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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: The Great Irish Famine

04/04/2019

The Great Irish Famine

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Great Irish Famine

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the causes and consequences of the Famine of 1845-49.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why so many  were vulnerable to the failure of the potato crops in Ireland in the 1840s, what relief was given and why so many died or left.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland.  It is estimated that one million people died from disease or starvation after the blight and another two million left the country within the decade. There had been famines before, but not on this scale. What was it about the laws, attitudes and responses that made this one so devastating?

The image above is from The Illustrated London News, Dec. 29, 1849, showing a scalp or shelter, "a hole, surrounded by pools, and three sides of the scalp  were dripping with water, which ran in small streams over the floor and out by the entrance. The poor inhabitants said they would be thankful  if the landlord would leave them there, and the Almighty would spare their lives. Its principal tenant is Margaret Vaughan."

With 

Cormac O'Grada
Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics at University College Dublin

Niamh Gallagher
University Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at the University of Cambridge

And 

Enda Delaney
Professor of Modern History and School Director of Research at the University of Edinburgh

Producer: Simon Tillotson

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