The Great Irish Famine - Discovery Tour 81

Author: (French) Gray (Gray, P.) wrote, translated by Shao Ming, Liu Yuning
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Most of the 19th-century Irish people were farmers and were the poorest residents in Europe. Potatoes were their only source of sustenance, yet the landlords, who were British, were only concerned with the export of grain and livestock. In the autumn of 1845, an unknown disease struck the potatoes. Natural disasters and political oppression forced people to rebel, but eventually failed. Peter Gray exposed this unreasonable phenomenon: over one million Irish people died of hunger, and this tragedy, however, awakened the national consciousness of the Irish people. Guided by it, the Irish Free State was established in 1922. On the way from Cork to Dublin, I saw this crop in full bloom, suggesting a good harvest. On August 3, during my return journey, I only saw rotten crops covering the vast fields. In many places, poor people sat despondently on the fences of their ruined vegetable gardens, twisting their hands, filled with grief, as the disaster had just taken away their food.