The Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight, which ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s. It is sometimes referred to, mostly outside Ireland, as the Irish Potato Famine because about two-fifths of the population was solely reliant on this cheap crop for a number of historical reasons. During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
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