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Our new book, ‘The Death Census of Black ‘47’, is out this month. It will be open access. But what was the Death Census, why was it created, and what does it tell us? 🧵
Co-authored with @LewisDarwen @BrianGurrin
#IrishHistory #GreatIrishFamine #Bookstore #BooksWorthReading
Co-authored with @LewisDarwen @BrianGurrin
#IrishHistory #GreatIrishFamine #Bookstore #BooksWorthReading
First, some context. The Great Famine was caused by successive failures of the potato crop in the later 1840s, the main and often only source of food of the labouring classes. The cause was an invasion by an unknown airborne fungal disease, known then as ‘the blight’.
Conditions were worsened by the weakness of govt responses. But only after a second crop failure 1846 that the suffering grew drastically. Between late 1846 and 1848, an estimated 1m Irish people died of disease and starvation.
DEP, 9 Sept 1845 announces the deadly arrival:
DEP, 9 Sept 1845 announces the deadly arrival:
