The Great Ireland Potato Famine Effects Essay -- Essays Papers

The Great Ireland Potato Famine Effects The Great Ireland Potato Famine was a horrible event that had many lasting effects. Some of these effects were starvation, disease, poverty, emigration, and lost traits. These effects plagued mostly western Ireland, but had an overall effect on all of Ireland. Many of the traditional ways of economics and society changed drastically because of the famine. Many people also blamed the British for letting the famine get so bad. These effects will be discussed throughout the paper. Starvation was one of the main effects of the Great Potato Famine, which was â€Å"unlike other subsistence crises† (Crawford, 114). The Irish people were very dependant on potatoes as a source of food. â€Å"The majority of the Irish peasants did not have access to the type of land or amount of land required for wheat (grain) production, and thus the potato became the crucial staple crop† (Braa 200). When the blight struck, the Irish people lost this source of food and had nothing else to turn to. For this reason, the people starved to death. Some people were so hungry that â€Å"they ate dogs and rats, often dogs and rats that had already eaten human corpses† (Leo, 16). The Irish people had no other knowledge of farming other crops because they had become so use to growing potatoes. They also did not have the stomach to eat different foods, like seafood, which resulted in a poor nutrition that led to many more deaths not from starvation, but from diseases. Diseases played a big part in the fatalities of the Irish people. Some of these diseases were â€Å"typhus and relapsing fevers, small pox, tuberculosis, dysentery, marasmus (starvation) and other famine disorders† (Crawford 135). These diseases did not just occu... ...ttle between the Irish and the British. The Irish people were ready to get out of their slavery from the British, and were ready to start a new life. They blamed the British, so they went after them. Soon enough, the Irish would get want they have been long wanting for. Works Cited Abbot, Patrick. Ireland’s Great Famine 1845-1849. Apr. 2000. 16 Jan. 2004 . Braa, Dean M. â€Å"The Great Potato Famine and the Transformation of Irish Peasant Society.† Science & Society 61.2 (1997) : 193-215. Crawford, E. Margaret. Famine: The Irish Experience. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers LTD, 1989. Daly, Douglas C. â€Å"Famine's ghost.† Natural History 105.1 (1996) : 6 Kinealy, Christine. The Great Irish Famine. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2002. Leo, John. â€Å"Of Famine and Green Beer.† U.S. News & World Report 122.11 (1997) : 16