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The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger (Irish: an Gorta Mór [ənˠ ˈɡɔɾˠt̪ˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ]), the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, [1] [2] was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. [3]
The European potato failure was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern and Western Europe in the mid-1840s. The time is also known as the Hungry Forties . While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly affected were the Scottish Highlands , with the Highland Potato Famine and ...
An 1849 depiction of Bridget O'Donnell and her two children during the famine. The chronology of the Great Famine (Irish: An Gorta Mór [1] or An Drochshaol, lit. ' The Bad Life ') documents a period of Irish history between 29 November 1845 and 1852 [2] during which time the population of Ireland was reduced by 20 to 25 percent. [3]
In this commentary piece, William Lambers reflects on the Irish potato famine of the 1840s and urges steps be taken to prevent future famines. In this commentary piece, William Lambers reflects on ...
On the eve of the Great Famine the population of Ireland had risen to 8 million, most people living on ever-smaller farms and depending on the potato as a staple diet. By the 1840s, many farms had become so small that the only food source that could be grown in sufficient quantity to feed a family was potatoes.
From 1840 to 1845 the labour force involved in agriculture was 1.6 million people. The Great Famine caused the death of an estimated 1 million people. Potato acreage, over 2 million acres in 1845, reduced more than half to a little over 1 million acres in 1846, to 0.3 million in 1847 and back up to 0.7 million acres in the year 1848. [7]
9–10 November – Peel orders the secret purchase of £100,000 worth of maize and meal from the United States for distribution in Ireland. [5] [7] [8] 15 November – scientific commissioners (appointed in October) report that half the Irish potato crop has been destroyed by the blight. [5] 20 November – a relief commission for Ireland ...
The Great Hunger is a 1962 book about the 1845–1849 Great Famine in Ireland by the British historian Cecil Woodham-Smith. It was published by Harper and Row and Penguin Books. The British broadcaster and journalist Robert Kee described it, "A masterpiece of the historian's art".