How To Grow Potatoes

During the summer of 1845, a blight devastated Ireland's potato crop, the basic staple in the Irish diet. The Irish potato famine was not simply a natural disaster. It was a product of social causes. Under British rule, Irish Catholics were prohibited from entering the professions or even purchasing land. Instead, many rented small plots of land from absentee British Protestant landlords. Half of all landholdings were less than 5 acres in 1845. Irish peasants subsisted on a diet consisting ...