IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fosoec/v35y2006i2p21-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Classical economics and the Great Irish Famine:A study in limits

Author

Listed:
  • Edward O’Boyle

Abstract

The Great Irish Famine resulted from two massive failures: the blight that destroyed the potato crop and the non-interventionism of the English government. The first failure, which also occurred in other European countries, was devastating for the Irish who depended on the potato as their main source of nourishment. The second failure was a human failure because English government policy was instructed by classical economics to let the market clear the surplus population from the land and was reinforced by the anti-Irish racism common in England at the time, even among classical economists, notably Nassau Senior and J.S. Mill.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward O’Boyle, 2006. "Classical economics and the Great Irish Famine:A study in limits," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 21-53, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:35:y:2006:i:2:p:21-53
    DOI: 10.1007/BF02746430
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF02746430
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF02746430?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:35:y:2006:i:2:p:21-53. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFSE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.