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The '''Great Famine''', also known as the '''Great Hunger''' ({{lang-ga|an Gorta Mór}} {{IPA-ga|ənˠ ˈɡɔɾˠt̪ˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ|}}), '''the Famine''' and the '''Irish Potato Famine''',{{sfn|Kinealy|1994|p=5}}{{sfn|O'Neill|2009|p=1}} was a period of [[starvation]] and [[disease]] in [[Ireland]] lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical [[social crisis]] and subsequently had a major impact on [[Culture of Ireland|Irish society]] and [[History of Ireland|history]] as a whole.{{sfn|Kinealy|1994|p=xv}} The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland{{mdash}}where the [[History of the Irish language#Nineteenth and
The [[Proximate and ultimate causation|proximate cause]] of the famine was the infection of potato crops by blight (''[[Phytophthora infestans]])''{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2006|p=7}} [[European Potato Failure|throughout Europe]] during the 1840s. Blight infection caused 100,000 deaths outside Ireland and influenced much of the unrest that culminated in European [[Revolutions of 1848]].<ref>{{cite conference |url=http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Vanhaute.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170417175737/http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Vanhaute.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 April 2017 |title=The European subsistence crisis of 1845–1850: a comparative perspective |last1=Ó Gráda|first1=Cormac |author-link1=Cormac Ó Gráda |last2=Vanhaute |first2=Eric |last3=Paping |first3=Richard |date=August 2006 |location=Helsinki |conference=XIV International Economic History Congress of the International Economic History Association: Session 123}}</ref> Longer-term reasons for the massive impact of this particular famine included the system of [[absentee landlordism]]{{sfn|Laxton|1997|p={{page needed|date=September 2018}}}}{{sfn|Litton|1994|p={{page needed|date=September 2018}}}} and [[Monoculture|single-crop]] dependence.{{sfn|Póirtéir|1995|pp=19–20}}<ref name="ecologyandsociety.org">{{cite journal |last1=Fraser |first1=Evan D. G. |title=Social vulnerability and ecological fragility: building bridges between social and natural sciences using the Irish Potato Famine as a case study |journal=Conservation Ecology |date=30 October 2003 |volume=2 |issue=7 |url=https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss2/art9/ |access-date=28 May 2019 |archive-date=14 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200214050145/https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss2/art9/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Initial limited but constructive government actions to alleviate famine distress were ended by a new [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] administration in London, which pursued a [[laissez-faire]] economic doctrine, but also because some in power believed in [[divine providence]] or that the Irish lacked [[moral character]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=British History in depth: The Irish Famine |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml |access-date=2023-06-05 |website=BBC History |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Racism and Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England |url=https://victorianweb.org/history/race/Racism.html |access-date=2023-06-05 |publisher=victorianweb.org}}</ref> with aid only resuming to some degree later. Large amounts of food were exported from Ireland during the famine and the refusal of London to bar such exports, as had been done on previous occasions, was an immediate and continuing source of controversy, contributing to [[anti-British sentiment]] and the campaign for independence. Additionally, the famine indirectly resulted in tens of thousands of households being [[Eviction|evicted]], exacerbated by a provision forbidding access to [[workhouse]] aid while in possession of more than one-quarter acre of land.
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