In his new book on food riots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland, James Kelly sets out to challenge presumptions made in E. P. Thompson’s seminal work, The making of the English working class, that Ireland did not witness food riots to any significant degree as there was no moral economy in Ireland. Although Thompson later conceded that there had in fact been some food riots in Ireland after all, he suggested that these failed due to the absence of a political space within which the ‘common people’ could exert pressure on their rulers. According to this interpretation, in Ireland, food rioting simply could not threaten the stability of the gentry in quite the same way. In contrast, Kelly insists that Thompson’s claims do not sit easily with factual evidence from the historical record. Indeed, as Kelly’s research indicates, there appears to have been a strong moral economy in Ireland all the way up to the Famine which led to numerous instances of food rioting. While conceding that food rioting was never as sustained as in England, Kelly traces the phenomenon from the early eighteenth century, when the first identifiable food riot took place, through to 1845, basing his conclusions on a reasonably sized sample of over 280 food riots. The Famine is set aside as another important period of food rioting, albeit one pursued in a period of national crisis fuelled by hunger. Nonetheless, Kelly considers the Famine to be the last period of sustained food rioting in Ireland.
The subject is inherently interesting. Most food protestors seem to have targeted ships that were transporting foodstuffs and also intercepted barges and carts. They were equally disposed to targeting warehouses, mills, barns and stores. Having commandeered food, the protestors then sought to make it available to the public at an affordable price. Chapter one traces the chronology and geography of Irish food protest between around 1700 and 1860. The first notable incidences appear to have occurred in Cork during the winter of 1709–10, significantly later than in England. Following that, food riots were more likely to occur at times of hardship and destitution, when the local populace sought reduced prices of basic foodstuffs. Throughout the preceding decades, the practice went through peaks and troughs, but was certainly increasingly commonplace and spread across the country. Of particular interest is Kelly’s exploration of food rioting during the Famine, noted by Kelly as having witnessed the most intense period of food protest in Irish history.
Chapter two explores patterns of food protest, examining the geography of food riots and the extent to which they were driven by hunger or other motivating factors. A subsequent chapter argues that food riot crowds were often carefully mobilised and required leadership, plans of action and direction if they were to realise their object. It seeks to establish when food rioting took place, who participated and the scale, organisation and resort to violence by the crowds engaged in this activity.
Chapter four focuses on the response of both the authorities and general public to food protests. It transpires that many incidents of food rioting were brought to a close by the intervention of mayors and sheriffs, often with the assistance of troops or the police. Interestingly, Kelly ascertains that responses to food riots were mixed. They often elicited sympathy among commentators, politicians and church elites, despite broader concern about the nature of riotousness. It was really only during the Famine that food rioting became more closely associated with plundering and stealing.
Having closely examined the extent and nature of food rioting in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland, a final chapter focuses on the conceptual question of whether or not Ireland once had a moral economy, drawing the reader back to Kelly’s initial questioning of Thompson’s presumptions. Kelly concludes that Ireland did indeed have patterns of food rioting comparable to England and France. However, Irish food riots were less of a response to industrialisation, and did not penetrate as deeply, spatially or socially. Overall, Kelly provides an insightful and original analysis of food rioting which challenges assumptions in key historiographical works and applies them to the Irish context to add complexity to a key theme in social history more generally.
