I'd appreciate it if you could help me
This is a painting depicting bodies being carried by cart in the midst of the famine in Ireland. It is an article from the illustrated London news, a newspaper of the time.The famine occurred around 1845. In 1846, 90% of the potatoes were destroyed and rotted. Many people died, and many had to flee Ireland. For these reasons, the famine is called "potato famine" or "great famine".
In the map below, the green area is Ireland.
Why did the potato crop failure lead to such a large famine? Here are the main causes.
Most of the people grew potatoes because potatoes could be easily cultivated even on thin land. Also, at that time, Ireland was a colonial state of England. If you grew wheat, you had to pay land rent to England, but with potatoes you did not have to pay land rent.
In Ireland, only one variety of potato was widespread, which could be grown in poor soil and with little fertilizer. However, when a disease to which that variety was susceptible spread, the same variety was wiped out.
The Grain Act, which maintained the price of grain, made it almost impossible to send food to Ireland at a reasonable price. Furthermore, the export of grain from Ireland was not regulated, so grain was being lost from Ireland even though many Irish people were suffering from starvation.
As I mentioned earlier, Ireland at that time was in a colonial-like situation in England and was in a weak economic position. In this famine, it seems that more people died of disease due to a combination of malnutrition caused by hunger and epidemics of disease than died of hunger itself. During the famine, large numbers of immigrants (refugees) left Ireland for new lands such as England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. It is estimated that as many as 1.5 million people left Ireland during the famine. These famines, deaths from disease, and emigration led to a dramatic decline in Ireland's population.
Finally, here are some of the famine memorials.
Monument to the victims of the famine, Liverpool, England.
Famine memorial. It shows emaciated people walking with a limp due to lack of food. (Dublin, Ireland)
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