The Irish Famine
The Irish Famine was a calamitous scarcity of food that overtook Ireland in 1846. The population of Ireland at the beginning of the year was about 8,000,000. The rural population was dependent largely upon the potato crop for food. Sodden weather brought a blight upon the potato fields in the autumn of 1845 and again in 1846. An appeal for help in food for starving Ireland went out and all Christendom responded. Ship after ship was dispatched from the American shores. Parliament voted sum after sum, but such were the delays of transportation and of distribution in those days that 2,000,000 men, women, and children died before food could reach them. Many thousands, especially the young and vigorous, tramped to seaports and got away. A million emigrants left Ireland for New York during the next four years—the beginning of the great Irish immigration to America.
