The Irish Potato Famine and the Population and Social...

The Great Irish Potato Famine was during a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration through 1845-1850. According to the journal, â€Å"The Context of Migration: The Example of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century† by James H. Johnson, this caused the population of Ireland to decrease 20-25% and it did not stabilize again until the 1930’s. Although there was a potato crop failure in Europe in the 1840’s, one third of the Irish population was dependent on this crop. This was inevitable due to the sole dependency of the Irish people on home-grown potatoes and the population almost doubling from 1800 - 1840. The journal, â€Å"Spaces for Famine: A Comparative Analysis in Ireland and the Highlands in the 1840’s† by Liz Young states that â€Å"if the†¦show more content†¦The average family of around 2-4 children ate approximately 37 pounds of potatoes per day.† This shows again that this demonstrates that the sole dependency on one f ood that poverty is foreseeable. The famine simply overstated their conditions by causing low harvests over a number of years, therefore lowering population growth. Another document that is also interesting to look at is the satirical essay â€Å"A Modest Proposal† by the Irishman Jonathan Swift in 1729. Although this is written in the 18th century we get an early taste for the poor conditions Ireland was in. As stated by English100 Professor Molly Wallace, when this was written, England was very powerful and controlled 90% of Irish land. The purpose of the satire was to ‘poke fun’ at the devastating poverty and proposed the idea that they should eat children to solve their situation. This is important because although it doesn’t directly tie to the Irish Potato Famine from 1845-1850, we get insight to the history of Irish poverty before. The population of Ireland has been reliant on potatoes for a long time and there are numerous times when this ultimatel y rebounds as we see in the 18th century with â€Å"A Modest Proposal† and then during the Potato Famine with poor harvests. In the journal â€Å"Irish Migrant Responses to Urban Life in early nineteenth-century