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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]
Asenath Hatch Nicholson (February 24, 1792 – May 15, 1855) was an American vegan, social observer and philanthropist.She wrote firsthand about the Great Hunger in Ireland in the 1840s, documenting life both before and during the famine caused by crop failures, as she traveled the country distributing Bibles, food, and clothing.
The Great Irish Famine (1845–1849) hit the town of Mountmellick very hard. In about 1880, Mrs Millner, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (who were a strong part of the Mountmellick community) started an industrial association to help people within the town. She employed women to stitch Mountmellick embroidery for sale.
Many of these women were orphaned during the Great Famine and used prostitution as a means to provide for themselves. [3] Some of the women lived on the plains seasonally, with up to 60 women there in the summer months. [2] Outside of harvest-time, unemployed agricultural workers may have raised the number. [4]
Ireland's Great Hunger Museum opened its doors in October 2012 at the site of a former public library and office building renovated into a museum space by Wyeth Architects. [5] Grace O'Sullivan of NCAD in Dublin was the museum's inaugural curator, author Christine Kinealy its director, and Grace Brady of the Met its executive director.
Replica of the "good ship" Jeanie Johnston, which sailed during the Great Hunger when coffin ships were common. No one ever died on the Jeanie Johnston. A coffin ship (Irish: long cónra) is a popular idiom used to describe the ships that carried Irish migrants escaping the Great Irish Famine and Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances.
Ireland's Catholic-run Magdalene asylums survived the longest, through to 1996. Ireland's Magdalene laundries were quietly supported by the state, and operated by religious communities for more than two hundred years. On laundries, James Smith asserts that the "Irish variety took on a distinct character". [8]
An 1849 depiction of Bridget O'Donnell and her two children during the famine, Kilrush Poor Law Union 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.