The Great Irish Famine

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How the Great Famine changed Ireland forever

In 1845, a potato blight arrived in Ireland that would lead to the deaths of over a million people and the emigration of even more. John Crowley tells the story

The Famine Monologues

The Famine Monologues: explore the podcast drama series

Charles MacIver Grierson, Potato Diggers in the West, 1903, pastel on paper, 51 x 66 cm. Collection Crawford Art Gallery, Cork

Hidden Ireland: The world of the cottier on the eve of the Famine

A detail of the map showing population density in the south west of Ireland 1851

Before and after the Famine: an interactive map

The Bothán in UCC

Ireland before the Great Famine

The Great Irish Famine

The blight spreading from continental Europe to Ireland

How the blight spread: an interactive map

Sir Charles Edward F. Trevelyan, K.C.B. Engraved by D.J. Pound from a photograph by John Watkins, Parliament Street. Image: Getty Images

The truth about Trevelyan

Charles Trevelyan

A detail from Daniel Macdonald's The Discovery of the Potato Blight

How Victorian artists depicted the Famine

The Hunger documentary

The Hunger: the making of the new documentary

1846: A destitute family during The Great Famine.

Why was the potato so important?

The Great Irish Famine

The Colbost Croft Museum / Folk Museum showing nineteenth century Hebridean crofter's blackhouse with heather-thatched roof on the Scottish Isle of Skye, Scotland. Source: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The other famine: Scotland and the potato blight

More The Great Irish Famine

British responses to the Famine

Sir Charles Edward F. Trevelyan, K.C.B. Engraved by D.J. Pound from a photograph by John Watkins, Parliament Street. Image: Getty Images

The truth about Trevelyan

Charles Trevelyan

His name has become synonymous with British policy during the Famine. What role did Charles Edward Trevelyan really play? Enda Delaney explains.

John Bull hands food to a listless Irish family (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

"Their own wickedness": how the British press reported the Famine

Robert Peel, who was Prime Minister at the start of the Famine

Peel's brimstone: the Temporary Relief Commission

Detail of a depiction of crowds gathered to buy Indian corn in Cork, from the Illustrated London News, 4th April 1846. (Source: Illustrated London News/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A policy disaster: British famine relief measures

The Hunger: watch the documentary here

A new documentary narrated by Liam Neeson

Famine memorial

The impact of the Famine

Kindred Spirits. Photo: John Crowley

Lessons of Giving:the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations and the Famine

They had just endured the cruelty of being forced from their lands in the Trail of Tears - and they were determined to help another nation in need. Padraig Kirwan and LeAnne Howe on the generosity of the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations

Bridget O'Donnel, a woman who spoke about her experiences(Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Hidden heroes: women and the Great Famine

Birr workhouse. Image by Frank Coyne

"Paupers and beggars' brats": Parsonstown Workhouse in the Famine

A funeral cortege at Shepperton Lakes, West Cork, Ireland during the Great Famine (aka the Irish potato Famine), 1847. Sketch by James Mahony. Originally published in The Illustrated London News, 13th February 1847 (Source: Getty Images)

Deadly disease: how the Great Famine led to outbreaks of illness

The Great Irish Famine

About the Great Irish Famine Project

The Great Irish Famine project

Blighted Nation: listen to the documentary series

Blighted Nation tells the story of the Great Irish Famine from the arrival of the blight to the long aftereffects of the devastation.

The Blighted Nation

The Famine on RTE

Skibereen

The History Show on the Famine in Skibbereen

"There must soon be many deaths from famine in my neighbourhood if something effectual be not done"

How the Famine was recorded in 19th century letters and journals

Murray Lender decided to fund Ireland's Great Hunger Museum after he heard a speech about the famine given by Quinnipiac University President John Lahey

The man who shared the story of the Famine with America

Analysis and Comment

Doc on One: The Famine Girls

Doc on One: The Famine Girls