The Cause Of The Great Potato Famine

More than a million Irish people died during the Irish Potato famine that hit Ireland between 1845 to 1849 (Pollard, pg. 551). Potatoes were the primary diet of the Irish, especially the Irish Lump potato. When the fungal disease hit, known as “potato blight,” the Irish potato crops were lost. After reading primary sources regarding the Irish Potato Famine, the reader can visualize the horrors that the Irish people endured during the Irish Potatoes Famine including starvation, the physical and the mental effects that go along with it, the loss of family members, and especially witnessing their children starve and die. Both Trench and Bennet had the purpose and intent of recording conditions exactly as they

In 1845, the Great Potato Famine, otherwise called the Great Irish Famine happened. Amid this time there was a high measure of potato/edit disappointment on account of the "late curse" which is a sickness that decimates the leaves, roots or tubers of the potato plant. This was the most exceedingly terrible starvation to happen in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. This illness obliterated the majority of the potato edits in Ireland until 1849. Additionally, in the 1840's Ireland was in destitution. The British had control over their nation and the general population were excessively poor, making it impossible to eat, pay lease or pay charges. In Ireland, Irish ranchers kept on sending out grain, meat and different nourishments to Great

There was The Great Famine of 1315. It was a series of large scale crises that struck Northern Europe early in the fourteenth century from 1315 until 1322. It extended as far as Russia to Italy. The famine caused millions of deaths over the years and wipe out all of the growth and prosperity that was left from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. The Great Famine started out with bad weather in the spring of 1315 which causes global crop failures that lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did not fully recover from the famine until 1322. The fourteenth century was curse with crime, disease, mass death and even cannibalism and infanticide and ruin European society.

In the early 1800s life in Ireland wasn’t easy, Irish citizens got by day to day by farming and relying on the potato. The potato was their main source of food and money. With out the potato the Irish would have nothing. No one was prepared for what was about to happen in 1845, the beginning of the Great Irish Potato Famine.

     Nineteenth-century Ireland was the most densely populated country in Europe: in 1800, its population was 4.5 million, and by 1841, it had risen to eight million (Kinealy 15). Yet much of this population existed in condition of sorrow and misery lay in the dependence of the peasantry on just one staple crop, the potato; in western countries like Mayo and Galway, nine-tenths of the people ate nothing else (MacManus 602). Here was a disaster waiting to happen, made worst by the rapid rise in population in the first half of the century which forced the peasants to subsist on smaller plots of land (O Grada, The Great Irish Famine 63).

The Irish began immigrating to North America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty forced them to seek better opportunities elsewhere after the end of the major European wars. When the Europeans could finally stop depending on the Irish for food during war, the investment in Irish agricultural products reduced and the boom was over. After an economic boom, there comes a bust and unemployment was the result. Two-thirds of the people of Ireland depended on potato harvests as a main source of income and, more importantly, food. Then between the years of 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck the potato crops. The plague left acre after acre of Irish farmland covered with black rot. The failure of the

It is said that the cause of the catastrophic stock market crash known as the great depression was due mostly to uncontrolled political and industrial systems otherwise known as capitalism. However, the timeline leading up to the Great Depression proves that many other factors played a role in the stock market crash that occurred in the decade of the 1930's. So lets take a look at rather four, factors contributing to the great depression that we will further discuss in the following paragraphs. Four of the main causes that led up to the great depression were unequal distribution of wealth, uncontrolled political and industrial systems, high tariffs and war debts.

There were many causes of the worst economic state in American history, but two stand out to me as being the biggest causes of the Great Depression. The two causes I chose are buying on margin, and banks failing due to businesses and people not being able to repay their loans. These two causes go hand in hand because one issue ultimately led to another.

The shrieks of a hungry child pierce through the solemn silence. All those who hear can only endure the horrid noise, for there is nothing that can be done to help. Her family can no longer provide food for her. Their home country, Ireland, has faced a severe shortage in one of the main staples of the native cuisine: the potato. This famine led to a decrease in not only the amount of available food, but also in the amount of money that each individual family had (Irish and German). These issues in unison made life exceptionally hard for the common Irish citizen. There was a point when the amount of hardships was too much for families to bear. They had two options: stay and hope that life would get better in Ireland, or relocate to America,

This year has been horrible. A new famine stroke our country and our parents, having survived the 1845-1852 famine, sent us here to America. As sisters from a not so wealthy family, our parents only had enough money to send us two. By the end of 1879, we were starving and barely alive; hollowed cheeks and fragile limbs were a big difference from when our potato plantation was successful. When blight once again struck, most of our potatoes were completely ruined, leaving behind only a few.

In the 1930s, people in the United States were living through a time of crisis battling against the problems such as hunger, limited jobs and an extended amount of debt, this time was later known as the Great Depression. Some of the cause of this catastrophe can be attributed to the weak agriculture state of the nation and the crash of the stock market (which was due to the large amount of debt accumulated by the American people through borrowing money from banks and investing in stocks. Throughout this time of devastation, the country was under the leadership of President Herbert Hoover and later on President Franklin Roosevelt. During the beginning of the Great Depression President Hoover was in office during the years 1929 to 1933. Hoover

Jonathan Swift explains, with frank economic reasoning as well as from a noble moral stance, for a way to turn the problem Ireland is facing into its own answer. His proposal, is to fatten up the malnourished children and feed them to Ireland's rich families. Children of the poor families would be sold into a market when they turn the age of one, thus fighting overpopulation and unemployment, eliminating

The Irish Famine 1845-1849 “Is ar scáth a chiéle a maireann na daoine” “It is with each other’s protection that the people live” From the Fifteenth through to the Nineteenth centuries English Monarchies and Governments had consistently enacted laws which it seems were designed to oppress the Irish and suppress and destroy Irish Trade and manufacturing. In the Penal laws of 1695 which aimed to destroy Catholicism, Catholics were forbidden from practicing their religion, receiving education, entering a profession, or purchasing or leasing land; since Catholics formed eighty percent of the Irish population, this effectively deprived the Irish of any part in civil life in their own country.

Ireland 1845, food was suddenly scarce, money was hard to earn, and what little was earned was immediately spent for survival. The people of Ireland had grown up used to missing meals due to crop failure. However, previous crop failures couldn’t compare to the potato famine of 1845. For the next five years, the blight destroyed nearly all the potato crops and killed many Irish. About one million people died during this time in Ireland because of the starvation and disease. About two million fled the lands of Ireland in hopes of escaping the starvation, disease, death, and poverty that had taken over Ireland since the famine. The tenant farmers, who suffered would farm land that belonged to the absentee landlords. They would grow many crops, most of which were very successful. They were only allowed to keep the potato crops for their own; the rest of the crops would be harvested and exported to England. The absentee landlords lived like kings while the tenant farmers were forced to sell everything they owned so they could have money to purchase food to stay alive. When they ran out of things to sell they were then forced to scavenge for food scraps just to escape death for a while longer. The starvation and struggle of the Irish tenant farmers could have been avoided if the absentee landlords hadn’t been so greedy with collecting the rent. England could have come to the aid of the Irish people sooner than they did if they weren’t so interested in staying true to their

The Irish Potato Famine was a period of starvation, disease and emigration, and was known as one of the biggest tragedies from 1845 to 1847. Many people depended on potato crops to survive; however [comma] the potato crops acquired blight, a disease that caused the potatoes to rot while still in the ground. No good crops could be grown for two years [comma] causing Irish tenant farmers unable to pay rent and was forced off their land causing over 21,000 people to die of starvation. The Irish Potato Famine caused many people to leave Ireland to seek work overseas in areas such as England and America. The Irish Potato Famine had a big impact on the history and the economy of Ireland.