Irish famine
Great Hunger era
The Irish famine, also called the Great Famine, was the catastrophic failure of Ireland's potato crop from 1845 to 1852, caused by blight.
Roughly a million people died of starvation and disease, and another million emigrated.
The famine permanently reshaped Irish demographics and remains central to Irish historical memory and identity.
British policies during the crisis—continued food exports, inadequate relief—fuel lasting resentment.
- Jonathan SwiftDublin's savage satirist
- demographic shiftsChanges in population composition
- laissez-faire economicsMinimal state economic involvement
- workhousesLabor-based relief institutions
- Irish balladsTraditional songs from Dublin's land
subsistence agriculture · Irish diaspora · soup kitchens · public works · British colonialism · tenant farmers · coffin ships · oral histories · absentee landlords · relief efforts · potato blight · Irish nationalism · immigrant enclaves · economic exploitation · proposal · crop failure · irony · exodus
- 1800sVictorian era, Napoleon, Gilded Age, Queen Victoria, Industrial Revolution
- Irish-AmericanIrish-American, Irish American, Irish heritage, Irish diaspora, Irish immigrants
- Celtic DiasporaIrish diaspora, Irish Americans, Celtic heritage, Irish ancestry, Irish immigrants
- atrocitiesHolocaust, genocide, massacre, massacres, ethnic cleansing
- immigrationimmigrant, immigrants, visa, refugee, citizenship
- migrationmigration, immigrants, refugees, immigration, emigration
Irish famineabundance
Ample supply, overflowing
plenty · feast · glut · cornucopia · food security
Irish faminegolden age
Period of peak prosperity
prosperity · population boom · Golden Age · economic miracle · Irish independence