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The Irish Potato Famine And Primary Sources

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The Irish Potato Famine and Primary Sources
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 …show more content…

Trench’s excerpt focused on the housing and the sad, upsetting state of the children to appeal to the reader. He depicted the inequality between rich and poor illustrated by “. .coffins are only used for the more wealthy. The majority were taken to the grave without any coffin, and buried in their rags: in some instances even the rags are taken from the corpse to cover some still living body.”
Trench describes seeing children in the home near death and several other children that had died. He describes the peasant children’s condition as “pale as death.” The mother and two children that were still alive had only “one dish of barley for the last four days.” Even though his descriptions of what he witnessed may have been the truth and he was relaying this to the reader, he was known as a “ruthless” land agent who broke leases, leveled people’s homes and banished the poor. “Trench looked upon such schemes as a cheap and efficient way to improve the estate . . . the population decreased by 40.3 % during the Trench years, suggesting that in an attempt to clear the estate to make way for improvements, many people were forced to leave, receiving little or no money from him" (Offalyhistoryarchives.com). Critics said of Trench, “Even at his worst he gave his tenants the care that a good stock-breeder gives to his stock” (Irishtimes.com).
William Bennett’s Narrative of a Recent Journey of Six Weeks in Ireland was

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