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THE GREAT FAMINE

The potato fungal disease Phytophthora infestaris first struck in Ireland in 1845. There had already been warnings that there was an over-dependence on potatoes but it was when the blight returned in 1846 that the full horror of the Great Famine began to unfold. The disease did not appear in 1847, although by this stage there was a lack of seed potatoes and the crop was low. The blight then returned in 1848 and 1849, and had run its course by 1850. Contemporary political ideas put faith in markets to deal with shortages and private charities and landlords to deal with the immediate crisis. It was not until 1847 that the British government changed tack and began actively feeding the population – but by then Ireland was already the scene of harrowing starvation and disease was rampant. Estimates of the total number of deaths vary, but they amounted to at least a million. Some of the accounts recorded at the Skibbereen Heritage Centre (Route 6, Stage 4) are truly shocking, but it is in the silence of the Abbeystrowry famine graveyard, where 8000–10,000 unidentified people are buried, that the true scale of the tragedy can start to be comprehended.