This Sunday 13 September marks the 175th anniversary of the saddest event in Irish history. As written in Neil Cosgrove's recent article in Irish Central (https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/aoh-ireland-potato-blight-anniversary), a British publication wrote of the Irish potato blight for the first time on this date. This marked the start of a six year tragedy in which hundreds of thousands of Irish died from starvation and disease due to malnutrition beginning in 1845.
According to the great famine of Ireland website, the exact total cannot be determined. However, it is believed that about a million people died during a ten year period from 1841 to 1851.[1]
The Great Famine as it was also known as, resulted in a massive immigration into North America and the United States in particular.
The Ancient Order of Hibernian's video of the Irish Famine is also mentioned in Neil Cosgrove's article. Here's a link to the video. https://youtu.be/7gx3vBxqbmM.
[1] “The Irish Potato Famine,” website, (The Great Famine of Ireland, https://thegreatfamineofireland.weebly.com/death-toll.html), in reference to the number of deaths as a result of the Irish famine, accessed 12 September 2020.