “of the great works of Britain”.

A great many pigs and the export of the same.

1831-1841. Increase of the population of Ireland from 7,767,401 to 8,175,238.

In the 10 years

407,837

During the same period emigration: (slightly over 40,000 annually)

450,873

858,710

O’Connell. Repeal movement. Lichfield House Compact with Whigs. Famines in individual districts. Coercion Acts. Arms Acts. Emergency Acts.

IV

The period of the last 20 years (from 1846).

Clearing of estates in Ireland

Previously repeated cases of famines in individual districts. Now general.

This new period is ushered in by the potato blight (1846 to 1847), the famine and the exodus following it.

Over 1 million perished, partly directly from starvation, partly as a result of diseases etc. (from the hunger). In the 9 years 1847 to 1855, 1,656,044 emigrated.

The overthrow of the old agricultural system was at first the natural consequence of the fields lying fallow. People fleeing. (The families pooled together to send out the youngest and most daring.) Hence naturally the consolidation of small holdings and the displacement of tillage by pasture.

But circumstances soon arose that transformed this into a conscious and systematically pursued system.

First, the main factor: One of the immediate consequences of the Irish catastrophe was the abolition of the Corn Laws. With that, Irish corn lost its monopoly of the English market in ordinary years. Fall in corn prices. Impossibility of paying the rents. At the same time a continuous rise over the last 20 years in the prices of meat, wool and other animal products. Enormous boom in the woollen industry in England. Pig farming partly belonged to the old system. Now especially sheep and horned cattle. Ireland now deprived of the English market, just as it was at the time deprived of its own market by the Act of Union.

As subsidiary circumstances contributing to make this systematic:

Secondly: Transformation of agriculture in England. Caricature of it in Ireland.

Thirdly: The desperate flight of the starving Irish to England filled in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow cellars, dens, workhouses with men, women and children who were almost starving. An Act of Parliament was passed (1847-1848) requiring Irish landlords to support their own paupers. (English Poor Law extended to Ireland.) Hence (namely England) the eagerness of the mostly heavily indebted Irish landlords to get rid of the people and to clear their estates.

Fourthly: Encumbered Estates Act (1853);

“The landlord was ruined, for he could collect no rents, but was at the same time obliged to pay enormous taxes for the support of his neighbours. His land was encumbered with mortgages and debts he had contracted when food was dear, and he could pay no interest; and now a law was enacted by which the property could be summarily disposed of at an auction and the proceeds distributed among those who had legal claims upon it.”

Absentees (English capitalists, insurance companies etc.) thereby increased, as well as former middlemen etc., who wished to farm in a modern economic way.

The displacement of the tenant partly by amicable notice. But even more eviction on a large scale (forcible crowbar brigade – crowbar brigade, beginning with the destruction of the roof), forcible ejection. (Also as a political penal measure.) This continues from 1847 up to the present (Abercorn, Viceroy of Ireland). African razzias (razzias of the petty African kings). (The people driven from the land. The starving population of the towns considerably increased.)

“The tenants are driven in shoals from their hovels at the same time… Land agents direct the operation. It is carried out by a large force of police and soldiers. Under the protection of the latter, the crowbar brigade proceeds against the doomed settlement, occupies the houses… The sun that rose upon a village sets upon a desert.” (“Galway Paper”) 1852. (Abercorn)

First we shall see how the system operates on the soil, in Ireland, where conditions are quite different from those in England.

Decrease in cultivated lands 1861-1866

(Decrease for grain crops)

(Decrease for green crops)

1861-1865

-

428,041 acres

1861-1865

-

107,984 acres

1866

-

42,876 acres

1866

-

20,077 acres

Together

470,917 acres

128,061 acres

Decrease in the yield of each crop per acre

1847-1865 the precise decrease in per cent:
Oats 16.3;
Flax 47.9;
Turnips 36.1;
Potatoes 50. Some years show an even more drastic decrease, but on the whole it has been advancing gradually since 1847.

Estimated average yield per acre

Wheat in cwts.

Potatoes in tons

Flax in stones

1851 -

12.5

5.1

38.6

1866 -

11.3

2.9

24.9

Whereas Ireland formerly exported much wheat, it is now declared to be good only for growing oats (which also continually decreases, yield per acre).

In fact: In 1866 Ireland exported only 13,250 qrs of wheat, and imported 48,589 qrs of it (thus almost four times as much). On the other hand, it exported about 1 million qrs of oats (for £1,201,737).

Since the exodus the land has not been manured and has been exhausted, partly through the senselessly carried out consolidation of holdings, partly because under the corn-acre system the tenant left it largely to his labourers to manure the land for him. Rent and profit (where the tenant is not a farmer) can rise even if the yield of the soil declines. The total product can decline, yet an ever larger part of it is transformed into surplus product, which falls to the landlords and (large) tenants, but the price of the surplus product has also risen.

Thus the (gradual) sterilisation of the land, like that of Sicily by ancient Rome (ditto Egypt).

We shall speak of livestock shortly. But first the population.

Decrease of the population

1801: 5,319,867;
1841: 8,222,664;
1851: 6,515,794;
1861: 5,764,543. If the same progression, 1871 would be: 5,300,000, thus less than 1801. But I shall show directly that the figure in 1871 would be lower even if the rate of emigration remained constant.

The emigration

This is naturally the cause of part of the decrease.

Irish from 1845-1866 emigrated 1,990,244, thus roughly 2 million. (Unheard of! About 2/5 of the total emigration from the United Kingdom 1845-1866: namely 4,657,588.) From 1831-1841 emigration was roughly 1/2 of the increase of the population during the decade. Since 1847 it has been significantly larger than the increase.

However, emigration alone does not explain the decrease of the population since 1847.

Decrease in the natural annual increase of the population

This increase (annual) 1831-1841 1.1%, i.e. about 1 1/10% annually. If the population had grown in the same proportion 1841-1851, then 1851 = 9,074,514. But it was only 6,515,794. Hence a deficit of 2,558,720. Of this, emigration accounted for 1,274,213. Remaining to be accounted for 1,284,507. Over 1 million perished from the famine. But this does not cover the entire deficit of 1,284,507. Thus evidently the natural population increase from 1841-1851 was diminished.

This is confirmed by a glance at the decade 1851-1861. No famine. The population fell from 6,515,794 to 5,764,543. Absolute decrease: 751,251. But emigration during this time over 1,210,000. Hence increase of nearly 460,000 during the 10 years. That is, 751,251 + 460,000 = the number of emigrants – 1,211,251. Emigration swallowed almost 3 times the increase. Its rate = 0.7% (70/100) per year, thus a significant decrease compared with the 1.1 of 1831-1841.

The matter is very simply explained. <The increase of a population through births must fundamentally depend on the numerical ratio of persons between 20 and 35 years of age to the rest of the population. Now the numerical ratio of persons between 20 and 35 years of age to the population of the United Kingdom is about 1 : 3.98, or 25.06%, whereas this ratio among the emigrants themselves is at present about 1 : 1.89, or 52.76%.> In Ireland probably still larger.

Physical deterioration of the population

<
1806
with a total population of 5,574,107 the number of men exceeded that of women by 50,469, whilst in 1867 with a total population of 5,557,196 the number of women exceeded that of men.> At the same time
not only a relative
, but an
absolute increase
of the deaf and dumb, <blind, insane, imbeciles and invalids. If one compares 1851 with 1861, it is seen that, with an enormous decrease in population, the number of deaf and dumb rose by 473 against their former total of 5,180, the number of the lame and invalid by 225 against their former total of 4,375, the number of blind by 1,092 against their former total of 5,767, and that the number of insane and imbeciles rose by the enormous figure of 4,118 against their former total of 9,980, reaching 14,098 in 1861 despite the decrease in population.>

Wages

Wages have risen by no more than 20% since the potato famine. Potato prices have risen by almost 200%; by an average of 100%> the <rise in prices> of the necessary means of subsistence, coal, etc.

<Professor Cliffe Leslie writes in the "Economist" of 9 February 1867:

"After a decrease in population of 2/5 in 21 years, the normal wage is now almost everywhere on the island only 1 shilling a day; for a shilling one can buy no more today than for 6d. 21 years ago. Through this rise in the price of daily foodstuffs, the worker is worse off than 10 years ago."

Famines in various districts>, especially in Munster and Connaught. Bankruptcy of the <shopkeepers> permanently. Decay of the country towns, etc.

Result of the process

From
1855-1866
: 1,032,694 Irish replaced by 996,877 <head of cattle> (horned cattle, sheep and pigs). This namely the increase in <livestock> during this period, if the <decrease in horses> during this period (20,656) is compensated by 8 sheep [per 1 horse], these thus deducted from the increase.

<Consolidation of holdings>

From
1851-1861
<total decrease> of holdings 120,000. (The number of holdings of 15-30 acres and those of 30 grew.) Affected therefore especially <holdings> of under 1 to under 15 acres.

Now in 1861 (the total area of Ireland 20,319,924 acres), of which about
3
/
5
of the area 12 million acres with
569,844 tenants
of under 1 to under 100 acres.

<About>
2
/
5
(8 million acres) holdings over 100 and 500 acres (
31,927
tenants).

The process in its finest progress: Ulster (flax cultivation, Scottish Protestant tenants).

"Times" etc. Abercorn officially congratulates this system <as Viceroy>. Himself one of these <devastators>. Lord Dufferin: overpopulation, etc.

Thus a question <of> life and death.

Meagher, Hennessy, "Irishman",

~ See previous volume, pp. 591/596

Decrease of crime in Ireland

Brought before the court

Convicted

1852 – 17,678

10,454

1866 – 4,326

2,418

V

<
United States
> and <
Fenianism
>