Potato People

Introduction

In the early 1840's a plant disease, known as tthe "potato blight", destroyed the entire Irish potato harvest. The disease was caused by the fungus Phytophora and brought from America. There was mass starvation as the farmers only depended on one crop which they had grown the last 200 years.

There was terrible epidemics like chronic dysentry, cholera and typhoid. Ireland was a poor and mast backward country in Europe. England ruled over Ireland but the British Government did not send help in time. About three million Irish men, women and childrean starved to death as the potatoes rotted in the field.

This terrible period in Irish history is known as "The Great Hunger". Thousands of people tried to flee to America. Some succeeded in building a new life tin the new world. Others remain poor and hardly managed to survive.

Today, the results of the great famine can still be seen. Large parts of the Irish countryside are under populated. The ruins of empty and abandoned villages can still be found. The setting of the "Potato People" is during this terrible famine in Irish history.