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The Irish Famine redirects here. For the article on the book of the same name, please see The Irish Famine (book). For other uses, please see Great Famine.

The Great Famine or the Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol) is the name given to the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1849. The Famine was partly due to "the (potato) Blight" (also known as phytophthora)– the oomycete that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for many Irish. The blight explains crop failure; famine has other potential causes, including economic, political, social, historical (phase out of agricultural labor during Industrialization) and religious. The immediate after-effects of The Famine continued until 1851. Much is unrecorded, and various estimates suggest that between 500,000 and more than one million people died in the three years from 1846 to 1849 as a result of hunger or disease, which was about 12% of the population. Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia (see the Irish Diaspora).

The Famine occurred within the British imperial homeland, at a time well into the modern prosperity of the Victorian and Industrial age during a time when Ireland was, even during the "potato blight", a net exporter of food.

The immediate effect on Ireland was devastating, and its long-term effects proved immense, permanently changing Irish culture and tradition. Though human suffering during the famine was never photographed, the event immediately and profoundly altered the course of generations of Irish.

Causes and Contributors

The 1840s saw the introduction of the pathogen Phytophthora infestans into Europe. Plant pathologist Jean Beagle Ristanio speculates that the fungi arrived in to Europe on a shipment of potatoes from South America in the 1830s. All of Europe's potato crop soon fell victim to the fungal infection, none more so than Ireland; and in Ireland none more so than in the western and south western counties; with their reputation of single crop and/or subsistence farming on tiny holdings of two acres or less.

Land Consolidation

In the 16th century plantations of the country were undertaken under Mary I and Elizabeth I. The plantations in Counties Laois and Offaly and in Munster did not survive, but the plantation of Ulster fundamentally established an English Protestant presence in Ireland. In 1649 Oliver Cromwell's forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition and occupied the country, bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. Cromwell passed a very harsh series of Penal laws against Roman Catholics and confiscated almost all of their land.

Consolidation of lands into large estates was widespread in Europe, but in Ireland consolidation occurred via different laws applied to Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, favoring the Anglicans of the Church of Ireland, a state religion under the British Crown. Lands owned by Catholics were instead subdivided. By the time of The Great Hunger these discriminatory laws were gone, but had biased large land-ownership to mostly Protestant, English, and often non-resident, or "absentee", landlords.

English control lasted until Irish independence — the Irish Free State, the Irish War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

This period also saw the rise of economic and other colonialism, often influencing countries to produce for export a single crop. Ireland, too, became mostly a single-crop nation, but that primary harvest of potatoes, the Irish mostly consumed at home. The potatoes grew well in Ireland and also seemed the only crop that could support a peasant family limited — through subdivision of larger Catholic-owned estates — to a very small tenant plot of land.

Tenants, subdivisions, and bankruptcy

"Subdivision" resulted from The Popery Act which was one of the Penal Laws (Ireland), enacted to discriminate against Roman Catholics. The Act divided lands and property equally among male heirs (instead of being inherited by the first-born son); over generations, tenant farm size shrank, split between all living sons. By the 1840s, subdivision resulted in Catholics working the smallest farms and so becoming ever poorer.

In 1845, for example, 24% of all Irish tenant farms were of 0.4 to 2 hectares (one to five acres) in size, while 40% were of two to six hectares (five to fifteen acres). Holdings were so small that only potatoes — no other crop — would suffice to feed a family. The British Government reported, shortly before the Great Hunger, that poverty was so wide-spread that one third of all Irish small holdings could not support their families, after paying their rent, except by earnings of seasonal migrant labour in England and Scotland.

By the 1840s, the Irish land-holding system was under serious strain. Many big landlord estates already carried heavy mortgages from earlier farm crises. Ten percent went bankrupt due to the Great Hunger. Many small tenancies, lacking long-term leases, rent control or security of tenure, became so small and unsustainable — through subdivision — that the tenants struggled to survive even in the good years, and depended on the potato crop, as only potatoes would provide enough nutrition on such small farms. Yet, the large landlord estates — owned by absentee Britons — exported many tons of cattle and other foodstuffs to foreign markets. Any attempt by the tenant farmer to increase productivity of their land-holding was actively discouraged by threats of disproportionately high increase in rent — and even eviction.

Evictions

Relief of Ireland's poor people was then directed by Poor Law legislation. The Poor Law Union raised money from rates (local taxes) on landlords, based on how many tenants farmed that estate. Renting small farms to subsistence farmers was unprofitable; the British Government used the rating system to encourage consolidation of holdings — thought more profitable and, theoretically, able to pay for those no longer able to farm.

Food exports to England

Records show Irish lands exported food, even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland experienced a famine in 1782-83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests; that export ban did not happen in the 1840s.

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, "...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Christine Kinealy, a University of Liverpool fellow and author of two texts on the Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. But the poor had no money to buy food and the government then did not ban exports.

Irish meteorologist Austin Bourke, in The use of the potato crop in pre-famine Ireland disputes some of Woodham-Smith's calculations, and notes that during December 1846 imports almost doubled. He opines that "it is beyond question that the deficiency arising from the loss of the potato crop in 1846 could not have been met by the simple expedient of prohibiting the export of grain from Ireland."

The Quakers, along with other Protestant organizations and individuals, came to the aid of the Irish during the Great Famine but, unfortunately, often at a price more costly than gold. Quaker Alfred Webb, one of the many volunteers in Ireland at the time, wrote:

"Upon the famine arose the wide spread system of proselytism...and a network of well-intensioned Protestant associations spread spread over the poorer parts of the country, which in return for soup and other help endevoured to gather the people into their churches and schools...The movement left seeds of bitterness that have no yet died out, and Protestants, and not altogether excluding Friends, sacrificed much of the influence for good they might have had..."

In addition to the religious, there were nonreligious organizations that came to the assistance of famine victims. The British Relief Association was one such group. Founded in 1847, the Association raised money throughout England, America and Australia; their funding drive benefited by a "Queen's Letter", a letter from Queen Victoria appealing for money to relieve the distress in Ireland. With this initial letter the Association raised ₤171,533. A second, somewhat less sucessful "Queen's Letter" was issued in late 1847. In total, the British Relief Association raised approximately £200,000. ($1,000,000?)

Claims of potato dependency

Many people say that the Irish depended too much on potatoes as a food. If so, Ireland was not unique in its single-crop dependency, common among exporting nations. (For example, China with rice.) Ireland's rapid shift to potato cultivation about 1790 helped Ireland's population grow despite political upheaval and warfare. Soldiers and wars tend to disrupt most farming; not so for the sub-surface potato. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, potatoes were a staple for most Europeans. The blight spread across Europe, but only in Ireland were its consequences so drastic. Dispossession, subdivision, small tenant farms, and reliance on a single crop for home consumption , are just a few of many potential reasons why Ireland suffered so much more than the Continent.

Jeremy Rifkin, in his book Beyond Beef, writes "The Celtic grazing lands of...Ireland had been used to pasture cows for centuries. The British colonized...the Irish, transforming much of their countryside into an extended grazing land to raise cattle for a hungry consumer market at home.... The British taste for beef had a devastating impact on the impoverished and disenfranchised people of..Ireland.... Pushed off the best pastureland and forced to farm smaller plots of marginal land, the Irish turned to the potato, a crop that could be grown abundantly in less favorable soil. Eventually, cows took over much of Ireland, leaving the native population virtually dependent on the potato for survival (pp. 56,57)."

Death Toll

No one knows for certain how many people died in the Famine. State registration of births, marriages or deaths had not yet begun, while records kept by the Roman Catholic Church are incomplete. Many of the Church of Ireland's records (which included records of local Catholics due to the collection of Tithes (10% of income) from Catholics to finance the Church of Ireland) were destroyed by irregular IRA troops in 1922.

One possible estimate has been reached by comparing the expected population with the eventual numbers in the 1850s (see Irish Population Analysis). Earlier predictions expected that by 1851, Ireland would have a population of eight to nine million. This calculation is based on numbers contained in the ten year census results compiled since 1821. However, a recent re-examination of those returns raise questions as to their accuracy; the 1841 Census, for example, incorrectly classed farm children as labourers, affecting later calculations on how many adults capable of childbearing existed to produce children between 1841 and 1851. In 1851 the actual population was 6.6 million. Making straightforward calculations is complicated by a secondary effect of famine, a key side-effect of malnutrition, namely plummeting fertility and sexual activity rates. The scale of that effect on population numbers was not fully recognized until studies done during African famines in the twentieth century. As a result, corrections based on inaccuracies in census returns and on the previous unrealized decline in births due to malnourishment have led to an overall reduction in the presumed death numbers. Modern historians and statisticians estimate that between 500,000 and 2,000,000 died. Some historians suggest the death toll was in the region of 700,000 to 800,000. One website claims a figure of over five million - no serious historian endorses a figure of even half this size. In addition, in excess of one million Irish emigrated to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, while more than one million emigrated over following decades; by 1911, a combination of emigration and an abnormally high number of unmarried men and women in the population, had reduced the population of Ireland to 4.4 million. The vast majority of the famine deaths were because of disease.

Detailed statistics into the population of Ireland since 1841 are available at Irish Population Analysis.

Reactions

John Mitchel’s one of the Young Ireland leading political writers, as early as 1844, in The Nation raised the issue on the "Potato Disease", and in it he pointed out how powerful an agent hunger had been in certain revolutions. Mitchel again in The Nation in 1846 (14 February), put forward his views on “the wretched way in which the famine was being trifled with”, and asked, had not the Government even yet any conception that there might be soon “millions of human beings in Ireland having nothing to eat.” On 28 February, writing on the Coercion Bill which was then going through the House of Lords, he writes, “This is the only kind of legislation for Ireland that is sure to meet with no obstruction in that House. However they may differ about feeding the Irish people, they agree most cordially in the policy of taxing, prosecuting and ruining them.” In an article on "English Rule" on 7 March, Mitchel wrote: “The Irish People are expecting famine day by day... and they ascribe it unanimously, not so much to the rule of heaven as to the greedy and cruel policy of England. Be that right or wrong, that is their feeling. They believe that the season as they roll are but ministers of England’s rapacity; that their starving children cannot sit down to their scanty meal but they see the harpy claw of England in their dish. They behold their own wretched food melting in rottenness off the face of the earth, and they see heavy-laden ships, freighted with the yellow corn their own hands have sown and reaped, spreading all sail for England; they see it and with every grain of that corn goes a heavy curse. Again the people believe—no matter whether truly or falsely— that if they should escape the hunger and the fever their lives are not safe from judges and juries. They do not look upon the law of the land as a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to those who do well; they scowl on it as an engine of foreign rule, ill-omened harbinger of doom.” Mitchel because of his writings was charge with sedition, but this charged was dropped, and he was convicted under a new law purposefully enacted of Treason Felony Act and sentenced to 14 years transportation.

1848 rebellion

Main article: Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848

In 1847 William Smith O'Brien, the leader of the Young Ireland party, founded the Irish Confederation to campaign for a Repeal of the Act of Union, and called for the the export of grain to be stopped and the ports closed. The following year he tried to incite rebellion in County Tipperary, leading peasants in a battle against the police.

Response of United Kingdom Government

The initial British government policy towards the famine was, in the view of historians such as F.S.L. Lyons, "very delayed and slow". Professor Joe Lee contends: "There was nothing unique (by the standards of pre-industrial subsistence crisis) about the famine. The death rate had been frequently equalled in earlier European famines, including, possibly, in Ireland itself during the famine of 1740–41". This 1740–1741 famine is commonly referred to as The Forgotten Famine. Commonly, the government would encourage land owners to evict their tenants.

During the 1846–49 Irish Famine, Tory government head Sir Robert Peel bought some foreign maize for delivery to Ireland, and repealed the Corn Laws, which prohibited imports of cheaper foreign grain to Ireland. The Irish called the maize imported by the government 'Peel's brimstone' — partly because of maize's yellow colour, partly that it had to be ground twice, partly that maize does not have--as potatoes do have--Vitamin C. Repeal of the Corn Laws during 1846 to 1849, came too late to help the starving Irish, and was politically unpopular, ending Sir Robert's ministry. Succeeding him was a Whig ministry under Lord John Russell, later Earl Russell. Lord John's ministry focused on providing support through "public works" projects. Such projects mainly consisted of the government employing Irish peasantry on wasteful projects, such as filling in valleys and flattening hills, so the government could justify the cash payments. Such projects proved counterproductive, as starving labourers expended the energy gained from low rations on the heavy labour. Furthermore, prospects of paid labour influenced Irish peasants to remain at work, far from their farmlands. So they did not farm, which fact worsened the famine. Eventually, a soup-kitchen network, which fed three million people, replaced the public works projects.

In the autumn of 1847, the soup-kitchens were shut down and responsibility for famine relief was transferred to the Poor Laws unions, through the raising of Poor Law taxes. The Irish Poor Laws were even harsher on the poor than their English counterparts; those paupers with over a quarter-acre of land were expected to abandon it before entering a workhouse — something many of the poor would not do. Furthermore, Ireland had too few workhouses. Many of the workhouses that existed were closed due to financial problems; authorities in London refused to give large amounts of aid to bankrupt Poor Laws unions. As a result, disaster became inevitable; only about a million people were on workhouse relief rolls on any given day.

Britain tried in turn government direct aid, reliance on private charities (some to be financed by taxes on landlords), public works programs, soup kitchens, workhouses, and a laissez-faire policy backed by military force. Nothing worked, or, if something did work, it was not funded sufficiently. Discussions then on how to solve this problem so closely mirror modern-day arguments as to suggest that close study of the Potato Famine might yet help the modern world.

Charity

Large sums of money were donated by charities; Calcutta is credited with making the first donation of £14,000. The money was raised by Irish soldiers serving there and Irish people employed by the East India Company. Pope Pius IX sent funds, Queen Victoria donated £5,000 while the Choctaw Indians themselves victims of the genocidal Trail of Tears famously sent $170 (although many articles say the original amount was $710 after a misprint in Angi Debo's "The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Nation") and grain, an act of generosity still remembered to this day, and publicly commemorated by President Mary Robinson on the 150th anniversary of the famine.

Aftermath

Potato blights continued in Ireland, especially in 1872 and 1879–1880. These killed few people, partly because they were less severe, but mainly for a complex range of reasons. But, on the other hand, the population in Ireland soon shrank from over 8 million to about 6 million due to starvation and exodus from the famine. The growth in the numbers of railways made the importation of food easier; in 1834, Ireland had 9.7 km (6 miles) of railway tracks; by 1912, the total was 5 480 km (3,403 miles). The banning of subdivision, coupled with emigration, increased the average farm size; greater acreage let farmers grow crops other than potatoes alone. The increasing wealth in urban areas meant alternative sources of food, grain, potatoes and seed were available in towns and villages. The 1870s agricultural economy thus was more efficient and less dependent on potatoes, as well as having access to new farm machinery and product control.

After the famine the Encumbered Estates Act completely reorganized agriculture during 1870s–1900s, as small owned farms replaced mass estates and multiple tenants. Many of the large estates in the 1840s were debt-ridden and heavily mortgaged. In contrast, estates in the 1870s, many of them under new Irish middle class owners thanks to the Encumbered Estates Act, were on a better economic footing, and so capable of reducing rents and providing locally organized relief, as was the Roman Catholic Church, which was better organised and funded than it had been in 1847–49.

If subdivision produced earlier marriage and larger families, its abolition produced the opposite effect; the 'inheriting' child would wait until they found the 'right' partner, preferably one with a large dowry to bring to the farm. Other children, no longer with the possibility of inheriting a farm (or part of it at least) had no economic attraction and no financial resources to consider an early marriage.

As a result, later mini-famines made only minimal effect and are generally forgotten, except by historians. By the 1911 census, the island of Ireland's population had fallen to 4.4 million, about the same as the population in 1800 and 2000 and only a half of its peak population.

The same water mold (Phytophthora infestans) was responsible for the 1847–51 and later famines. When people speak of "the Irish famine", or "an Gorta Mór", they nearly always mean the one of the 1840s, even though a similar Great Famine did in fact hit in the early 18th century. The fact that only four types of potato were brought from the Americas was a fundamental cause of the famine, as the lack of genetic diversity made it possible for a single oomycete to have much more devastating consequences than it might otherwise have had.

Emigration

While the famine in question was responsible for a massive increase of anywhere from 45% to nearly 85%, depending on the year and the county, of emigration from Ireland it was not the sole cause, nor even the era when massive emigration became a fact of life in Ireland. That can be traced to the 1814-1815 post-Napoleon world when when cereal crops and linen -- Ireland's two primary exports -- which had commanded high prices during the war years, collasped with the advent of peace in Europe; the famine merely quickened the pace. From the defeat of Napoleon and the beinging of the famine "at least 1,000,000 and possibly 1,500,000 emigrated" During the worst of the famine emigration reached somewhere around 250,000 per year, with far more emigrates coming from western Ireland than any other.

Two other notions in regard to Irish emigration at this time are generally mistaken.

• Families did not emigrate. Individual members did.

While it is undeniable that eviction(s) played a key role, another factor was excess population and the desire to keep the family farm and landholding in tact. This meant that, as a rule, families en masse did not emigrate, younger members of it did. So much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigration throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrant started a new life in a new land, sent remittances "reached ₤1,404,000 by 1851" back to his/her family in Ireland which, in turn, allowed another member of the family to emigrate.

• Emigration during this time was not mainly to the United States

The massive influx of Irish to the Unite States, over any other country, came mainly in the final quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century. Generall speaking, emigration during the famine years of 1845 to 1850 was to Northern Ireland, then England, Scotland, the United States, Canada, and Australia.

By 1854, between 1½ and 2 million Irish left their country due to evictions, starvation, and harsh living conditions. In America, most Irish became city-dwellers: with little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships they came on landed in. By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, Irish populations became prevalent in some American mining communities.

The 1851 census reported that more than half the inhabitants of Toronto, Ontario were Irish, and in 1847 alone, 38,000 famine Irish flooded a city with less than 20,000 citizens. Other Canadian cities such as Saint John, New Brunswick; Quebec City and Montreal, Quebec; Ottawa, Kingston and Hamilton, Ontario also received large numbers of Famine Irish since Canada, as part of the British Empire, could not close its ports to Irish ships (unlike the United States), and they could get passage cheaply (or free in the case of tenant evictions) in returning empty lumber holds. The largest Famine grave site outside of Ireland is at Grosse-Île, Quebec, an island in the St. Lawrence River used to quarantine ships near Quebec City.

In 1851, about a quarter of Liverpool's population was Irish-born. The Famine is often seen as an initiator in the steep depopulation of Ireland in the 19th century; however, it is likely that real population began to fall in 1841 with the Famine accelerating any population changes already occurring. Some may argue the Famine was necessary to restore population equilibrium to Ireland given that population increased by 13–14% in the first three decades of the 19th century (using Thomas Malthus's idea of population expanding geometrically, resources increasing arithmetically), nonetheless there is a tendency among Irish historians to dispute this. Statistics show that between 1831 and 1841 population grew by only 5% so this gives more value to those who argue that population was already falling by 1844.

The mass exodus in the years following the famine must be seen in the context of overpopulation, industrial stagnation, land shortages, religious discrimination, declining agricultural employment and inadequate diet. These factors were already combining to choke off population growth by the 1830s. It would be wrong, therefore, to attribute all the population loss during the famine to the potato blight alone.

Suggestions of genocide

That the Famine "amounted to genocide" by the British against the Irish, few historians--even few Irish historians--accept outright, as "genocide" implies a deliberate policy of extermination. Many agree that the British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied under Lord John Russell, were misguided, ill-informed, and catastrophic.

Professor Joe Lee called what happened a holocaust . Others, however, note that over three million people were fed through soup kitchens (though much of it through non-governmental aid ), and that factors such as poor communication, primitive retail distribution networks and the inefficiencies of local government had exacerbated the situation.

The debate is largely moral one, attempting to ascertain whether within the policies of the British Empire lay a nationalist, forgetful, laissez-faire, economic or religious discriminatory policy, or simply inconsiderate mentality that, despite its power, made it impotent to handle a humanitarian crisis in its own backyard ; or whether most British voters actually wanted a large reduction in Ireland's population and then decided to deny them effective aid . Some Irish, British and US historians (F.S.L. Lyons, John A. Murphy, Joe Lee, Roy Foster, and James S. Donnelly, Jr.), as well as historians Cecil Woodham-Smith, Peter Gray, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many others have long dismissed claims of a deliberate policy of extermination.

Some historians shift in emphasis from British causes to Irish ones. In essence the argument is that the British system was not wrong, it was simply natural misfortune and a convergence of ill circumstance that befell the Irish. Such Irish 'causes' include topics like excess dependence on potato crops, Catholic social values that led to overpopulation, and the practice of subdivision that made small parcels of land that limited crop diversity and maximised risk of failure. .These arguments are equally controversial, seen as "blaming the victim" by others , but for the inverse reason that they gloss over or ignore the basic facts of British rule through the growing Protestant Ascendancy. What is claimed by some is that while the mostly poor, Catholic, lower-class Irish peasants met severe misfortune, landowners — most of whom were Anglican — continued to prosper.

"Genocide" is in essence a misnomer for the continuing debate over culpability and blame. Central to the issue of blame for some is how far capitalism, pro-Anglican rule, or broader nineteenth century British cultural influences came to take control of Ireland (continuing to the early 20th century). From their perspective the economic, class, and social systems that Britain instituted exceedingly favored the English over the Irish, Anglicans over Catholics and Presbyterians, and landowners over peasants and the rich over the poor. For some, with discrimination entrenched into law, society, and religion, this favouritism meant preserving an economic system took priority over even this humanitarian crisis. In their view British rule in Ireland ultimately meant denying to the Irish poor basic provisions of shelter and food - food that was being produced and available in Ireland but exported for sale by wealthy absentee landlords.

Memorials to the famine

The Great Famine is still remembered in many locations throughout Ireland, especially in those regions which suffered the greatest losses, and also in cities overseas with large populations descended from Irish immigrants.

In Ireland

• Strokestown Park Famine Museum, Ireland
• Dublin City Quays, Ireland. Painfully thin sculptural figures stand as if walking towards the emigration ships on the Dublin Quayside.
• Murrisk, County Mayo, Ireland. This sculpture of a famine ship, near the foot of Croagh Patrick, depicts the refugees it carries as dead souls hanging from the sides.
• Doolough, County Mayo. A memorial commemorates famine victims who walked from Louisburgh along the mountain road to Delphi Lodge to seek relief from the Poor Board who were meeting there. Returning after their request was refused, many of them died at this point.
• Doagh Island, Inishowen, County Donegal, Ireland. Doagh Visitor Centre and Famine Museum has exhibits and memorial on the effects of the potato famine in Inishowen, Donegal.

In England

• Liverpool, England. A memorial is in the grounds of St Luke's Church on Leece Street, itself a memorial to the victims of the Blitz. It recalls that from 1849–1852 1,241,410 Irish immigrants arrived in the city and that from Liverpool they dispersed to locations around the world. Many died despite the help they received within the city, some 7000 in the city perish within one year. The sculpture is dedicated to the memory of all famine emigrants and their suffering. There is also a plaque on the gates to Clarence Dock. Unveiled in 2000 The plaque inscription reads in Gaelic and English: "Through these gates passed most of the 1,300,000 Irish migrants who fled from the Great Famine and 'took the ship' to Liverpool in the years 1845–52" The Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool has an exhibition regarding the Irish Migration, showing models of ships, documentation and other facts on Liverpool's history, The history started in 190.

In Wales

• Cardiff, Wales. A Celtic Cross made of Irish Limestone on a base of Welsh stone stands in the city's Cathays Cemetery. The cross was unveiled in 1999 as the high point in the work of the Wales Famine Forum, remembering the 150th Anniversary of the famine. The memorial is dedicated to every person of Irish origin, without distinction on grounds of class, politics, allegiance or religious belief, who has died in Wales.

In Scotland

• Carfin, Lanarkshire. A Celtic Cross memorial unveiled by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in the early 21st Century.

In North America

• In Boston, Massachusetts, a bronze statue located at the corner of Washington and School Streets on the Freedom Trail depicts a starving woman, looking up to the heavens as if to ask "Why?", while her children cling to her. A second sculpture shows the figures hopeful as they land in Boston. See .
• Buffalo, New York has a stone memorial on its waterfront.
• Cambridge, Massachusetts has a memorial to the famine on its Common.
• Chicago, Illinois
• Cleveland, Ohio A 12 foot high stone Celtic cross, located on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River.
• Grosse-Île, Quebec, Canada, the largest famine grave site outside of Ireland. A large Celtic cross, erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, stands in remembrance overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The island is a Canadian national historic site.
• Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, 12-foot limestone cross donated by the government of Ireland in 1997
• Keansburg, NJ has a Hunger Memorial in Friendship Park on Main Street.
• Kingston, Ontario, Canada, has three monuments. Celtic cross at An Gorta Mor Park on the waterfront. Another is located at Skeleton (McBurney) Park (formerly Kingston Upper Cemetery). Angel of Resurrection monument, first dedicated in 1894 at St. Mary's cemetery.
• Maidstone, Ontario, Canada, has a nine foot stone Celtic Cross at the cemetery outside St. Mary's Church
• Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the "Boulder Stone" in Pointe-Saint-Charles
• New York, New York has the Irish Hunger Memorial which looks like a sloping hillside with low stone walls and a roofless cabin on one side and a polished wall with lit (or white) lines on the other three sides. The memorial is in Battery Park City, a short walk west from the World Trade Center site. See . Another memorial exists in V.E. Macy Park in Ardsley, New York about 32 km north of Manhattan.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Phoenix, Arizona has a famine memorial in the form of a dolmen at the Irish Cultural Center.
• Toronto, Ontario Under Construction – opening June 2007. Four bronze statues arriving at the Toronto wharves, at Ireland Park on Bathurst Quay, modeled after the Dublin Departure Memorial. List of names of those who died of thyphus in the Toronto fever sheds shortly after their arrival. Current memorial plaque at Metro Hall. Also a pieta statue outside St. Paul's Catholic Basilica in memory of the famine victims and Bishop Michael Power, who died tending to the sick.
• Irish Hills Michigan — The Ancient Order of Hibernian's An Gorta Mor Memorial is located on the grounds of St. Joseph's Shrine in the Irish Hills district of Lenawee County, Michigan. There are thirty-two black stones as the platform, one for each county. The grounds are surrounded with a stone wall. The Lintel is a step from Penrose Quay in Cork Harbor. The project was the result of several years of fundraising by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Lenewee County. It was dedicated in 2004 by AOH Divisional President, Patrick Maguire, and many political and Irish figures from around the state of Michigan.
• There is a memorial to the Famine victims in the chapel of Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

In Australia

• Sydney, Australia. The Australian Monument to the Great Irish Famine is located in the courtyard wall of the Hyde Park Barracks, Macquarie Street Sydney. It symbolises the experiences of young Irishwomen fleeing the Great Irish Famine of 1845–49.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items.

See http://www.irishfaminememorial.org

See also

• Irish potato famine (legacy) (continuation of this article)
• Highland Potato Famine (1846 - 1857) (agrarian crisis in Scotland at the same time)
• List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
• "Fields of Athenry," a popular song about the famine
• Holodomor

Books By Young Irelanders (Irish Confederation)

• The Felon's Track, by Micheal Doheny, M.H. Gill &Sons, LTD. 1951. (Text at Project Gutenberg)
• An Apology for the British Government in Ireland. By John Mitchel.O Donoghue & Company. 1905
• Jail Journal: by John Mitchel, M.H. Gill &Sons, LTD. 1914.
• Jail Journal: with continuation in New York & Paris, by John Mitchel, M.H. Gill & Son, Ltd
• The Crusade of the Period, by John Mitchel, Lynch, Cole & Meehan, 1873.
• Last Conquest Of Ireland (Perhaps), by John Mitchel, Lynch, Cole & Meehan, 1873.
• History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the present time, by John Mitchel, Cameron & Ferguson
• History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the present time, (2 Vol), by John Mitchel, James Duffy, 1869.
• My Life In Two Hemispheres, (2Vol), Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, T.Fisher Unwin, 1898.
• Young Ireland, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 1880.
• Four Years of Irish History 1845-1849, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 1888.
• A Popular History of Ireland: from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Cameron & Ferguson (Text at Project Gutenberg)

Additional reading

• Mary E. Daly, The Famine in Ireland
• R. Dudley Edwards and T. Desmond Williams (eds.), The Great Famine: Studies in Irish history 1845-52
• Peter Gray, The Irish Famine
• Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea
• Cormac Ó Gráda, An Economic History of Ireland
• Cormac O Grada, Black '47 and Beyond
• Robert Kee, Ireland: A History (ISBN 0349106789)
• Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845 - 1852
• John Mitchel, The Last Conquest of Ireland (1861) (University College Dublin Press reprint, 2005 paperback) ISBN I-904558-36-4
• Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, 1845-49 (Penguin, 1991 edition)
• Marita Conlon-McKenna, Under the Hawthorn Tree
• Thomas Gallagher, Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred
• Canon John O'Rourke, The Great Irish Famine (ISBN 1853900494 Hardback) (ISBN 185390130X Paperback) Veritas Publications 1989. First published in 1874.
• Liam O'Flaherty, Famine
• Colm Tóibín and Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Famine, ISBN 1-86197-249-0 / 9781861972491 (first edition, hardback)

Notes and references

1. About.Com article
2. Robert Kee, The Laurel and the Ivy: The Story of Charles Stewart Parnell and Irish Nationalism p.15.
3. Alfred Webb, unpublished biography, c.1868, p. 120-122
4. Joe Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society p.1. Cormac Ó Grada suggests the higher number of one million.
5. http://www.catholicapologetics.net/Ireland's%20Holocaust.htm
6. The Nation Newspaper, 1st November, 1844.
7. Young Ireland, T. F. O'Sullivan, The Kerryman Ltd. 1945
8. The Nation Newspaper, 1846
9. The Nation Newspaper, 1846
10. Michael Doheny’s The Felon’s Track, M.H. Gill & Son, LTD, 1951 Edition
11. History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the present time (2 Vol). By John Mitchel James Duffy 1869. pg414
12. FSL Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine p.42.
13. Lee, op.cit p.1.
14. C.Ó. Gráda, A Note on Nineteenth Emigration Statistics, Population Studies, Vol. 29, No.1 (March 1975)
15. Foster, R.F. ,The History of Ireland: 1600-1972,(The Peguine Press, England, 1988) p. 371
16. ibid. #2, p.268

External links

• New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education 1996
• The History of the Irish Famine by Rev. John O'Rourke
• Irish National Archives information on the Famine
• Quinnipiac University's An Gorta Mor site - includes etexts
• Ireland's Great Famine (Cormac Ó Gráda) from EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History
• Irish Holocaust
• History
• Newspaper Reports on the Famine
• Ireland: The hunger years 1845-1851
• Local History Website on the Famine
• Kids History Website about the Famine
• Cork Multitext Project article on the Famine, by Donnchadh Ó Corráin
• For more on the pathogen see http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/mar2001.html

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• History of Ireland 1801-1922
• Famines
• 1845 in Ireland
• 19th century in the United Kingdom
• Land reform in Ireland
• Famines in Ireland
• Potatoes
• Economic disasters
• Irish American history
• Irish diaspora