The World of the Cavan Cottier during the Great Irish Famine

Abstract

In 1845, on the eve of the Great Irish Famine, the cottier class numbered some three million people. Despite such large numbers we know little of the individual experience of cottiers as they are absent from both the historiography and the social memory of the period. At the bottom of the social and economic pyramid, and entirely dependent on the potato as their staple diet, the cottier class remain hidden in the Famine narrative, mainly because of the supposed paucity of sources. And so the cottier class remains the largest body of people in nineteenth-century Ireland about whom we know the least. This essay considers the world of the cottier, using recently discovered primary sources from County Cavan as a case study. Theirs was a precarious existence and one which was often determined by outside factors, beyond their control. Yet, the question remains: who was ultimately responsible for them when the Famine crisis commenced. Landlords, at the top of the economic pyramid or the small farmer class who had facilitated their existence