WORLD 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: -The main cause was a disease which affected the potato crop, upon which a third of Ireland’s population was dependent for food. There had been crop failures before but during the famine it failed across the whole country, and reoccurred over several years.

Detailed explanation-3: -The proximate cause of the famine was a potato blight that infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, causing an additional 100, 000 deaths outside Ireland and influencing much of the unrest in the widespread European Revolutions of 1848.

Detailed explanation-4: -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-5: -The Great Famine was a disaster that hit Ireland between 1845 and about 1851, causing the deaths of about 1 million people and the flight or emigration of up to 2.5 million more over the course of about six years.