History UsefulNotes / IrishPotatoFamine

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]]. At the beginning of the blight, the British Prime Minister, [[UsefulNotes/RobertPeel Sir Robert Peel]], tried a somewhat more generous approach by distributing American cornmeal, a crop with little presence in Britain and thus would not threaten the bottom line of grain merchants. Despite the many logistical issues with cornmeal[[note]]the lack of mills that could grind the corn, poor weather conditions, bad roads, and the fact that cornmeal was less nutritious than potatoes[[/note]] the approach seemed to work in keeping people just above starvation. Unfortunately, Robert Peel also used the crisis to push for repealing the Corn Laws (a series of protectionist measures designed to keep foreign grain off the market to protect the interests of local landholders) in a bizarre and hypocritical contradiction of the laissez-faire philosophy of the British government. Despite his fellow Tories supporting protectionism, Peel felt importing foreign grain would lower the price of food and deter rebellion among Britain's working poor. This did work... for the British public, but not only did repealing the tariffs not help the Irish, but it led to Peel being deposed as Prime Minister. His replacement, the Whig [[UsefulNotes/EarlRussell Lord John Russell]], was considerably more supportive of laissez-faire economics and rolled back much of Peel's relief program just as it gathered steam, setting the stage for Black '47.

By the time harvests finally recovered in 1849 with the introduction of strains of potato that were immune to the Blight, [[DepopulationBomb Ireland was three million souls short]]. About 1.5 million had died of disease and exposure (the winter of 1846 was particularly harsh) and the other half emigrated, largely to East Britain, as well as the United States and the rest of the Commonwealth, a pattern that would lessen after six decades or so but never completely dry up. Steady emigration and the largely agricultural (and thus poor) nature of the country – bar the semi-industrial northeast – meant that Ireland never exceeded its 1845 population-high of about 8 million, and the population would continue to decline steadily until ''1962'', over one hundred years later. The population of the entire island currently stands at 6.9 million -- the censuses of 2021 (in the North) and '22 (in the Republic) revealed that Ireland had finally once again reached the post-Famine population recorded in 1851.[[note]]Just to put it in perspective, the now 10-million-strong Portugal was just under 4 million in the 1840s. Had the potato famine never occurred, it's entirely possible that Ireland today would have even hit the 15 million mark, making it one of Europe's major countries.[[/note]]

However, Ireland was even worse off, on the outskirts of Europe with poor soil, a poor climate[[note]]Ireland's position between Britain and the Atlantic Ocean means that oceanic winds and rain tend to hit Ireland harder while Britain gets (comparatively) shielded[[/note]], and none of the coal or tin of the rest of the British Isles: half the island's 1845 population of eight million were farmers who worked land owned by someone else while still having to pay rent and tithes. Tithes were 10% of a farmer's produce value, paid to the (Protestant) Church of Ireland every year, regardless of religious affiliation. On paper, it sounds decent enough... but privately-owned enclosures and the Penal Laws (imposed on Irish Catholics after the Williamite Wars) forcing the Irish to divide all their land between their sons resulted in ever-smaller plots of land being cultivated with increasing intensity, exhausting the soil without allowing it respite. Worse still, agricultural science was still in its infancy and tenant-farmers in particular became increasingly reliant on just a handful of varieties of potato-crop to make their living. This was okay for a while – a one-acre plot of potatoes could, if worked properly, feed a family of four for the year when supplemented with some dairy (usually in the form of cheese) and a smattering of vegetables (typically cabbage, which grows well in Ireland and is ludicrously nutrient-dense).

The primary cause was a disease which killed certain types of potatoes – the "Potato Blight". The limited number of potato breeds in use meant that the entire crop in several counties was 100% susceptible to the disease. "Science" was a bit of a joke at the time – it only really took off 30-50 years later – but we now know it was a fungus-like "oomycete"[[note]]Oomycetes (historically called "water molds") are a strange group of microorganisms which are oddly fungus-like but not terribly closely related to fungi; fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to these things, and oomycetes are for their part most closely related to brown algae like rockweeds.[[/note]]. This particular strain was almost certainly ''Phytophthora infestans'' (aka "Late Blight"), which probably came from tainted American imports (which also suffered from the blight two years prior). The disease rocked all of Europe's potato crop (Belgium lost nearly its entire harvest), but most of the other countries could fall back on other staples, particularly grain. Ireland, however, was almost entirely reliant on potatoes.[[note]]Irony of ironies, though, cereals crop failures struck Europe soon after the potato blight hit. This, plus an economic depression caused by the crop failures, is why the 1840s are often called "the Hungry Forties" in European historiography--and why the UsefulNotes/RevolutionsOf1848 happened when they did.[[/note]]

Even to this day, there is debate as to whether or not this was simple callousness of the aristocracy or outright genocide. Those who call it the former point to Britain and other nations responding in similar ways to famines in other parts of The Empire. Others point to the above-mentioned racial and religious tensions between the ruling Protestant Ascendancy and the majority of Irish Catholics; the fact that allegedly Britain prevented foreign nations from giving aid[[note]]According to one account, Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Sultan, wanted to make a large donation of 10,000 pounds, but the British government forced him to lower his donation so as to not upstage UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria[[/note]] ; the fact that Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the [[TheFamine famine]]; the long-standing laws that made Catholics (and members of the other non-established church's in Ireland) disadvantaged before emancipation in 1830; the fact that someone like Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and as such the British administrator chiefly responsible for famine relief, said things such as "The greatest evil we have to face is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people", and the Malthusian belief current at the time that Ireland was poor due to overpopulation and that as a result reducing the Irish population was the solution. [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Whether or not it is a genocide depends on who you ask]]. It is notable that the Irish Free State had its own famine in Connemara in 1925 and the government's reaction was little different to that in the 1840s.

The only bright spot to arise from this is that the famine left an indelible mark on the Irish, as they consistently rank among the most generous nations when giving food aid to other nation-states. During the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, [[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/coronavirus-ireland-native-american-tribes.html the country made international news]] when roughly $2M in aid was donated to the Najavo and Hopi peoples, in recognition of the fact that in 1847, the Choctaw people donated $170 to Irish famine relief.

Humans can live on six regular-sized potatoes and a glass of milk (or a bit of cheese) a day (a handful of vegetables can make up the mineral balance). However, in 1845 more than 90% of the world population was illiterate, dirt-poor, lived in the countryside and worked the land – business as usual for humanity through most of its history, in other words. This only really began to change in the very last decades of the 19th century, when people in Britain and northwestern Europe became increasingly semi-literate and worked in towns and cities (but still remained dirt-poor). In the British Isles, natal mortality (~15%, both for mother and child) and child mortality (~50% before age 10) were also bog-standard.[[note]]The natal mortality rate didn't stay below 1% until after the National Health Service was founded in 1946, largely as a response to the devastation of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, aided by the proliferation of commercially-available antibiotics such as Sulfa drugs in the late 1930s and mould-based Penicillin V in the mid-1950s.[[/note]]

Even to this day, there is debate as to whether or not this was simple callousness of the aristocracy or outright genocide. Those who call it the former point to Britain and other nations responding in similar ways to famines in other parts of The Empire. Others point to the above-mentioned racial and religious tensions between the ruling Protestant Ascendancy and the majority of Irish Catholics; the fact that allegedly Britain prevented foreign nations from giving aid[[note]]According to one account, Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Sultan, wanted to make a large donation of 10,000 pounds, but the British government forced him to lower his donation so as to not upstage UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria[[/note]] ; the fact that Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the [[TheFamine famine]]; the long-standing laws that made Catholics (and members of the other non-established church's in Ireland) disadvantaged before emancipation in 1830; the fact that someone like Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and as such the British administrator chiefly responsible for famine relief, said things such as "The greatest evil we have to face is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people", and the Malthusian belief current at the time that Ireland was poor due to overpopulation and that as a result reducing the Irish population was the solution. [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Whether or not it is a genocide depends on who you ask]]. It is notable that the Irish Free State had its' own famine in Connemara in 1925 and the government's reaction was little different to that in the 1840s.

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]]. At the beginning of the blight, the British Prime Minister, [[UsefulNotes/RobertPeel Sir Robert Peel]], tried a somewhat more generous approach by distributing American cornmeal, a crop with little presence in Britain and thus would not threaten the bottom line of grain merchants. Despite the many logistical issues with cornmeal[[note]]the lack of mills that could grind the corn, poor weather conditions, bad roads, and the fact that cornmeal was less nutritious than potatoes[[/note]] the approach seemed to work in keeping people just above starvation. Unfortunately, Robert Peel also used the crisis to push for repealing the Corn Laws, a series of protectionist measures designed to keep foreign grain off the market to protect the interests of local landholders [[Hypocrite in a bizarre contradiction of the laissez-faire philosophy of the British government]]. Despite his fellow Tories supporting protectionism, Peel felt importing foreign grain would lower the price of food and deter rebellion among Britain's working poor. This did work... for the British public, but not only did repealing the tariffs not help the Irish, but it led to Peel being deposed as Prime Minister. His replacement, the Whig [[UsefulNotes/EarlRussell Lord John Russell]], was considerably more supportive of laissez-faire economics and rolled back much of Peel's relief program just as it gathered steam, setting the stage for Black '47.

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]]. At the beginning of the blight, the British Prime Minister, [[UsefulNotes/RobertPeel Sir Robert Peel]], tried a somewhat more generous approach by distributing American cornmeal, a crop with little presence in Britain and thus would not threaten the bottom line of grain merchants. Despite the many logistical issues with cornmeal[[note]]the lack of mills that could grind the corn, poor weather conditions, bad roads, and the fact that cornmeal was less nutritious than potatoes[[/note]] the approach seemed to work in keeping people just above starvation. Unfortunately, Robert Peel also used the crisis to push for repealing the Corn Laws, a series of protectionist measures designed to keep foreign grain off the market to protect the interests of local landholders [[StrawHypocrite in a bizarre contradiction of the laissez-faire philosophy of the British government]]. Despite his fellow Tories supporting protectionism, Peel felt importing foreign grain would lower the price of food and deter rebellion among Britain's working poor. This did work... for the British public, but not only did repealing the tariffs not help the Irish, but it led to Peel being deposed as Prime Minister. His replacement, the Whig [[UsefulNotes/EarlRussell Lord John Russell]], was considerably more supportive of laissez-faire economics and rolled back much of Peel's relief program just as it gathered steam, setting the stage for Black '47.

Humans can live on six regular-sized potatoes and a glass of milk (or a bit of cheese) a day (a handful of vegetables can make up the mineral balance). However, in 1845 more than 90% of the world population was illiterate, dirt-poor, lived in the countryside and worked the land – business as usual for humanity through most of its history, in other words. This only really began to change in the very last decades of the 19th century, when people in Britain and northwestern Europe became increasingly semi-literate and worked in towns and cities, but remained dirt-poor. In the British Isles, natal mortality (~15%, both for mother and child) and child mortality (~50% before age 10) were also bog-standard.[[note]]The former rate didn't stay below 1% until after the National Health Service was founded in 1946, largely as a response to the devastation of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, aided by the proliferation of commercially-available antibiotics such as Sulfa drugs in the late 1930s and mould-based Penicillin V in the mid-1950s.[[/note]]

However, Ireland was even worse off, on the outskirts of Europe with a poor soil and climate and none of the coal or tin of the rest of the British Isles: half the island's 1845 population of eight million were farmers who worked land owned by someone else, and had to pay rent and tithes. The latter was 10% of a farmer's produce value, paid to the (Protestant) Church of Ireland every year, regardless of religious affiliation. On paper, it sounds decent enough... but privately-owned enclosures and the Penal Laws (imposed on Irish Catholics after the Williamite Wars) forcing the Irish to divide all their land between their sons resulted in ever-smaller plots of land being cultivated with increasing intensity, exhausting the soil without allowing it respite. Worse still, agricultural science was still in its infancy and tenant-farmers in particular became increasingly reliant on just a handful of varieties of potato-crop to make their living. This was okay for a while – a one-acre plot of potatoes could, if worked properly, feed a family of four for the year when supplemented with some dairy (usually in the form of cheese) and a smattering of vegetables (typically cabbage, which grows well in Ireland and is ludicrously nutrient-dense).

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]]. At the beginning of the blight, the British Prime Minister, [[UsefulNotes/RobertPeel Sir Robert Peel]], tried a somewhat more generous approach by distributing American cornmeal, a crop with little presence in Britain and thus would not threaten the bottom line of grain merchants. Despite the many logistical issues with cornmeal[[note]]the lack of mills that could grind the corn, poor weather conditions, bad roads, and the fact that cornmeal was less nutritious than potatoes[[/note]] the approach seemed to work in keeping people just above starvation. Unfortunately, Robert Peel also used the crisis to push for repealing the Corn Laws, a series of protectionist measures designed to keep foreign grain off the market to protect the interests of local landholders [[StrawHypocrite in a bizarre contradiction of the laissez-faire philosophy of the British government]]. Despite his fellow Tories supporting protectionism, Peel felt importing foreign grain would lower the price of food and deter rebellion among Britain's working poor. This did work...for the British public, but not only did repealing the tariffs not help the Irish, but it led to Peel being deposed as Prime Minister. His replacement, the Whig [[UsefulNotes/EarlRussell Lord John Russell]], was considerably more supportive of laissez-faire economics and rolled back much of Peel's relief program just as it gathered steam, setting the stage for Black '47.

However, Ireland was even worse off: half the island's 1845 population of eight million were farmers who worked land owned by someone else, and had to pay rent and tithes. The latter was 10% of a farmer's produce value, paid to the (Protestant) Church of Ireland every year, regardless of religious affiliation. On paper, it sounds decent enough... but privately-owned enclosures and the Penal Laws (imposed on Irish Catholics after the Williamite Wars) forcing the Irish to divide all their land between their sons resulted in ever-smaller plots of land being cultivated with increasing intensity, exhausting the soil without allowing it respite. Worse still, agricultural science was still in its infancy and tenant-farmers in particular became increasingly reliant on just a handful of varieties of potato-crop to make their living. This was okay for a while – a one-acre plot of potatoes could, if worked properly, feed a family of four for the year when supplemented with some dairy (usually in the form of cheese) and a smattering of vegetables (typically cabbage, which grows well in Ireland and is ludicrously nutrient-dense).

Even to this day, there is debate as to whether or not this was simple callousness of the aristocracy or outright genocide. Those who call it the former point to Britain and other nations responding in similar ways to famines in other parts of The Empire. Others point to the above-mentioned racial and religious tensions between the ruling Protestant Ascendancy and the majority of Irish Catholics; the fact that Britain prevented foreign nations from giving aid[[note]]According to one account, Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Sultan, wanted to make a large donation of 10,000 pounds, but the British government forced him to lower his donation so as to not upstage UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria[[/note]] ; the fact that Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the [[TheFamine famine]]; the long-standing laws that made Catholics in Ireland second-class citizens; the fact that someone like Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and as such the British administrator chiefly responsible for famine relief, said things such as "The greatest evil we have to face is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people", and the Malthusian belief current at the time that Ireland was poor due to overpopulation and that as a result reducing the Irish population was the solution. [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Whether or not it is a genocide depends on who you ask]].

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]]. At the beginning of the blight, the British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, tried a somewhat more generous approach by distributing American cornmeal, a crop with little presence in Britain and thus would not threaten the bottom line of grain merchants. Despite the many logistical issues with cornmeal[[note]]the lack of mills that could grind the corn, poor weather conditions, bad roads, and the fact that cornmeal was less nutritious than potatoes[[/note]] the approach seemed to work in keeping people just above starvation. Unfortunately, Robert Peel also used the crisis to push for repealing the Corn Laws, a series of protectionist measures designed to keep foreign grain off the market to protect the interests of local landholders [[StrawHypocrite in a bizarre contradiction of the laissez-faire philosophy of the British government]]. Despite his fellow Tories supporting protectionism, Peel felt importing foreign grain would lower the price of food and deter rebellion among Britain's working poor. This did work...for the British public, but not only did repealing the tariffs not help the Irish, but it led to Peel being deposed as Prime Minister. His replacement, the Whig Lord John Russell, was considerably more supportive of laissez-faire economics and rolled back much of Peel's relief program just as it gathered steam, setting the stage for Black '47.

By the time harvests finally recovered in 1849 with the introduction of strains of potato that were immune to the Blight, Ireland was three million souls short. About 1.5 million had died of disease and exposure (the winter of 1846 was particularly harsh) and the other half emigrated, largely to East Britain, as well as the United States and the rest of the Commonwealth, a pattern that would lessen after six decades or so but never completely dry up. Steady emigration and the largely agricultural (and thus poor) nature of the country – bar the semi-industrial northeast – meant that Ireland never exceeded its 1845 population-high of about 8 million, and the population would continue to decline steadily until ''1962'', over one hundred years later. The population of the entire island currently stands at 6.9 million -- the censuses of 2021 (in the North) and '22 (in the Republic) revealed that Ireland had finally once again reached the post-Famine population recorded in 1851.[[note]]Just to put it in perspective, the now 10-million-strong Portugal was just under 4 million in the 1840s. Had the potato famine never occurred, it's entirely possible that Ireland today would have even hit the 15 million mark, making it one of Europe's major countries.[[/note]]

Even to this day, there is debate as to whether or not this was simple callousness of the aristocracy or outright genocide. Those who call it the former point to Britian and other nations responding in similar ways to famines in other parts of The Empire. Others point to the above-mentioned racial and religious tensions between the ruling Protestant Ascendancy and the majority of Irish Catholics; the fact that Britain prevented foreign nations from giving aid[[note]]According to one account, Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Sultan, wanted to make a large donation of 10,000 pounds, but the British government forced him to lower his donation so as to not upstage Queen Victoria[[/note]] ; the fact that Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the [[TheFamine famine]]; the long-standing laws that made Catholics in Ireland second-class citizens; the fact that someone like Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and as such the British administrator chiefly responsible for famine relief, said things such as "The greatest evil we have to face is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people", and the Malthusian belief current at the time that Ireland was poor due to overpopulation and that as a result reducing the Irish population was the solution. [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Whether or not it is a genocide depends on who you ask]].

See also UsefulNotes/RedOctober (~8 million dead), [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors The Chinese Civil War]] (~10 million) and UsefulNotes/TheHolodomor (~2.4 million to 12 million dead) for some big helpings of Grand Famine and UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo for a delectable platter of smaller famines – chiefly the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Yellow River]], Bengal, Henan, and Gulf Of Tonkin famines (~2 million each) but also the barely-averted Soviet, Italian, Dutch, German, and Japanese famines.

Now, however, Westminster [[SarcasmMode knew better than to just give citizens free food in an emergency]] and instead set up public works projects to reward already weakened farmers for hard labour. Not only did this increase calorie consumption at a time when they needed to conserve energy, thus effectively making them starve faster, but the primitive state of economics meant that [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts no one even considered that perhaps the critical shortage of food meant that prices would increase]], meaning that the already low wages the jobs offered were totally insufficient to actually keep the people working them fed and alive. This [[HonorBeforeReason jaw-dropping lack of foresight and insistence on adhering to the Free Market]] [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishQuestion remains a sticking point to this day]].

Even to this day, there is debate as to whether or not this was simple callousness of the aristocracy or outright genocide. Those who call it the former point to Britian and other nations responding in similar ways to famines in other parts of The Empire. Others point to the above-mentioned racial and religious tensions between the ruling Protestant Ascendancy and the majority of Irish Catholics; the fact that Britain prevented foreign nations from giving aid; the fact that Ireland remained a net exporter of food during the [[TheFamine famine]]; the long-standing laws that made Catholics in Ireland second-class citizens; the fact that someone like Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and as such the British administrator chiefly responsible for famine relief, said things such as "The greatest evil we have to face is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people", and the Malthusian belief current at the time that Ireland was poor due to overpopulation and that as a result reducing the Irish population was the solution. [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide Whether or not it is a genocide depends on who you ask]].

See also UsefulNotes/RedOctober (~8 million dead), [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors The Chinese Civil War]] (~10 million) and the Holodomor (~2.4 million to 12 million dead) for some big helpings of Grand Famine and UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo for a delectable platter of smaller famines – chiefly the [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar Yellow River]], Bengal, Henan, and Gulf Of Tonkin famines (~2 million each) but also the barely-averted Soviet, Italian, Dutch, German, and Japanese famines.

The only bright spot to arise from this is that the famine left an indelible mark on the Irish, as they consistently rank among the most generous nations when giving food aid to other nation-states. During the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, [[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/world/coronavirus-ireland-native-american-tribes.html the country made international news]] when roughly $2m in aid was donated to the Najavo and Hopi peoples, in recognition of the fact that in 1847, the Choctaw people donated $170 dollars to Irish famine relief.