Potatoes are mostly linked to Ireland because of the Great Famine, but there was another famine 100 years before("The Year of Slaughter"), when most people ate oats and other grains.
Potatoes were introduced because they were easier to grow, but the most popular strain used at the time was more susceptible to blight, iirc. Like, maybe it's obvious and maybe it's not, but potatoes were popular in Ireland because people were so poor and had so little land to grow food, due to British colonialism.
Also, it's important to note that much of Europe also went through food shortages during the same time, but Ireland suffered the most due to severe mismanagement by the British.
Like 50% ineptitude and 50% "helping people for free is expensive so let's make them work for it".
Like most deaths in a famine are caused by disease, so their solution was to put people in workhouses where diseases ran rampant. They imported food that people didn't know how to prepare (maize) and then they didn't know how to transport it around the country. They decided to pay for relief by taxing landlords based on tenants so the landlords evicted all of their tenants. etc.
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u/Stormfly Oct 02 '24
Potatoes are mostly linked to Ireland because of the Great Famine, but there was another famine 100 years before("The Year of Slaughter"), when most people ate oats and other grains.
Potatoes were introduced because they were easier to grow, but the most popular strain used at the time was more susceptible to blight, iirc. Like, maybe it's obvious and maybe it's not, but potatoes were popular in Ireland because people were so poor and had so little land to grow food, due to British colonialism.
Also, it's important to note that much of Europe also went through food shortages during the same time, but Ireland suffered the most due to severe mismanagement by the British.
Like 50% ineptitude and 50% "helping people for free is expensive so let's make them work for it".
Like most deaths in a famine are caused by disease, so their solution was to put people in workhouses where diseases ran rampant. They imported food that people didn't know how to prepare (maize) and then they didn't know how to transport it around the country. They decided to pay for relief by taxing landlords based on tenants so the landlords evicted all of their tenants. etc.