Irish Potato Famine

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.

The Irish Potato Famine was the worst tragedy in the history of Ireland. The outcome of the famine would result in hundreds of thousands dead, an failure of the economy in Ireland, and millions of emigrants forced to leave their home and country just to try to survive. The famine would effect countries other than Ireland as well. Some of these countries included England, America, Canada, and Australia.

The next five years, almost all Irish citizens, would have the hardest struggle that they would ever face. It would tear families apart, destroy peoples lives, and cause large financial losses to landowners.

In the early to mid 1800s Ireland was a very poor and difficult place to live. Most of the land was owned by landowners that lived in England and rented their land out to Irish citizens. The owners had almost no interest in their land and property in Ireland. They only cared about getting their money from their renters. The rents were overpriced and living costs in Ireland were also extremely high. The living conditions for the renters in Ireland were horrible, with one-room houses that were expected to shelter whole families. Another problem with the country was that over 70% of the population was illiterate.

The renters would use their land to farm potatoes because they were cheap, easy to grow, full of vitamins, and you could grow a lot in a small area and in poor farming conditions. The whole country relied on the crop of potatoes as their source of food and income.

In the mid 1800s there were many seasons that produced poor crops, and in some cases no potatoes at all. These seasons were taken lightly, and just thought to be bad crop seasons. After these bad seasons, farmers became upset and began to grow poorer quality potatoes known as ‘Lumper potatoes’ or ‘Horse potatoes’ instead of the stronger healthier potatoes. ...

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...money to their family so that they could escape Ireland and start a new life in America. Those whose lives became bad and worsened by the immigration were too ashamed to talk to their family and discontinued contact with family back in Ireland.

In conclusion the potato famine effected not only those who lived in Ireland, but those in America too. The people that survived the crisis eventually returned their lives back to normal and were not physically harmed but rather emotionally scared with memories of wondering how much longer they were going to live. Also they remembered the whole scene with dead bodies every where and villages of which every resident was sickened and dying.

The Americans were effected by this epidemic with the introduction of many diseases introduced to their country. Especially those in the New England area of the country, where most of the immigrants arrived who had seen how the famine over seas had such an impact on millions of people’s lives.

Over all many lives were lost, many lives changed, all due to the only crop that the Irish relied on…the potato.