Irish Potato Famine
From Conservapedia
The Irish Potato Famine occurred under British rule over Ireland from 1845 to 1849. Estimates are that about one million Irish died from disease exacerbated by malnutrition between 1846 and 1851, and about two million migrated to Great Britain, the United States and elsewhere in the period 1845-1855[1]. A failure of the potato crop was only partly to blame, as Ireland was a net exporter of food during this period and Victorian England itself was prosperous.
The Irish cite the expropriation of their land by the English as a major cause. With absentee landlords controlling the crops grown on much of the Irish land, the Irish people were unable to feed their starving people. A further problem was that the prevailing system of land inheritance encouraged subdivision of holdings; potatoes were an easily grown and reliable crop to grow on increasingly small holdings - until the potato blight struck.
Economists long asserted that the potato was a Giffen Good during this period, but that has recently been doubted by economists.
