1. What is your Favourite Food? How Much do you Eat it? What Would you do if you Couldn’t Get it Anymore?

2. Irish Potato Famine, 1845 to 1849

3. United Kingdom and Ireland Today

4. A Little Bit of Ireland Ireland has had a history of being dominated by the English, winning it’s freedom, and then being dominated by the English again In 1801, Ireland becomes a British territory once again Most of Irish land was owned by English land-owners, and the Irish were expected to send potatoes back to England

5. The Potato

6. Potatoes were originally grown in South America, and are not native to Europe They were brought to Europe in the mid 1500’s, the potato became very popular across Europe because it was easy to grow, grew almost anywhere, and you could grow a lot of them They became especially popular in poorer areas where farmers had less land, such as Ireland

7. How Reliant were the Irish on Potatoes? Many of the farmers in Ireland were very poor, and lived on extremely small plots of land. Potatoes were the only crop they could grow to feed themselves Your typical Irish family at the time would almost exclusively eat potatoes and drink water, with meat available once in a while Grain was available, but rare and expensive With the blight, many families had no other options. Some tried eating the infected plants, others tried eating grass.

8. Food Exports to England To many in Ireland, the biggest insult was not that England didn’t provide much aid, but that the English continued to take taxes and food as the Irish starved Soldiers would help landlords collect taxes and do evictions, while also guarding the grain ships from the starving poor

9. The Famine Year - Jane Wilde Weary men, what reap ye? Golden corn for the stranger. What sow ye? Human corpses that wait for the avenger. Fainting forms, Hunger—stricken, what see you in the offing Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing. There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door? They guard our master's granaries from the thin hands of the poor. Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? 'Would to God that we were dead— Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread

10. Emigration

11. Why do you Think so Many of the Irish Choose to Go to Canada?

12. Foreign Aid In 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £10,000 to Irish farmers but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only £1000, because she herself had sent only £2000. The Sultan sent the £1000 sterling but also secretly sent three ships full of food. The English courts tried to block the ships, but the food eventually arrived In 1847, a group of American First Nations collected $710 and sent it to help starving Irish men, women and children.

13. After the Famine Before the famine, Ireland had a population of over 8 million. By 1849, that had dropped to 6.5 million, and 1890 the population was scarcely over 4 million cut by 1/2 Many Irish families were afraid of another famine, and continued to leave Ireland for places like Canada After the famine, there was strong resentment between the Irish and English The Fenians are an example of this rage

14. Writing to the British After having read about the causes and the experiences surrounding the famine, you are to write a letter to Prime Minister Lord John Russell describing your outrage over the famine You are to tell him what he has done wrong and how his actions have affected Ireland Lastly, you will tell him what he could do to fix the situation