Thanks very much everyone that responded. I will have a look at the links when I get home tonight. Its giving me a bit of insight as to why my ancestors departed their homeland and just makes you grateful for what you have today! Thanks again Theresa -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alison Kilpatrick Sent: 02 July 2008 10:50 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: News extracts: July 2, 1822: Cause of the famine in Ireland Theresa Green wrote: > > Thanks for this, its very interesting. In my strange mode of thought, I > believed the potato famine was a devastating one-off that occurred > during the 1840s.... I know I'm showing my ignorance here but - Does > anyone know if there were several potato famines? Did the crops fail > regularly? What did they eat before the potato? Try Google Books to conduct an online review of contemporary literature*: many of these books have been digitized in full. Input "famine" and "Irish" as your search terms; then select "Full view only" from the "Showing" pull-down menu. There are 694 search results, many of which were published before 1846. Inputting "pre-famine Ireland" also yields a wealth of resources on the subject of economy, farming, living standards, etc. in the decades leading up to the Great Famine. * The inter-library loan system, via public and university libraries, would provide additional sources on the subject. Also check academic journal databases at university libraries. ... and a few online references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Famine_(1740-1741) http://www.ehs.org.uk/society/pdfs/O'Grada%2015b.pdf http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/famine/agriculture_pre. html http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/famine/potato.html http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/7818/1/jssisiVolXXIPartVI_7296.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/h0039.pdf http://www.irishhistoryonline.ie/ http://deskeenan.com/pre-famine.htm http://tinyurl.com/5et7bw http://www.bahs.org.uk/37n2a4.pdf http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Ireland_society_and_economy_1815ndash1870 http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine ajk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message