ABSTRACT
Why did Ireland starve? To start with, it should be emphasized that Irish poverty was not really one single “event”. Rather, we are dealing with a series of related but separate phenomena which did not necessarily share the same causal mechanisms. Irish agriculture was poor and backward. Ireland did not undergo an industrial revolution. The Irish potato crop failed in the 1840s. These three “events” were all part of Ireland’s economic plight, but they were not necessarily caused by the same factors. Nor did they inexorably lead to each other, although feedback mechanisms no doubt existed. It should, then, come as no surprise that the question “Why Ireland Starved” cannot be answered in a single sentence.
