The Potato Blight
-1845 to 1851 was the Great Famine
-The blight took over Irish farms, its scientific name is phytopthora infestans although natives called it cholera. (emancipation).
-Three million people of Irelands eight million total population ate the spud at every meal (emancipation).
-The widespread malnutrition lead to the oubreak of many deadly diseases such as typhus and relapsing fever.
-"An Irishman in Connemara [western Ireland region] will soon be as rare as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan" was a quote from The Times of London, an English newspaper, commenting on the dying Irish people (Coffey 12).
-The potato blight was responsible for somewhere around 21,770 total deaths, though it remains uncertain what the specific number is (emancipation).