This page was created by John Huebner.  The last update was by Erika Strandjord.

Star of the Sea : A Postcolonial/Postmodern Voyage into the Irish Famine

Reasons That Led to Evictions

Tenants were evicted by their landlords because of several reasons.“Evictions were mostly a consequence of new government relief policies that added greatly to the economic troubles of the landlords” (Murchadha 246). After the crop failure, tenants were unable to afford paying rents, so “the Poor Law Amendment of June 1847… transferred the major responsibility for poor relief to Irish property owners” (Murchadha 246). As a result, some Irish landlords evicted their tenants due to non-payment of rents. Furthermore, some supported emigration of tenants from their estates to overseas because [they saw that] it cost[s them] half as much in one year to send tenants abroad than it would cost to keep them at home” (Laxton 68). O’Connor supports this idea of evictions by portraying voices of certain tenants who were evicted by their landlords due to non-payment of rent. Mary Duane, a tenant in the Galway county, remarks, in her letter of denunciation, “we were evicted by cmndr blakes agent… for not paying of the rent” (O’Connor 270). The inability for the tenants to pay rents seems to have been one of the major reasons that led to evictions. Additionally, as Murchadha notes, the second reason evictions resulted was that of “landlords [wanting] to improve and modernize their properties by ridding them of the inefficiency of large numbers of smallholding occupiers” (245). Whether exploiting the land, showing a lack of concern for the tenants, or desiring to modernize and move away from small farming plots, the decisions landlords made led to numerous evictions that had harsh consequences for the Irish people.


Works Cited
Murchadha, Ciarán Ó. "Famine Clearances." Encyclopedia of Irish History and Culture. Ed. James S. Donnelly, Jr. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 245-247. World History in Context. Web. 11 Feb. 2016.

O'Connor, Joseph. Star of the Sea. Orlando: Harcourt, 2002. Print.
Researcher/Writer: Kalai Laizer
Technical Designers: John Huebner and Ashley Hacker

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