What is the famine, and what were the consequences?
What is the Great famine?
The great famine is was a period of starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. One of the main reasons I have chose this topic is because its an very important part of Irelands history, it is estimated that aproxemently 1 million people died, and a million more emigrated from Ireland, because of the fear of getting infected, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. The reasons for the famine
There are many reasons for this famine, one of the main reasons is that after the plantation of Ireland in 1558, there were allot of political changes in the country. And almost all the food produced in Ireland, was exported
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This was in particular bad for Ireland since most of their diets were based on potato's. Not only did the potato crops being destroyed, but the parasite the potato contained, were extremely poisonous. And there was no cure for the diesis, and even if there would have been one, the Irish wouldn't afford it, the worst part is, even though much of this was England's fault, they did nothing or, very little to help Ireland. The end of the famine
Since the Irish no longer could eat potato's, there was no, or little food on the market, and very few could afford the little food that was left. The government in London initially decided to do nothing. The logic behind such a decision was that Ireland had suffered from potato famines before and would have the necessary knowledge on how best to get by in this case.
But when a statesman named Robert Peel, decided to import £100,000 worth of corn to Ireland, and this was also despite opposition from the Treasury. Peel believed that if this corn was released onto the Irish market in stages, it would keep down the price of other foods. This actually worked, and made the prices on food much more affordable. As a result of this, the prices on food went down, and people could afford buying food again.
After the