SinghKing
Banned
So, everyone knows about the Great Potato Famine in Ireland, throughout the 1840's, which had such an dire impact on Ireland's population. I was thinking- what would have happened if the British had followed their own establised precedent, and had dealt with the Potato Famine in the same manner that they'd dealt with the last major Irish famine in 1782-83? Back then, the British decided to close Irish ports and enforce a blockade to prevent the Irish from exporting food off the island, keeping Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish people, in spite of the resentment and lobbying by Irish landowners and merchants opposed to the export ban.
If the British had decided to implement the same policy again to counter the Great Potato Famine, imposing a blanket ban on any food exports from Ireland (the working date I'm thinking of going with would be the 25th June 1846, with the imposition of the blockade approved in Parliament on the same day as the Bill to repeal the Corn Laws and the 2nd reading of the Irish Coercion Bill IOTL), how large and enduring an impact could it have had? How much less severe could the Great Famine be, and how many more Irish people would be likely to survive the famine in this timeline? How much more populated would Ireland probably be by the present day?
And conversely, how negative would the impact on the Irish economy be? How many Irish landowners and merchants would go out of business as a result of plummeting prices, and how would the policy be received by the most influential Irish people (such as the Corporation of Dublin and Lord Heytesbury)- well, or badly? Would the British imposing a food export ban on Ireland, thereby lessening the impact of the Famine on the Irish people, lead to increased support for the British government, or lead to a huge boost in support for Irish secessionism?
If the British had decided to implement the same policy again to counter the Great Potato Famine, imposing a blanket ban on any food exports from Ireland (the working date I'm thinking of going with would be the 25th June 1846, with the imposition of the blockade approved in Parliament on the same day as the Bill to repeal the Corn Laws and the 2nd reading of the Irish Coercion Bill IOTL), how large and enduring an impact could it have had? How much less severe could the Great Famine be, and how many more Irish people would be likely to survive the famine in this timeline? How much more populated would Ireland probably be by the present day?
And conversely, how negative would the impact on the Irish economy be? How many Irish landowners and merchants would go out of business as a result of plummeting prices, and how would the policy be received by the most influential Irish people (such as the Corporation of Dublin and Lord Heytesbury)- well, or badly? Would the British imposing a food export ban on Ireland, thereby lessening the impact of the Famine on the Irish people, lead to increased support for the British government, or lead to a huge boost in support for Irish secessionism?