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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 legacy of the Great Famine in Ireland (Irish: An Gorta Mór [1] or An Drochshaol, litt: The Bad Life) followed a catastrophic period of Irish history between 1845 and 1852 [2] during which time the population of Ireland was reduced by 50 percent. [3] The Great Famine (1845–1849) was a watershed in the history of Ireland. [4]
The Irish Famine of 1740–1741 (Irish: Bliain an Áir, meaning the Year of Slaughter) in the Kingdom of Ireland, is estimated to have killed between 13% and 20% of the 1740 population of 2.4 million people, which was a proportionately greater loss than during the Great Famine of 1845–1852. [1] [2] [3]
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.
Famine memorial in Ballingeary, County Cork Ballingeary famine soup-pot Ballingeary famine plaque. Souperism was a phenomenon of the Irish Great Famine.Protestant Bible societies set up schools in which starving children were fed, on the condition of receiving Protestant religious instruction at the same time.
The already weak harvests of the north suffered, and a seven-year famine ensued. In the years 1315 to 1317, a catastrophic famine, known as the Great Famine, struck much of North West Europe. It was arguably the worst in European history, perhaps reducing the population by more than 10%. [16]
Praedecessores nostros was a papal encyclical written by Pope Pius IX on March 25, 1847, to address the crisis of the Great Irish Famine that occurred approximately between 1845 and 1850. [1] This event is known by many as the 19th century’s greatest natural disaster . [ 2 ]
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".