USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Between 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 million adults and children left Ireland to seek refuge in America. Most were desperately poor, and many were suffering from starvation and disease. They left because disease had devastated Ireland’s potato crops, leaving millions without food.

Detailed explanation-2: -It is estimated that the Famine caused about 1 million deaths between 1845 and 1851 either from starvation or hunger-related disease. A further 1 million Irish people emigrated. This meant that Ireland lost a quarter of its population during those terrible years.

Detailed explanation-3: -In the period over the famine decade 1841-1850, 1.3 million people emigrated overseas [1]. Of these, 70% went to the USA, 28% to Canada and 2% to Australia. Most people paid their own fares to make the trip, although perhaps 3% had their fares paid by their Landlords [6].

Detailed explanation-4: -Ireland’s peasants were dependent on potatoes, and it was a major part of their diet. People were so dependent on potatoes that hundreds of thousands died of starvation in the mid-1840s when disease destroyed the potato crop. This tragedy is known as the Great Famine or the Irish Potato Famine.

Detailed explanation-5: -Population and Expenditures Thus, close to 3 million people were lost to the Great Hunger: more than 1 million to death by starvation and related diseases, and more than 2 million to emigration, which continued at high rates through 1921. By then, 4.5 million people had left Ireland.