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Potato - failure The potato-failure decimated the Irish population of 8 million by one to two million. In 1845 the potato-failure started on a large scale and devasted Ireland for many years after the Famine. The reason of it was a blight, a disease that destroyed both leaves and the edible roots of the potato plant. Consequently the crop failed in the years 1845 - 1849. The name of the blight was Phythophthora, a fungus. Its spors carried by wind, rain and insects came to Ireland from Britain and the rest of the European continent. The fungus affected the potato plants, producing black spots and white mould on the leaves, so the potato would soon rot into a pulp. During the famine nearly one million died of malnutrition and cholera, dysentery and typhus and beginning in 1847 three million people were dependent on food supplied by the government, though not sufficient at all. Irish smallholders were evicted by land owners and tenants died of hunger and malnutition. During these years 1.5 million people emigrated to the USA and Canada. Most of them under conditions which caused the deaths of an unknown number of Irish emigrants on board the rightly called coffin-ships.
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