October, said the poet Dermot Healy, is “when memory / is released”. In bygone days, Ireland’s harvest season spanned between the ancient Celtic festivals of Lúnasa (1 August) and Samhain (1 November). But October was a vital month because, traditionally, this was when the potato crop was lifted out of the ground. But despite its deep association with the country, the potato was only introduced to Ireland during the 16th century. It then became a staple food thanks to its nutritional value and productivity – a single crop grown in a small plot of poor soil could feed a family for the better part of a year.
Strokestown House used to be the home of the local Anglo‑Irish landowner, whose tenant farmers relied on the potato crop. After a tour of the house, I walk to where a pasture’s broad sweep and mature trees betray its previous life as manicured parkland. While I watch the grazing cattle, a litany of potato varieties – kerr’s pink, golden wonder, maris piper – rises like an old chant in my mind. Yet until today’s tour, I’d never heard of the Irish lumper, the variety on which the 19th-century rural poor depended.
Potatoes are cultivated by a form of cloning. Nowadays, new varieties are deliberately created to maximise genetic variation, which can improve disease resistance. In 1845, however, Samhain’s festival day was soured by reports of a strange blight. I sniff the air. Even here, from the fields beyond this view, the stench of the crop’s decay might have carried on the breeze.
Later recognised as the mould Phytophthora infestans, the blight ravaged the potato crop across Europe, leading to widespread hardship. In Ireland, however, the situation was so culpably mismanaged by the authorities that, while exports of other Irish food produce continued, there was famine and forced migration (1845‑52). Indeed, as its population plummeted, political leaders discussed their opportunity to remake the country.
Strokestown Park now houses Ireland’s National Famine Museum, which was established 150 years after the events it lays bare. Those events have troubling parallels with our own times. How long will it be before the people of Sudan and Gaza can describe their suffering? When will those memories be released?
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
