Irish Potato Famine Research Paper

Irish Genocide The Irish Genocide, also known as the Great Potato Famine, was the second deadliest disaster in Great Britain, with a death toll over 1 million. The Great Potato Famine started in September of 1845 and ended in 1852. It was located in Ireland and it took the population down by 20-25%. The Great Potato Famine was a genocide because the British took control of Ireland when a disease spread and ruined all of Ireland’s potato crops which was the main food at that time and caused a mass starvation and that lead to the British taking control and they dehumanized the Irish along with classification, preparation, extermination, and denial. The Great Potato Famine was caused by diseases which destroyed potato crops. Potatoes were the main food in Ireland at that time and since they were all ruined it cause many people to starve. As the potato crops were getting ruined the British took control to get more land, which they had been planning

Some peasants migrated in America and Canada and others went to Australia. The last reason is because of extermination. When the British took the only good potato crops left, they were starving more people causing more deaths and that was what they were trying to do.

The British had the “us and them” mindset which goes along with the classification stage. The Irish were mostly apart of the Irish Roman Catholic religion and the British did not suppose that such person existed, which goes with dehumanization. Lord Chancellor Bowes in Dublin made a published ruling that ``the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic” (Gallagher). The British to this day deny anything happened. Charles Edward Trevelyan, a British civil servant and a colonial administrator, says the famine was ‘a mechanism for removing surplus population’ (Ireland Calling). He also says that the famine was God’s punishment on