Re: OT;St.Patty

Posted by Brian in NY on March 18, 2005 at 05:58:10 from (24.97.74.126):

In Reply to: Re: OT;St.Patty posted by rustyj14 on March 17, 2005 at 16:10:54:

If you do some in depth research into the Irish Potato famine which started in 1845 and lasted through at least 1851...there was another big factor on top of the blight, which was a huge problem of course. The blight was actually a fungus that was very aggessive and pervasive.

The thing that most people don't know about/factor in is that in the years of the famine, there was a bumper crop of good potatoes as well. The problem is that increasing monetary demands by English landowers (English lords owned many of the farms in Ireland, and many of the Irish were by definition indentured servants) did not allow the Irish any leway, and thus the only crop they had to fall back on for substinance was that which was decimated by the fungus. The landowners, backed by English rule, would not back off of their demands...as they were interested in lining their pockets of course.
With no good food source to fall back on, many Irish were forced to try to utilize the rotten potatoes in any way they could. They consumed the rotted spuds and ended up with a variety of diseases including Typhus.
Of course the folks that died were so poor and so large in number that no one could afford them a proper burial. This led to even more spread of disease and it all snowballed from there.

Eventually, the English did step up to the plate and make changes...but it was too little too late. Estimates for the death toll range from 750,000 to 1.4 million during those six years.

There is an awful lot more to this story...and it seems there are quite a few versions...
I think if you take it all in a lump, you find the nuggets of truth....like anything else.

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