The Great Famine
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In September 1845, a devastating new plant disease swept across Ireland, destroying the potato crops on which the majority of the people depended. Aid from the British government was too little and too late. Over the subsequent six years, a million Irish people died of starvation and a more than a million others fled abroad in order to escape the ravages of hunger and disease.
In the first of two programmes marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the famine, Dublin-born writer Ian Gibson tells the story of the tragedy and explores its background, from the Georgian splendours of Dublin and Strokestown Park to the wild landscapes of western Ireland. Concluding part next Monday.
