The Irish Potato Famine 1845-1849
1) Irish Potato Famine. 1845-1849. Called the Great Famine.
In the early 19th century, Ireland’s tenant farmers struggled to provide for themselves and to supply the British market with cereal crops. By the early 1840s half the Irish population, mostly the rural poor, became 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. After the famine struck, the population that was heavily dependent on the potatoes for the most part starved. That
In the early 19th century, Ireland’s tenant farmers struggled to provide for themselves and to supply the British market with cereal crops. By the early 1840s half the Irish population, mostly the rural poor, became 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. After the famine struck, the population that was heavily dependent on the potatoes for the most part starved. That