Genre: Information/Explanation

Great Famine , also called Irish Potato Famine , Great Irish Famine , or Famine of 1845 – 49 , famine that occurred in Ireland in 1845 – 49 when the potato crop failed in successive years . The crop failures were caused by late blight , a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots , or tubers , of the potato plant . The causative agent of late blight is the water mold Phytophthora infestans . The Irish famine was the worst to occur in Europe in the 19th century . Famine ( 1997 ) , commemorating the Great Famine , sculpture by Rowan ... In the early 19th century , Ireland's tenant farmers as a class , especially in the west of Ireland , struggled both to provide for themselves and to supply the British market with cereal crops . Many farmers had long existed at virtually the subsistence level , given the small size of their allotments and the various hardships that the land presented for farming in some regions . The potato , which had become a staple crop in Ireland by the 18th century , was appealing in that it was a hardy , nutritious , and calorie-dense crop and relatively easy to grow in the Irish soil . By the early 1840s almost half the Irish population – but primarily the rural poor – had come to depend almost exclusively on the potato for their diet . The rest of the population also consumed it in large quantities . A heavy reliance on just one or two high-yielding types of potato greatly reduced the genetic variety that ordinarily prevents the decimation of an entire crop by disease , and thus the Irish became vulnerable to famine . In 1845 a strain of Phytophthora arrived accidentally from North America , and that same year Ireland had unusually cool moist weather , in which the blight thrived . Much of that year's potato crop rotted in the fields . That partial crop failure was followed by more-devastating failures in 1846 – 49 , as each year's potato crop was almost completely ruined by the blight . Starving Irish people raiding a government potato store ; wood engraving from the ... The British government's efforts to relieve the famine were inadequate . Although Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel continued to allow the export of grain from Ireland to Great Britain , he did what he could to provide relief in 1845 and early 1846 . He authorized the import of corn ( maize ) from the United States , which helped avert some starvation . Under the Liberal ( Whig ) cabinet of Lord John Russell , which assumed power in June 1846 , the emphasis shifted to reliance on Irish resources and the free market , which made disaster inevitable . An overview of the Great Famine in Ireland . Much of the financial burden of providing for the starving Irish peasantry was thrown upon the Irish landowners themselves ( through local poor relief ) and British absentee landowners . Because the peasantry was unable to pay its rents , however , the landlords soon ran out of funds with which to support them , and the result was that hundreds of thousands of Irish tenant farmers and labourers were evicted during the years of the crisis . Under the terms of the harsh 1834 British Poor Law , enacted in 1838 in Ireland , the " able-bodied " indigent were sent to workhouses rather than being given famine relief per se . British assistance was limited to loans , helping to fund soup kitchens , and providing employment on road building and other public works . The Irish disliked the imported cornmeal , and reliance on it led to nutritional deficiencies . Despite those shortcomings , by August 1847 as many as three million people were receiving rations at soup kitchens . All in all , the British government spent about £ 8 million on relief , and some private relief funds were raised as well . The impoverished Irish peasantry , lacking the money to purchase the foods their farms produced , continued throughout the famine to export grain , meat , and other high-quality foods to Britain . The government's grudging and ineffective measures to relieve the famine's distress intensified the resentment of British rule among the Irish people . Similarly damaging was the attitude among many British intellectuals that the crisis was a predictable and not-unwelcome corrective to high birth rates in the preceding decades and perceived flaws , in their opinion , in the Irish national character . The famine proved to be a watershed in the demographic history of Ireland . As a direct consequence of the famine , Ireland's population of almost 8.4 million in 1844 had fallen to 6.6 million by 1851 . The number of agricultural labourers and smallholders in the western and southwestern counties underwent an especially drastic decline . A further aftereffect of the famine was thus the clearing of many smallholders from the land and the concentration of landownership in fewer hands . Thereafter , more land than before was used for grazing sheep and cattle , providing animal foods for export to Britain . Victims of the Irish Potato Famine arriving in Liverpool , Eng . ; illustration in the ... About one million people died from starvation or from typhus and other famine-related diseases . The number of Irish who emigrated during the famine may have reached two million . Ireland's population continued to decline in the following decades because of overseas emigration and lower birth rates . By the time Ireland achieved independence in 1921 , its population was barely half of what it had been in the early 1840s . Victims of Ireland's Great Famine ( 1845 – 49 ) immigrating to North America by ship ; wood ... Britannica Web sites The worst famine to occur in Europe in the 19th century was the Irish Potato Famine , which resulted in the deaths of about one million people . The famine is also called the Great Potato Famine or the Great Irish Famine . The potato was the staple food of Ireland at the time , with most of the population relying on it for much of their diet . Poor people who lived in rural areas tended to eat potatoes almost exclusively . From 1845 to 1849 a plant disease caused the potato crops in Ireland to fail , year after year . Without potatoes to eat , the people went hungry .