Irish potato famine mystery solved

[IF]

Irish potato famine pathogen identified.

Scientists have used plant samples collected in the mid-19th Century to identify the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine.

A plant pest that causes potato blight spread to Ireland in 1845 triggering a famine that killed one million people.

DNA extracted from museum specimens shows the strain that changed history is different from modern day epidemics, and is probably now extinct.

Other strains continue to attack potato and tomato crops around the world.

The fungus-like infection causes annual losses of enough potatoes to feed hundreds of millions of people a year.

Read more here -- > BBC News - Irish potato famine pathogen identified

[Deepie]

Re: Irish potato famine mystery solved

That's why potato's are so expensive........

[IF]

Re: Irish potato famine mystery solved

Ahhh I see

It is fascinating and so sad too.


The Irish Potato Famine

• Altogether, about a million people in Ireland are estimated to have died of starvation and epidemic disease between 1846 and 1851
• Some two million emigrated in a period of a little more than a decade from 1845
• Comparison with other famines suggests the Irish famine of the late 1840s, which killed nearly one-eighth of the entire population, was proportionally much more destructive of human life than the vast majority of famines in modern times
• The famine began as a natural disaster, but historians say its effects were worsened by the actions and inactions of the Whig government of the time

[MrsD]

Re: Irish potato famine mystery solved

We've visited the famine museum in Skibbereen Skibbereen Heritage Centre

very touching and the Whig government of the time certainly didn't help...............