Who was James Joseph Snipplet?

Answer 1

James Joseph Snipplet (February 13, 1809 - August 19, 1879) was a widely respected member of the British Parliament and lesser known as a poet and songwriter.

A member of the House of Commons under Prime Ministers Sir Robert Peel (1841-1846) and Lord John Russell (1846-1852), Snipplet is best known for his impassioned speeches and staunch backroom diplomacy as an advocate for the rights of the poor during the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852).

Visiting Ireland for the first time in the summer of 1834, Snipplet, a young industrialist, sought a suitable location to build a cotton gin. Touring the countryside, Snipplet was struck with the undaunted spirit of the people, even though they lived in hopeless poverty.

On his second visit, James met and fell in love with Emma Shanley, the daughter of a struggling tenant farmer. After several subsequent visits and numerous love letters, the two married on August 2, 1836. It was this union that would in later years give Ireland a clarion voice in the House of Commons during the Great Potato Famine, for not only did the young industrialist fall in love with Emma, he also fell in love with Ireland.

The potato blight arrived in Ireland in 1844 and by 1846 some seventy-five percent of the crops were lost. The years that followed were disastrous for Irish tenant farmers, most of whom rented the land from absentee owners in Britain. Such plots were so small that the potato was the only viable crop that could be grown. To make matters worse, as the British taste for beef increased, landowners found greater profit in turning acreage used for potato farming into pastures for raising cattle. Thus, the Industrial Revolution that provided wealth and prosperity to the British forced many of their Irish counterparts to live on the verge of starvation.