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See also: Ireland, History of Ireland.

The Great Famine struck Ireland between 1847 and 1850. It is unclear how many died, but figures are put well in excess of half a million people, some estimates exceed a million. Nearly 6 million others emigrated to escape the hardship, most fleeing by boat to America.

Between 1845 and 1850, a blight (water mould, or oomycete) struck potato crops across Europe, turning them into a black, soggy, and inedible mess. In Ireland, this important food staple was highly depended upon by the working class, as a primary foodsource.

The result of the blight was widespread famine, though it affected different parts of Ireland to different degrees. The blight also had a hard economic impact, causing a loss of income for Irish farmers, most of whom were tenants of British landowners. As a direct consequence of the blight, Irish tenants were routinely evicted by British landlords, by the enforcement of the constabulary.

All of this was in the context of a debate within the British Parliament, regarding the repeal of the Corn Laws, which promised to introduce sufficient quanities of grain into the United Kingdom. Effects of the famine were exacerbated by the resistance of the British government to endeavour in socialist -style reform.

Points of view on the Famine

To this day, defenders of conservative English policies refer to the Irish potato famine as an unfortunate act of nature, also giving great weight to the phenomenon of Catholic-influenced overpopulation. The Irish tend to frame the discussion in socio-political terms, and commonly hold a different view: Actions not helpful to the starving British subjects, exacerbated the famine, and constituted a genocidal act on the part of some Tory British authorities.

As University of Indiana Anthropology Professor Seamus Metress states it,

"The British call it "The Great Famine." The scarcity of food was blamed on the weather, the potato fungus and, perhaps, most of all on the Malthusian notion of overpopulation. The Irish had overbred and there wasn't enough food to feed them all given the crop failure. However, as Frank O'Connor once observed, "'Famine is a useful word when you do not wish to use words like 'genocide' and 'extermination.'"

External links and references

• Irish National Archives site
• University of Texas site 1
• University of Virginia
• Vassar University site
• University of Texas site 2
• Links page

• Cormac O'Grada, An Economic History of Ireland
• Robert Kee, Ireland: A History (ISBN 0349106789)
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (ISBN 0006860052)

On the blight:

• Republic of Ireland website