What really caused the Irish Potato Famine - Stephanie Honchell Smith 

An interesting happy story that came out of the Irish Potato Famine is the Choctow Nation sent $170 to help the Irish during the famine. There is a great statue that commemorates this in Cork County. In 2020, the Irish returned the favor raising $1.8 million to help the Choctow during COVID. The Irish said that the Choctow 'donated money, then were subjugated to the Trail of Tears by the United States.' This was a comparison to how the English treated the Irish. The Republic of Ireland officially states that the Choctow are allies of their Republic. These are stories that show that even Natives from the USA and white Europeans can help each other through horrible times and even become generational allies.

The term famine is wildly inaccurate to describe what happened in Ireland at the time. There was enough food grown in the country to feed it's entire population but it was all being exported by the English to England. Genocide is a term much closer to being accurate.

Something the blows my mind is that Ireland’s population STILL hasn’t recovered today. There are less people in Ireland now than there were before the famine.

The potato famine is the reason there are roughly 6x as many people who identify as having Irish heritage in the US than the entire population of Ireland.

I wish you had touched on why we were dependent on the potato so much. Because of the British Occupation, we had to subdivided our land and our farms, and because people had larger families back then, very soon, people could only grow crops for their consumption on land the size of an average garden. The potato was the only crop that could be grown in such small crops, we survived before the potatoes introduction because we had control over our land and had enough to grip other more various crops, if the potato didn’t exist, we could have grown any food at all.

3:25 What’s interesting about alcoholism claim is that just a few years before the potato famine, Ireland was the site of a massively successful temperance campaign led by a Catholic priest, Theobald Mathew. So successful was this campaign that between 1838 and 1841, national alcohol consumption was cut in half.

Learning about the potato famine in US elementary schools: "Wow, what a horrible situation to occur" Learning about the potato famine when you are older: "What in the actual world..."

Back in 1944-45, northern Vietnam was struck with a devastating famine that killed two million and it was done by the Japanese and the French, altogether, to exploit our paddy fields. The Irish famine tragedy really struck hard to me, for how eerily similar the British tactics was to that of Japan and France to our unfortunate people.

Gotta love when the solution to a crisis is to tax the people affected by the crisis to "help them"

Key to remember is that Ireland always had food during the famine. As your video pointed out, we produced plenty, but were forced to export it. People protested and begged and tried to rob food storeages at the time. Despite the obvious suffrage of the Irish people, the British Crown ignored improving things for the Irish. Their attitude was of complete indifference. They allowed Irish people to starve, nay encouraged it. This occurred while also anglosising our culture and carrying out a variety of other forms of oppresion. The famine is therefore seen by Irish people as a genocide and rightly so. Whole families were wiped out forever. All of which is far less palatable a reality than merely an agricultural misfortune.

It’s insane to think about how much of a food surplus we have in the West, when many people in lower income countries couldn’t even eat a 6th of the amount that the average person here eats per day.

I didn’t know the part about the exporting… that’s horrible. They had food, but they literally couldn’t eat it because their government said they weren’t important.

During the fammine my people of the Choctaw nation helped the people of Ireland and my father whos irish from Munster met my native American Choctaw mum when he came to visit my cousin is Gary Batton hes the 47th chief of the Choctaw nation 😊

Our planet is abundant in resources. Its human greed and selfishness that so many have to pay the price for.

I feel comfortable fully blaming the British for this historical tragedy.

Hello Ted Ed. Please do the story of the Bengal famine. How the starvation, desperation, and british apathy has scarred the subcontinent cannot be understated .

My maternal great-grandparents immigrated to Canada and then moved down to the US during the potato famine. We have documents and papers that show where they resided at the time (Castlegregory), what ship they were on and when they landed, it's so depressing and fascinating at the same time!

Shoutout to those resilient Irish families and the living ones today!

There's a novel showing how life was back then called 'Under the Hawthorn Tree' if anyone wants to read about it

As someone who has Irish Ancestry, I am great full to the Choctaw tribe for the donation.

I always feel close to ireland in terms of colonial rule and oppression. We had to face same type of famine in Bangla during the british occupation in late 1800. It also stemmed from heavy taxes and jeer.

My family was one that had to flee during the famine. I'll never forget my roots and will forever respect my great-great grandparents for not only surviving the famine but also the death ships and the discrimination

I remember reading "A Modest Proposal" in grade school. My first exposure to satire, but it was centered around the British government's failures. "Angela's Ashes" also alludes to it as well.

Let’s not forget how other countries were reluctant to even provide relief, as to not upstage the British response. For example, Sultan Abdülmedjid pledged £10,000 (over a million today) but upon hearing Queen Victoria sent £2000, he reduced his donation to £1000, out of diplomatic politesse.

Theres also a bigger reason the blight wiped out entire crops, the Irish grew only a few types of potatoes. That’s what the British (navy if i remember) would buy. So that’s what farmers grew. Diversified food or even diversified potato plants would have kept the blight at bay. One bad year became many because the next planting season even more land was dedicated to the crop (that would fail again … and again). Those potato varieties had been good crops so they kept doubling down hoping to dig out of a hole to disastrous consequences. In conversations with an agricultural biochemist i learned that that same blight is still around and still impacts potato crops but farmers who plant a variety of potato types survive it.

I come from an industrial city in the north of the UK, with lots of Irish heritage on all sides of my family tree, including a Cork-ish surname. Absolutely unsurprisingly, you can trace back in various directions, and find someone who came over from Ireland in the late 1840s. It's honestly like 4 different family branches, and that's just me. I'm sure there are millions of similar stories in family trees across the world. Crazy the effect this blight had on history, and the more you learn about it, the more upsetting it gets.

The Ottoman Empire originally tried to send 10,000 pounds sterling in assistance to the Irish people, but the British government forced them to lower this amount to 1,000 (to ensure, apparently, that their aid did not overshadow England’s 2,000 pound contribution). While there is documented evidence of this monetary contribution, there is no set proof of an additional physical contribution: 3 ships of food, bound from the Ottoman Empire to Ireland, supposedly snuck past the blocked ports of Dublin and Belfast and delivered their cargo to the town of Drogheda. In gratitude, the modern Coat of Arms of the town contains a star and crescent symbol on the top.Phytophthora infestans was a disease (originally from Mexico, actually, that travelled to Europe via boat) that devastated crops in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. A million people died of starvation or disease, and two million more immigrated to other countries. Ireland lost ¼ of its entire population.

It is amazing to see a real video about critical points in our history. This is quite relevent to today’s society with many countries facing the same horrifying prospects due to the climate change and war. The detail in this video is incredible and puts my history to the test😂

YOU FORGOT TO MENTION ! One of the unexpected sources of aid in this crisis was the Ottoman Caliphate. How an Ottoman Sultan helped Ireland in the great famine. Ottoman Sultan Abdul Majeed the 1st went out of his way to try to help, so he could ease the suffering of the Irish people. Sultan Abdul Majeed was only 23 years old in 1847, when he personally offered £10,000 in aid to Ireland, but this time he would have to scale back his generosity. British diplomats advised him that it would be offensive for anyone to offer more than Queen Victoria, who had only donated £2,000. It was suggested that he should donate half of that amount so he gave £1,000. The press also blamed the British diplomats in Constantinople for rejecting the initial donation of £10,000 just to avoid embarrassing Queen Victoria. Meanwhile, Sultan Abdul Majeed had found other ways to help. Today, the port town of Drogheda in Ireland includes a crescent and a star, both of which are symbols of Islam, in its coat of arms. Local tradition in the town has it that these symbols were adopted after the Ottoman Empire secretly sent five ships loaded with food to the town in May 1847. The reason for the secrecy is that the British administration had allegedly tried to block the ships from entering Drogheda's harbor. Evidence that backs these claims include newspaper articles from the period and a letter from Irish notables explicitly thanking the sultan for his generosity and help. Facts

As a Taiwanese, I can't imagine what it would be like to eat potato as staple food. Mostly, we process potatoes into bagged chips and French fries, which are welcomed by the young but not by the old. We also use potato as seasonings and side dishes, but we don't eat much. I heard that people in other countries would eat mashed potato. Is that tasty? I'm sure it would bring "special" texture...

This famine is partly why my great grandma was in the USA. The family was on their way when her mother went into labor, giving birth to her. She drank like a fish. Even in her 80s, she was known to sneak out of the house only to be wheelbarrowed home totally smashed, complaining of the shame of being Irish born in London.

The Penal laws basically ensured that Ireland largely became a single crop dependent society. Part of these laws was that land had to be divided amongst the sons of a family. Within three generations, farms were so small they were unsustainable unless they were sold or the potato was grown there. So, the potato was not a choice of the Irish, but a necessity. Coupled with that,after the Famine, Irish agitators worked by various passive and aggressive means to return the control and ownership of the land to the Irish people which a generation later lead to the struggle of Independence and finally the Irish state we have today. So the next time you hear an Irish potato joke, just try to remember that without it, there would be no Ireland

The Irish Potato Genocide

British did the same to India. Bengal famine was artificially created by Churchill. He exported all the grain from Bengal to beef up buffer stock in England , at a time when people were dying on the streets.

I am 50% Irish from the Munster area, and though I have not found the evidence yet of when my father's family came to the U.S., I am reasonably sure that some of my ancestors came to America as a result of the famine. I also believe that the famine and all the discrimination and cruelty led to "The Troubles" that plagued Ireland for years. I am also impressed that the Choctaw Nation sent money to help the Irish and the Irish returned the favor so generously during Covid. Honorable people, the Choctaw's.

I think this video was very informative. I've always heavily been interested in famines, and Ted Ed is always the place to go. It motivates me to write after watching Silvia Plath videos or Victoria Woolf. It helps me study. Ted Ed I am your STAN

I learnt about in in last years history class even though it was an extremely brief mention, but it holds a great significance in the globalization phenomenon and reflects one of its great dangers and that was enough for me to click on this video and learn more.

My father's mother's mom was born in County Clare and her maiden last name was Boland and she left Ireland during the Great Famine and came here to America 🇺🇸🇮🇪 and watching this makes my heart break!!😢

It's an amazing video as always ❤ Extra history has a mini series talking about the famine as well, if you're looking more info about it.

Today, I have learned something new about history although it was sad but the help from different places was very kind to know. I hope whenever there's tough times someone should help out just in a similar way in future.

For what heard. Because of this event, Ireland is a country the help the most other countries when famime hit them

I remember that Queen Victoria at the time donated £2000 (which is a lot at the time but not enough) and blocked any donation that might surpass her, like the ottoman sultan at the time who donated £1000, ships full of food, and other necessities.

I am a teacher in the west of Ireland. “An Gorta Mór” or “The Great Famine” is a topic I teach. It is one I teach through the lens of objective truth: it was a genocide through both act (e.g the shutting down of the Quakers soup kitchens/workhouses/continuous export of Irish food/famine roads/higher taxes etc.) and omission. It is important to realise this.

One thing that is rarely mentioned that I remember hearing? Is that not long before famine the Irish were more or less forced to switch to a different breed of potato that was had more water in it and I think was less resistant to the blight, also the Irish didn't have the ability to grow more than one breed of potato which could have allowed a back up crop when the blight spread.

The primary factor influencing these weather conditions was a phenomenon called the "North Atlantic Oscillation" (NAO), which refers to the changes in atmospheric pressure and wind patterns occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean. The NAO can fluctuate between two phases: positive and negative. During the negative phase, Ireland typically experiences wetter and stormier conditions due to the prevalence of low-pressure systems and enhanced westerly winds. The period from 1845 to 1852 coincided with an extended negative phase of the NAO, resulting in prolonged wet and damp weather conditions across the country. It's believed that the impact of the blight on the Irish potato crop during the Great Irish Famine could have been reduced if farmers had cultivated a greater variety of potato types. The famine was primarily caused by an outbreak of late blight (Phytophthora infestans), a devastating fungal disease that specifically targeted the Irish potato crop, which was predominantly comprised of a single susceptible variety called the Irish Lumper. The Irish Lumper variety was particularly vulnerable to the late blight pathogen, and its widespread cultivation across Ireland made the entire crop susceptible to the disease. Had farmers instead grown a more diverse range of potato varieties, including both early and late-maturing types, the impact of the blight would have likely been lessened. The reliance on the Irish Lumper as a staple crop was a result of various factors. The Irish Lumper was particularly well-suited to the Irish climate and soil conditions, making it easier to cultivate in large quantities. It was also regarded as a hardy and high-yielding variety. 0ver-reliance on a single variety of potato, such as the Irish Lumper, made Ireland's agriculture extremely vulnerable to disease and pests. The range of potato varieties grown could have helped mitigate the impact of the blight on Ireland's population. By cultivating different potato varieties, farmers could have potentially mitigated the effects of the blight. Early-maturing varieties, for example, could have been harvested before the blight had a chance to take hold, providing some food security. Additionally, late-maturing varieties may have been more resistant or tolerant to the blight, reducing the overall impact on the crop. Growing a variety of potato types would have helped to diversify the genetic makeup of the potato crop, making it less susceptible to mass outbreaks of diseases like late blight. Disease resistance can vary among different potato varieties, allowing for natural defense mechanisms against specific pathogens.

There was never a famine. It was the British oppressing the Irish. It's not accurate to call it the Irish potato famine

After reading The hunger by Caroline Drinkwater I came to watch this video it's truly devastating how inhuman some people can be 💔

Excellent video, dark but excellent. Suggestion- an episode on the series of famines in India under the British colonial rule, especially the devastating Bengal famine (& the colonial government’s handling)

i love the animation of this one!

Ted ed pls do a video on what really caused the Bengal famine in South Asian continent

Thanks for the subtitles

My great great grandfather fled northwestern Ireland during the famine, to Glasgow where he married a Glaswegian and had 5 children..the conditions were still really awful in Glasgow back then apparently ..but not as life threatening as it was in Ireland. my great grandfather (his son, who I was fortunate enough to meet when I was tiny!) and my great aunts and uncles had awful lung damage from pollution in the Glasgow poor areas but they all moved to England and lived into old age. Irish Great great grandad died in a ‘poorhouse’ in Glasgow in his 40s which by todays standards is very young, his wife died in her 40s too orphaning my then teenage great grandad and his young siblings at the time. It’s sad to think about how they must have suffered in those days compared to how fortunate we are now but I bet he thought he’d lived a long life compared to those back home in Ireland…I try to see it as though he was one of the lucky ones.

I believe my ancestors on both sides left Ireland during this time. At this point, I have little faith in the world's governments to take action to prevent these things from repeating. They are more interested in profiting from global conflicts and selling arms to both sides!

It wasn’t a famine. It was Genocide by the British.

I love the animations this made me interested in history

❤Awesome as always thanks

1) Genetically, potatoes in Europe are weak: when the Spanish brought potatoes back, the sample size was very small, genetically speaking. This made the susceptible to disease since the crops lacked the genetics to adapt. 2) When the blight hit, the English basically said, "We aren't going without. You, however, can fend for yourselves."

"Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty."

Corruption, ignorance, greed, apathy is a disastrous mix in leaders (of all social institutions) then and now!

A very dark page in Irish History. Thank You for sharing it with us.

No reference to volcanic eruptions on the other side of the world that set off the wet weather?

Charles Trevelyan doesnt get nearly as much hate as he deserves

As a British person I'm disgusted in the acts of our government which was responsible for so many Irish lives. And I'm sad to say our corrupt government hasn't changed much to this day. But the government don't speak for the people. The people of the u.k are much like anywhere else. Some are nice and some are not. But we're definitely not all in agreement with our governments policies

We read a poem titled At a Potato Digging which was about the Irish famine in high school.

Marvelous animation 💚🤍🧡

Am I the only one that was reminded of Boris Johnson's feeling that COVID-19 was Nature's (God's?) way of dealing with old people? Great video! Being an old cynic, I'm afraid I don't share your optimism for better and fairer treatment in this day and age...

Yeah i could agree that is used this video for my kids in my class, then enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing❤

man this kinda fills me with despair. i can only hope the political will to make the world better gets stronger, but it's hard to see that happening with the ageing population.

The Ottoman Empire 🇹🇷 wanted to help Irish people. But since the help was a lot more than the queen made, the queen didn't allow them. So the ottoman empire made a small money aid and secretly sent ships to Ireland. Today you can see the Turkish flag's crescent and star on the Drogheda United football team football team logo. ⭐🌙

Ireland's population still hasn't risen back to the pre famine level today.

Ted ED: The government should help The government, no matter who they are, will never help.

Why does Tedx or anybody else create a video, educating the world about how policies by the UK politicians created a famine in Bengal, in the modern day India and Bangladesh!!

A reminder that the fungus that started the whole thing still exists...

The lesson to take away from this is the importance of controlling the land and trade in ones own country.

The video remind me of the Vietnamese Famine which was caused by the French and Japanese Army during the World War 2.

A quick correction, phytophora is an oocyte not a fungus

It would be cool if you guys do the bengal famine next. Another famine at the hands of the British

So an island surrounded by water. Water filled with fish and people starved. Wow

"They ran out of spuds, everyone was raging." -Michelle

I thought at the time they thought it was a fungus but now we know it is an oomycete, a kingdom Chromista organism. It looks like it split off before there were actual fungal organisms and is more closely related to algae?

England does it again!

can someone point to me to where I could find more information about Thomas Malone who commuted 18 miles a day to work? This is my first time hearing about the story and now I'm invested.

Extra History has a short series on this topic, for those who'd like to know more.

The potato tragedy 😢

If this happens today, the UK government would still say, "nah" and send billions of pounds to "help" other countries

My Great Grandparents arrived in the US during the this time to work on a farm. Seven years brought them some rocky Missouri Ozark farmland. A creek full of lead and cancer.

Rip to all those affected and to Thomas Malone… what a man 🫡😞

During the Irish Potato Famine the British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel of the British Tories(Conservatives) tried to implement reforms on the starving Irish population however it cost him to lose support from his party the Tories and distancing him due to his policies on helping the Irish population and splinter group called the Peelites(Which was named after Sir Robert Peel) broke off the Tories which caused infighting between the two factions which led the Whigs(Proto-Liberals predecessor to the Liberal party of the UK) manage to have Sir John Russell to have his premier ship as Prime Minister due to policy failures from both parties of the British Empire the Irish were left to die due to starvation most Irish people immigrated to the United States while some Immigrated to Mainland Europe in the aftermath of the Irish potato famine Ireland's population has not recovered from 8 million pre-famine to 4 million im the aftermath but in Modern Day Ireland the population hasn't recovered from that era.

Please do a video on Bengal famine during British empire

Can you make a video about what the situation would have been like if potatoes had not been introduced to Ireland in the first place?

In the late 1700's the population in Ireland was about 4 million. In those days infant mortality was high, everywhere in the world. When the potato became the staple crop, the Irish were more well nourished and the population exploded to about 8 million, a level unsustainable at that time. So it could be said that the famine was in part due to the success of the potato harvest.

Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I wanted to donate 10000£ but was told by the English ambassador that he would shame Queen Victoria I who only donated 2000£ so he had to reduce it to 1000£. He ended up sending three ships on top of that with food and medicine which had to unload covertly.

Edmund Strzelecki, the man who discovered and named Mount Kościuszko in Australia, was sent to Ireland to help with relief. The British government hoped that help offered by a non Brit would be accepted by the Irish

This is why there are so many Irish-Americans/mixed with Irish in the US.

there was nothing laissez-faire about any of those policies: managed trade, taxes, workfare (type of welfare with compelled labor, often far from home, and impractical), etc...NONE of those are in any way able to be blamed on free markets.

And in the present day, just since the turn of the 21st century, the British government has aided and abetted the deliberate starvation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and now Gaza -- not to mention their many, many previous victims. The real blight was the English all along.

Bengali famine of 1943 was certainly inspired by this genocidal Irish famine. And who did it? Britain, of course. We also thank the Choktaw and the Turks for trying to help us in this dark time. And we can also thank India for the shared tragedy.

All the worlds problems have one common denominator: greed.

Amazing