What are 10 essential facts about the Irish Famine in Ireland between 1845 - 1849???

Question

What are 10 essential facts about the Irish Famine in Ireland between 1845 - 1849???

Answer 1

The Irish Potato Holocaust (aka famine) came about because of two factors: a natural plant disease, and British atrocities which took advantage of that disease. Facts related to the holocaust:

1) due to legalized plundering by the English government, Irish families who had owned landholdings for generations were instantly turned into slaves to the non-residential English landlords; this meant that although the Irish natives worked the land, the English took possession of everything existing and grown on the land.

2) Because of this situation, Irish farmers were forced to turn over everything they grew or raised on their own families' land to their English masters, except for small plots of potatoes, which were uniquely designed for the rocky, tiny farms granted for the tenants' food.

3) when the disease destroyed over 90 per cent of the potato crop in Ireland and throughout most of Europe, the Irish peasants were without any food to eat.

4) They were also forced to pay high rents to their masters and to pay tithes to the English church (of which they were not members, and which gave them no service or help). These rents and tithes were to be paid from sales of the potato crop, leaving even less for them to eat.

5) With no potato crops, the English land barons quickly confiscated the Irish families' homes, pulling them down and destroying them so the families could not find shelter there from harsh weather conditions.

6) Although Ireland was a rich agricultural land with abundant crops in wheat and oats and lush pastureland where herds of cattle, sheep, and pigs were raised, all these belonged to the English ubermeisters, so the Irish who raised them were forbidden to touch them on penalty of death. English soldiers even posted armed guards around huge caches of crops and herds in villages to prevent the starving, begging inhabitants from "stealing."

7) English newspapers of the day, including the prestigious London Times, printed articles and editorials stating that the reason for the  potato disease in Ireland was God's punishment on the Irish because the majority of them were Catholic, and the English considered them subhuman.

8) When other nations, especially France and the USA, attempted to send shipments of food and clothing as relief to the Irish, British gunboats met them and forced them to detour to England, where the donor organizations were forced to pay to have the goods offloaded to British ports, then pay portage to have the goods reloaded onto English ships to be shipped - after long delays - to Irish ports. In many cases, the delays caused the foodstuffs to rot. In other cases, many of the shipments were "lost" on the English ports.

9) The cumulative effect of the three worst years of the holocaust was reduction of the Irish population (called by English newspapers and politicians the "Irish pestilence") by nearly one-third. Many to starvation and disease, others to emigration as they fled to America and other countries to try to find food.

10) The emigrants who took passage on English ships (called "coffin ships") found themselves packed into airless, filthy cargo holds where as many as 80 percent died in transit.

Extra Point:  England, to this day, despite overwhelming public records, denies that they did wrong. Their defense is that they were subject to economic laws they themselves had passed, and could not figure out how to change to save millions of Irish (worthless) lives.

Answer 2

1. potatoes were the main crop and during the famine they turned black and gross, basically inedible

2. thousands of families emigrated-some to England, mainly to America. the biggest impact of the famine was that the population of Ireland dropped considerably

3. soup kitchens were set up to help feed the many starving families

4. orphaned children were sent to 'workhouses' where they were forced to work-girls would do sewing/knitting etc and boys would do the manual work, they were usually mistreated and many died due to the poor conditions

5. apparently the Irish did have food other than potatoes but because they were under British rule at the time, they had to hand over a certain quota of food every month and there was little left for the Irish.

that's all I can think of-google 'irish famine' for more, hope this helps anyway

Answer 3

Do you have until Monday to finish your homework assignment?