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 CHAPTER IV

THE FAMINE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES TILL THE DEATH OF O'CONNELL

kept the fearful narrative of physical ruin which fell upon Ireland at this time apart from the political conflicts, which it dwarfed and overshadowed. The Famine, foretold from time to time as probable, announced itself unequivocally in the autumn of 1845; the potato crop was more or less blighted in almost every county in the island, and theatened [sic] before winter set in to rot in the ground. An eminent physician warned the country that famine was not the worst danger they had to anticipate; it had been noted for a hundred years that famine was invariably followed by fever and pestilence, from which no class escaped. The potato blight was not confined to Ireland; it had appeared in many places in Europe and America, notably in Germany and the Low Countries, and in Canada and the United States; but in Ireland alone the food of the industrious millions was exclusively the potato. How this calamity could be best 195