Memoirs shed light on fate of Irish famine victims

A Victorian aristocrat’s diaries reveal why the potato famine killed millions of Ireland’s poor but left the Highlands relatively unscathed, according to new research.

A study of journals written by Scots landlady Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus sheds new light on the starkly different fates that befell the two countries, despite both suffering from potato blight.

It is the first time that the papers of Elizabeth Grant - best known as author of Memoirs of a Highland Lady - have been comprehensively used to piece together an explanation of the famine’s human tragedy.

The journals are one of the key sources for a new book, The Curse of Reason: The Great Irish Famine, by Enda Delaney, a historian at the University of Edinburgh.

“The diaries of Elizabeth Grant are a unique and fascinating source for understanding the Great Irish Famine. It might be presumed that given her social position, she would have little to say about the poor. In fact, she provides the only day-to-day account of the terrible events as they unfolded and the impact on the poor people she encountered. What struck me was both her perceptiveness and sheer humanity, and it no wonder that she is to this day remembered with affection in that part of Ireland.”

Grant’s diaries provide eye-witness accounts and insight into one of the great human tragedies of the nineteenth century.

Grant was born and raised in Edinburgh’s New Town and raised on a Highland estate in the Cairngorms, the focus of much of her famous autobiography. But she was also a resident landlord on a small estate in county Wicklow during the Great Irish Famine. Early on in the crisis, she pinpointed critical differences between the two countries.

She noted that in the Scottish Highlands, much of the relief effort was organised by landlords keen to protect their tenants from the worst effects of the potato failure. In Ireland, however, despite the endeavours of some landlords, the poor were largely left to fend for themselves as government relief efforts proved wholly inadequate.

Another key difference between the two countries was religious. In the Highlands, the newly created Free Church of Scotland played a major role in assisting those most in need. In Ireland, where the majority of small holders were Catholics, landlords, who were mostly Protestant, appeared less sympathetic.