Mystery of Irish Potato Famine Solved

[Kowalski]

Since many of my husband's ancestors came from Ireland during the Potato Famine, I thought the following article was interesting.

Mystery of Irish Potato Famine Solved

The Irish potato famine that caused mass starvation and approximately 1 million deaths in the mid-19th century was triggered by a newly identified strain of potato blight that has been christened "HERB-1," according to a new study.

An international team of molecular biologists studied the historical spread of Phytophthora infestans, a funguslike organism that devastated potato crops and led to the famine in Ireland. The precise strain of the pathogen that caused the devastating outbreak, which lasted from 1845 to 1852, had been unknown.

"We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc," study co-author Hernán Burbano, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany, said in a statement. [Microscopic Worlds Gallery: Fascinating Fungi]

Previously, a Phytophthora strain called US-1 was thought to have triggered the potato famine, but by sequencing the genomes of preserved samples of the plant pathogen, the researchers discovered that a different strain — one that is new to science — was the real culprit.

"Both strains seem to have separated from each other only years before the first major outbreak in Europe," Burbano said.

DNA detectives

The researchers studied 11 historic samples from potato leaves that were collected about 150 years ago in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe and North America.

The scientists found these ancient samples, which were preserved at the Botanical State Collection Munich and the Kew Gardens in London, still had many intact pieces of DNA. In fact, the DNA quality was so good the researchers were able to sequence the entire genome of Phytophthora infestans and its host, the potato, within just a few weeks.

"The degree of DNA preservation in the herbarium samples really surprised us," study co-author Johannes Krause, a professor of paleogenetics at the University of Tübingen in Germany, said in a statement.

Taken from http://news.yahoo.com/mystery-irish-potato-famine-solved-140830483.html

[Ealdwita]

I'm still convinced that once harvested, potatoes were divided up - For every one spud that went for food, 20 was made into Potcheen! Everybody was hungry - but no bugger cared!

[Michelle]

^^^That's my people...

[shrooma]

my family migrated to england during the famine, & stayed until 1875, then they shipped back over until my mam was born, and for some bizarre reason moved back to england!

so i'm now i'm the first person in our family to be born without a Co Meath accent!

*sob*

[Taun]

Some of my ancestors came over during that same time...

Here are a few pics of a set of statues in Dublin that commemorate the famine...

Edited May 24, 2013 by Taun

[Kowalski]

^^^That's my people...

Reminds me of my favorite Irish joke, "Two Irish men walk out of a bar....Hey, it could happen!"

[Kowalski]

Some of my ancestors came over during that same time...

Here are a few pics of a set of statues in Dublin that commemorate the famine...

Thanks for posting this. So sad, so many people died.....

[Ealdwita]

Reminds me of my favorite Irish joke, "Two Irish men walk out of a bar....Hey, it could happen!"

An Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman walked into a bar, and the barman said "This has gotta be a joke!"

[Michelle]

What's the difference between and Irish wedding and an Irish wake?

One less drunk.

[shrooma]

(has hit his 'positive vote quota limit', so an imaginary like for all above posts until tomorrow....)

[SHaYap]

(has hit his 'positive vote quota limit', so an imaginary like for all above posts until tomorrow....)

ahhh .. i know this feeling well ....

[Taun]

(has hit his 'positive vote quota limit', so an imaginary like for all above posts until tomorrow....)

Yeah, we need "I REALLY like this", "Good Post", "Like" and "Meh" buttons to spread out the "likes"

Edited May 24, 2013 by Taun

[shrooma]

there's something strange about this quota malarky.

an hour ago, i'd reached my limit, but now it's letting me 'like' stuff again!

I don't understand??

[Taun]

there's something strange about this quota malarky.

an hour ago, i'd reached my limit, but now it's letting me 'like' stuff again!

I don't understand??

Maybe a mod was reading your post and reset your count... (I don't know that they can do this, but...)

[spud the mackem]

To be sure,I'm saying nothing,but the craics good so it is.Slainte.

[Ealdwita]

To be sure,I'm saying nothing,but the craics good so it is.Slainte.

You're soooo subtle, spud!

[spud the mackem]

The Potato famine split up many a good family, a lot of mine went to America,and some to England,(and the ones that were caught to Botany Bay).

[Ealdwita]

The Potato famine split up many a good family, a lot of mine went to America,and some to England,(and the ones that were caught to Botany Bay).

Here's one that got nabbed.........

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[/media]

(One of the best versions I've heard of this song)

[zebra99]

Many years ago I read that grain stocks in England could have been allocated to alleviate the famine but they were witheld

thanks to some Lord or other and his cronies in government.

So there you have it....the same unfeeling filthy rich politicians making crap decisions just like we have today.Nothing changes.

[Kowalski]

Many years ago I read that grain stocks in England could have been allocated to alleviate the famine but they were witheld

thanks to some Lord or other and his cronies in government.

So there you have it....the same unfeeling filthy rich politicians making crap decisions just like we have today.Nothing changes.

That's actually true, unfortunately. Also:

Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine, limited the Government's actual relief because he thought "the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson"

Records show Irish lands exported food even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland had experienced a famine in 1782–1783, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests. No such export ban happened in the 1840s.^[65]

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland as "the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.^{[fn 4]}

Christine Kinealy writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. However, the poor had no money to buy food and the government then did not ban exports

According to Peter Gray, in his book The Irish Famine, the government spent £7,000,000 for relief in Ireland between 1845 and 1850, "representing less than half of one percent of the British gross national product over five years. Contemporaries noted the sharp contrast with the 20 million pounds compensation given to West Indian slave-owners in the 1830s."

According to legend, in 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £10,000 to Irish farmers, but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only £1,000, because she herself had sent only £2,000. The Sultan is supposed to have sent the £1,000 along with three ships full of food. According to Abdullah Aymaz in an article in The Fountain magazine, the British administration tried to block the ships, but the food arrived secretly at Drogheda harbour and was left there by Ottoman sailors.^[74][75] Shipping records relating to the port appear not to have survived. Newspaper reports suggest that ships from Thessaloniki in the Ottoman Empire sailed up the River Boyne in May 1847,^[76] although it has also been claimed that the river was dry at the time. A letter in the Ottoman archives of Turkey, written by Irish notables explicitly thanks the Sultan for his help

In 1847, midway through the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849), a group of Native American Choctaws collected $710 (although many articles say the original amount was $170 after a misprint in Angie Debo's The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic) and sent it to help starving Irish men, women and children. "It had been just 16 years since the Choctaw people had experienced the Trail of Tears, and they had faced starvation... It was an amazing gesture." according to Judy Allen, editor of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's newspaper, Biskinik, based at the Oklahoma Choctaw tribal headquarters in Durant, Oklahoma. To mark the 150th anniversary, eight Irish people retraced the Trail of Tears,^[78] and the donation was publicly commemorated by President Mary Robinson.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29