Irish Famine

Irish Famine

causes
1. There was a large population so more people needed land!
2. Farmers subdivided there land between their sons. by 1845 200,000 families lived on 5 acres of land.
3. In 1945 a new fungal disease struck the Irish crop. the first sign of a problem was when the leaves of potatoes go black and die.
4. When people noticed this it was to late to save the potatoes. The disease spread quickly and the potatoes became a soggy black mess
5. John Mitchell a famous nationalist historian believed the English created the famine
chronology
1. 1845- 1 third of the potato crop was destroyed. Not all farmers lost their crops.
2. 1846-blight hit again, the failure was complete. Seed potatoes had been eaten but death was wide spread especially among the poor in the west.
3. 1847-the harvest of 1847 was a good one, the crop was smaller than usual. however the following year the blight struck again.
4. 1850-the famine appeared to be over at last. many people had died as a result of starvation.
consequences
1. By 1851 1 million had dies and 1 million had emigrated the total population loss was 2 million
2. Land lords were in dept. after the famine so many landlords were anxious to sell there land.
3. Tenants stopped dividing land and the farms grew larger
4. Only the son now inherited land they had to wait til their father died before they inherited anything.
5. Children who did not inherit, emigrated to try and find work.
6. The irish diaspora increased republicanism in areas such as the USA where high concern tractions of Irish lived.

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	Created by ella adams over 9 years ago