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The Irish Potato Famine
In Ireland, in the late 1840s an incredible famine, known as An Gorta Mor, The Great
Hunger, or the Irish Potato Famine killed more than one million people, and forced
millions more to emigrate. The scale of suffering was unimaginable, with some British
authorities setting out to maximise the impact of the famine.
Food continued to
be exported, stock was fed before people and starving families were evicted forcibly,
ensuring the hatred of the Irish for the British across countries and generations.
Over the decade 1841-1851 the Irish population fell by 20%. One and a half million
emigrated, while famine mortality, mostly diseases such as typhus, relapsing fever
and dropsy, together with an outbreak of cholera, accounted for a further 800,000.
The country struggled to recover.
As late as the 1860s there were over half a million
mud cabins in Ireland. About 90,000 of them had only one room occupied by an average
of eleven people plus whatever animals they possessed.
Close on five and a half
million people emigrated from Ireland between 1848 and 1914.
This website is designed to foster an interest in the Kelly women's stories and
to explore both historic and contemporary understandings of their lives and the
significant roles they played in the life of Ned Kelly.
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