The great famine was a period of mass starvation and emigration that took place in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. 2/3rds of the Irish population were dependent on the potato. It was a cheap and high yielding crop that produced lots of nutrients for the people who survived off of them but when the crops failed, due to a fungus that spread all over Ireland, the people were left with nothing to eat.
Since millions of native Irish people only had a small section of land to produced potatoes they had no money to buy food which caused over 1million people to emigrate to Canada or to the United States. In the end there were over 1 million people who emigrated and over 1 million people who died from starvation. Some people believe that this was not only a natural disaster but was also a form of passive genocide since the British were not much help during this time of desperation.
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