Great Famine

The Great Famine (an Gorta Mór, ənˠ ˈɡɔɾˠtˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ, the Great Hunger; an Drochshaol, ənˠ ˈdˠɾɔxˌhiːlˠ, the Bad Life) was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852 during which the island's population dropped by 20 to 25 percent. Approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight. Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland – where a third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food – was exacerbated by a host of political, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate.