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Recommended: Great irish famine
Today, Ireland is known as a land full of culture and pride. It is a beautiful land with rich music, art, religion, and tradition. Like any nation, however, Ireland has had its fair share of hardship. The most devastating of which was known as the Great Famine. The nation was deeply devastated by this event both economically and socially. The Great Famine claimed over a million lives due to hunger and disease and resulted in the exodus of another million all in the span of six years. It is uncertain whether or not the famine could have been avoided, but the severity of the famine could have definitely been reduced. There were certain policies and procedures implemented by the British that set the Irish economy up for inevitable failure. Ireland had over eight million people during the mid-19th century. They were heavily reliant on agriculture and many of the Irish people were impoverished and living in poor conditions. The Irish were considered some of the poorest people of the west. They had a low literacy rate, low life expectancy rates, and although Ireland was an agricultural nation, they were generally low income. Because they could not afford anything else, the Irish were very dependent on potatoes. The potato was a cheap source of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins that were suitable for survival. The substantial reliance on potatoes was one of the main reasons the famine was as destructive as it was. It started in the summer of 1845, when the blight was first discovered. It sickened all of Ireland’s potato crop and the vast majority of the Irish people depended solely on potatoes. Hayden describes it as “simply the most violent episode in a history characterised by violence of every conceivable kind, the inevitable con... ... middle of paper ... ...g/the_freeman/detail/lessons-of-history-the-great-irish-famine. Gavin, Philip. 2000. "The History Place - Irish Potato Famine." The History Place. June 12. Accessed April 12, 2014. http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/index.html. Haines, Robin. 2004. Charles Trevelyan and the Great Irish Famine. Portland: Four Courts Press. Hayden, Tom. 1997. Irish Hunger: Personal Reflections on the Legacy of the Famine. Boulder: Roberts Rinehart. Lengel, Edward G. 2002. The Irish Through the British Eyes: Perceptions of Ireland in the Famine Era. Westport: Praeger Publishers. Mitz, Steven. 2014. "The Irish Potato Famine." Digital History. April 4. Accessed April 14, 2014. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm. R. Dudley Edwards, and T. Desmond Williams. 1994. The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-52. Dublin: The Lilliput Press.
Frank McCourt’s reputable memoir embodies the great famine occurring in the 1930s of Limerick. During the twentieth century of Ireland, mass starvation, disease and emigration were the causes of numerous deaths. Likewise, food is in high demand in the McCourt family; practically, in every chapter the family is lacking essential meals and nutritious food. However, the McCourt family isn’t th...
The analysis of the Irish economic problem, the Great Famine, was a remarkable topic to study by several classical authors such as, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo or William Senior. A contextualization skim of the economic characteristics of the country is required in order to know about their main ideas with respect to the topic, taking into account the aspects like the land property, the political power and the relation between Ireland and England.
In the mid 1800s the course of Irish history was changed forever. The Irish were devastated by The Great Potato Famine of the mid to late 1800s. Population declined from over eight million people in 1840 to under 4.5 million in 1900 due to death and immigration (O’Rourke 2). The poorer Irish people, unlike many British citizens, relied almost entirely on agriculture. The Irish immigration not only affected Ireland and Britain, but its affects were felt over much of the world, including the United States. The famine had a significant effect on the future of Irish history including Home Rule legislation, The Easter Uprising of 1916, and the eventual creation of an Irish free state in the early twentieth century.
- Edwards, R. Dudley and T. Desmond William. The Great Irish Famine: Studies in Irish
Singer, Peter. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions. 8th ed. Eds. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 7-15. Print.
Ireland is a beautiful country in Europe, about the size of Maine. Today, Ireland is mostly populated with middle-class families. Irish is famous for its potatoes, but in 1845 a disease attacked the potato crops. The potatoes were what most of the Irish families lived on. They ate and sold potatoes in order to make a living, so when the potatoes stopped growing, people ran out of money. This is known as "The Great Potato Famine". It was so bad; people were actually starving to death. Two million people died. There was almost no help from the British government. Often people rebelled against the government, angered by its carelessness. Many people didn't want to leave their beloved country, afraid of change. With no food to eat, emigration seemed to be the only solution for most of the population. People often talked about "streets paved with gold" in a country called America. There was said to be many job opportunities in this new country. America seemed like the best choice to settle down and finally start a new life.
Throughout the mid-1840s, Ireland underwent drastic conditions that altered the country and its citizens. Severe famine due to a disease afflicting the potato crop caused a substantial portion of the population to die, and an even larger portion emigrated to other countries in the world. Although other countries were also affected by the disease spreading through the potato crop, Ireland was more severely affected than other countries partially due to the economic conditions of the country imposed by Great Britain and the heavy reliance on the potato to meet the daily needs of the Irish citizens. Furthermore, the Irish citizens that chose to emigrate to other countries in order to escape the poverty-stricken conditions in their own country often faced discrimination, especially in the United States.
During the mid 1840’s, blight in the potato crops in Ireland caused widespread starvation and migration of Irish citizens to the United States. Yet, the massive loss of life and massive exodus could have been avoided if British taxation upon the working class of Ireland was nullified. Though the struggle for liberation was already taking place, the potato famine furthered the cause and helped spread awareness. Furthermore, the potato famine made the average Irish family more reliant upon the government for subsidies and supports to get by.
Beginning in 1845 and lasting until 1861 the Great Potato Famine of Ireland killed over a million people, and causing another million to leave the country. The famine began in September 1845 as leaves on potatoes suddenly turned black and curled, then rotted. The cause was an airborne fungus (phytophthora infestants) originally transported by ships traveling from North America to England. Many other factors contributed to this devastation.
Can you imagine being so hungry that you sailed across an ocean to get food? In the 1840's, the people of Ireland suffered through the Great Famine, and many did just that.
The Great Potato Famine was a huge disaster that would change Ireland forever. The people in Ireland were extremely dependent on potatoes and when the blight came the economy went down. When the fungus attacked the potato crops slowly crop by crop throughout Ireland, people began to lose their main source of food. With the people in Ireland’s huge dependency on the potato, people began to starve or get sick from the potatoes. No one had any food to eat. The potatoes were black inside with molds through out it that came from the fungus from something in nature. The weather that brought the blight also was one of the causes because they could not control how the weather was bringing the fungus. Ireland was under the British government and did not help Ireland when they needed Britain. The aftermath of the Great Famine was not only a huge drop in population, but emigration, and much more.
The Great Irish Famine was undoubtedly one of Irelands darkest periods of history. The Great Famine, or also referred to as the Irish Potato famine was from 1845 through 1852 where many people starved, were disease stricken, poor and some forced to emigrate. The reliance on the potato to the Irish people was so great that when the Famine struck, the population declined greatly. The famine caused around one million deaths and another million immigrated to different countries. The Irish people’s health, death and emigration didn’t only impact themselves and their families but also Irelands social and economical state. For what began as a natural disaster, the conditions of Ireland during and post famine were intensified by actions (or the lack of action) from the Whig government. (BBC)
Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2013). The Irish Potato Famine. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from Digital History: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm
The effects of the Irish potato famine on Ireland’s population lasted long after the famine did. Throughout the famine, older generations had more children then they could support and provide a sufficient amount of food for, as a result of Irelands law against the use of contraception during the years of 1935-1980’s, (The Journal, 2012). The great famine left behind great social change in its wake, fewer children became preferred over a lot of children. During pre-famine Ireland, large families were common along with marriage at a young age with the prospect of children. As a result of the potato blight Ireland’s population feared it would return and mass deaths would overwhelm the temporary stable country. Late marriage became preferred, with its prospect of fewer children, the price paid to be able to keep the family farm intact, (Union Act, 0000). Due to the decrease in births after the potato famine, Ireland’s population continued to decrease. It took years for Ireland’s population to increase and even longer for the population to reach the height it was before the great famine that changed Ireland
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).