How Many People Died In The ‘Potato Famine’ Of Ireland?

It is estimated that between 500,000 and more than one million people died in Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine, also known as the Great Famine or the Great Hunger. The Irish Potato Famine began in 1845 and went on for four years.

The famine broke out as a result of the blight, which was a deadly potato fungus that wiped out a majority of the potato crop, which supplied the Irish with their staple food. The after-effects of the Irish Potato Famine lasted until 1851, and even spread to countries where the Irish migrated, such as Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. The movement of people of Irish origin to these countries, where they have a large presence even today, is known as the Irish Diaspora. Irish Potato Famine is apparently attributed, to a very large extent, to the presence of two million refugees, who moved in to Ireland and caused large-scale inflexibilities in the Irish diet, which mainly comprised of a single crop, namely the potato.

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The collective number of people who died in the Potato Famine is not really known.

The growth in the population after 1810 lead to large families little able to support themselves on very limited resources with very small plots of land on which to cultivate any crop.

The Famine was also known as An Gorta Mor or the Great Hunger. Ireland has many Famine Grave Yards and these are a sad reminder of the thousands of nameless people who died and are buried there.

The pototo failure was caused by a blight which began in America and was brought in to Ireland, Britain and Europe by boat. Many areas of Europe were affected but tnot on the scale of Ireland which suffered most. The population declined dratically and the west was worst hit. Many areas did manage to escape the ravages of the blight but nearly all were affected.
Over1i million souls had to leave Ireland for Britain or Canada, America and Australia.

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