In 1845 about a third of the population of Ireland was solely reliant on the potato, so when the crops were hit by an infestation of potato blight it all went pretty badly balls up. The ‘late blight’ as it was called, literally turned the spuds to mush. Between 1845 and 1849 there were 1,000,000 deaths and around another 1,000,000 people forced to leave the country and live elsewhere. So around a quarter of the population of Ireland either died or left.
Are the English really to blame though? After all, we didn’t send over the blight did we? Well, no, but this is the clincher: there was actually plenty of food to go around being produced in Ireland whilst the famine was ongoing. Corn and other products including peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue and seed that Irish workers had produced were being shipped to England and Scotland at the rate of thirty to fifty ship loads every single day.
Despite many cries for help, the British government seemingly couldn’t have cared less. Humans just across the pond were dying of starvation and we let it be so. The only thing that the British seemed to do was send over some inedible corn and take the tax off of bread. Neither did much to help. Everyone could have been saved, but we left them to rot alongside their potatoes. Modern historians now refer to the potato famine as a direct or indirect genocide!
Well, I hope I made the potato seem at least a little bit more interesting than it seemed before? If not: soz. If you have any great spud facts of your own or another topic to challenge me with, please get in touch. And remember folks – nothing is boring.
☛ Read Next: 7 Of The Most Dangerous Foods On Earth
