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Sure. The entire system that exacerbated the problem was of a thoroughly capitalist character. It revolved around the landlord class vs the poor tenants / sharecroppers, as well as exporting food at a time of famine (as did Bengal famine). You’d do well to start in the wikipedia article that I linked. Some quotes: Longer-term causes include the system of absentee landlordism[15][16] and single-crop dependence.[17][18] Initial limited but constructive government actions to alleviate famine distress were ended by a new Whig administration in London, which pursued a laissez-faire economic doctrine, in part because they believed the famine was due to lacking moral character,[19][20] and only resumed later. The refusal of London to bar export of food from Ireland during the famine was an immediate and continuing source of controversy, contributing to anti-British sentiment and the campaign for independence. Additionally, the famine indirectly resulted in tens of thousands of households being evicted, exacerbated by a provision forbidding access to workhouse aid while in possession of more than one-quarter acre of land. … Landlords and tenants
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During the 18th century, the "middleman system" for managing landed property was introduced. Rent collection was left in the hands of the landlords' agents, or middlemen. This assured the landlord of a regular income and relieved them of direct responsibility while leaving tenants open to exploitation by the middlemen.[36] Catholics, the majority of whom lived in conditions of poverty and insecurity, made up 80% of the population. At the top of the "social pyramid" was the "ascendancy class", the English and Anglo-Irish families who owned most of the land and held more or less unchecked power over their tenants. Some of their estates were vast; for example, the Earl of Lucan owned more than 60,000 acres (240 km2). Many of these absentee landlords lived in England. The rent revenue—collected from "impoverished tenants" who were paid minimal wages to raise crops and livestock for export[15]—was mostly sent to England.[16] … The Commission stated that bad relations between landlord and tenant were principally responsible. There was no hereditary loyalty, feudal tie, or mitigating tradition of paternalism as existed in Britain, as the Anglo-Irish aristocracy that supplanted the Gaelic aristocracy in the 17th century was of a different religion and newer. In 1800, the 1st Earl of Clare observed of landlords that "confiscation is their common title".[39][40] According to the historian Cecil Woodham-Smith, landlords regarded the land as a source of income, from which as much as possible was to be extracted. With the peasantry "brooding over their discontent in sullen indignation" (in the words of the Earl of Clare), the landlords largely viewed the countryside as a hostile place in which to live. Some landlords visited their property only once or twice in a lifetime, if ever.[39] The rents from Ireland were generally spent elsewhere; an estimated £6,000,000 was remitted out of Ireland in 1842.[39][a] The ability of middlemen was measured by the rent income they could contrive to extract from tenants.[36] They were described in evidence before the commission as "land sharks", "bloodsuckers", and "the most oppressive species of tyrant that ever lent assistance to the destruction of a country".[36] The middlemen leased large tracts of land from the landlords on long leases with fixed rents, which they sublet as they saw fit. They would split a holding into smaller and smaller parcels so as to increase the amount of rent they could obtain. Tenants could be evicted for reasons such as non-payment of rents (which were high), or a landlord's decision to raise sheep instead of grain crops. A cottier paid his rent by working for the landlord while the spalpeen, an itinerant labourer, paid his short-term lease through temporary day work.[41][42] As any improvement made on a holding by a tenant became the property of the landlord when the lease expired or was terminated, the incentive to make improvements was limited. Most tenants had no security of tenure on the land; as tenants "at will", they could be turned out whenever the landlord chose. … Landlords in Ireland often used their powers without compunction, and tenants lived in dread of them. Woodham-Smith writes that, in these circumstances, "industry and enterprise were extinguished and a peasantry created which was one of the most destitute in Europe".[38] Tenants and subdivisions
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See also: Irish farm subdivision A starving Irish family from Carraroe, County Galway, during the Great Famine (National Library of Ireland)
The Popery Act (Penal Law) of 1704 required that when a tenant died, his land should be divided equally between his sons. Population growth, from about 2 million by 1700, to 8 million by the time of the Great Famine, led to increased division of holdings and a consequent reduction in their average size. By 1845, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4–2 hectares (1–5 acres) in size, while 40% were of 2–6 hectares (5–15 acres). Holdings were so small that no crop other than potatoes would suffice to feed a family. Shortly before the famine, the British government reported that poverty was so widespread that one-third of all Irish small holdings could not support the tenant families after rent was paid; the families survived only by earnings as seasonal migrant labour in England and Scotland.[43] |