The Impact of the Blight Upon the Pre-Famine Rural Economy in Ireland

T h e eff iciency wage mode l is developed in this paper to explain the radical restructuring of agricultural product ion towards cattle and sheep in Ire land that occurred after the blight at tack of 1846 . T h e pre -Famine structure and product ion changes consequent to the blight are examined statistically using cross sectional data at a county level. T h e paper concludes that the blight led to a n increase in the wage floor w h i c h prevented the labour market clearing and w h i c h favoured l ivestock product ion b y those producers w h o remained. Substantial emigration forced landlords to absorb a significant proport ion o f the loss due to the blight. he blight which attacked the potato crop in 1845 and 1846 administered JL a profound shock to the Irish rural economy. Recent scholarship has revised upward the excess mortality of the period and as many as 1.1 million may have perished due to famine between 1846 and 1851 (see Mokyr, 1983, p. 266). The Famine led to a considerable change in the composition of Irish agricultural output with much greater emphasis being placed upon livestock and their associated products (O Grada, 1978, p. la). The extent to which this confirmed an existing trend has been vigorously debated (see Crotty, 1966; Lee, 1969; Goldstrom, 1982). The blight was the harbinger of the Great Famine, which dominated the demographic and agricultural history of nineteenth-century Ireland. This tended to obscure the remarkable impact the blight itself had upon Irish * T h e author is lecturer in economics at the Ulster Po ly tchnic . He wishes to thank L . A . C larkson , L . K e n n e d y , C . Chambers , P. Solar and two a n o n y m o u s referres for comments on earlier drafts.