Irish Potato Famine

A detailed Summary of Irish Potato Famine


The Great Irish Famine of 1846 was called "God's Famine" when an unknown, uncontrolable disease (which we now know as potato blight) turned Ireland's potato crop to slime. By definition, God's Famine is the general scarcity of food brought about by divine intervention. But the statistical commisioner, Captain Larcom, in 1847 found the total value of the agricultural produce in Ireland to be L44, 958. That was enough to feed the eight million people living in Ireland plus another eight million besides. One might ask why then this "Great Famine"?

It is true that in the early nineteenth century, the potato did dominate the lives of two thirds of the Irish population, but there was plenty of other food sources like wheat, barley, cattle and corn. It is safe to say that, in reality there was no scarcity of food and the failure of the potato, though a factor, had little to do with the root cause of the famine.


"The Irish man became a dispossed man with the English landlords their alien conquerers, forced to live off a tiny piece of land for which he paid such high rent that all his cereal crops were sold to pay for it."(4:78)

The lower class were now kept in a perpetual state of bondage. The whole agricultural population could be evected at any time if they could not pay their rent. The powerlessness of the Irish people explained by Cecil Woodham-Smith, a renowned historian born in 1896, when she states:

Modern day reasessment of the famine shows how Ireland was set up for disaster by the union. England was not an exporting country and needed provisions for her many colonies abroad. The union provided her with a captive work force and all the exporting goods she needed. Cecil Woodham-Smith provides a brilliant analysis in her book The Great Hunger when she states, "The primary object of the union was not to assist and improve Ireland but

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Approximate Word count = 638
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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