For the Teacher

Unit Objectives
• Understand the historical, cultural, and economic impact of the failure of the potato crop in Ireland in the late 1840s and early 1850s.
• Compare and contrast both public and private efforts to deal with the effects of the Great Irish Potato Famine.
• Use primary documents to understand the emigration and immigration experiences of Irish who migrated to the United States.
•

Use GIS software to analyze and interpret factors related to demographic changes in both Ireland and the United States resulting from the potato famine.

Related National Standards


GIS investigations are part of many of the activities in this unit. These investigations make use of ArcGIS Online, an internet software that runs on most browsers. If you do not have an an ArcGIS account and would like to have one you can sign up for a free personal account here.

 

The data and shapefiles in the various map layers are from a variety of sources:

 

Layer
Source

Irish Cities

Population data from Irish Counties Census Statistics 1841-1851, The Irish Quarterly Review, Volume1, No. III, September, 1851, pp 507-522.

Ireland - Counties

County Wicklow

County Mayo

Irish county and electoral division shapefiles from Fotheringham, A.S., Kelly M. and Treacy C. (2011) and made available from the NCG Online Atlas Portal: Irish Famine Data Atlas.

Famine related data from:

Fotheringham, A.S., Kelly M. and Treacy C. (2011) and made available from the NCG Online Atlas Portal: Irish Famine Data Atlas.

Dowling, M.W., Queen's University of Belfast. Department of Economic and Social History. Database of Irish Historical Statistics. Retrieved from the UK Data Archive [distributor], July, 2014

Joel Mokyr. (1985) Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytic History of the Irish Economy, 1800-1850. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Fitzwilliams Estates

Shapefile based on map and description in Jim Rees, Surplus People: The Fitzwilliam Clearances 1847-1856, (Cork, Ireland: The Collins Press, 2000).

United States

United States shape files and census data from Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts 1860 census data and shapefile from Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011.

Abstract of the Census of Massachusetts 1860 from the Eighth U.S. Census, Boston: Wright & Potter, State Printers, 1863, p 124.

John Crowley, William J. Smyth, & Mike Murphy, editors. Atlas of the Great Irish Famine. New York: New York University Press, 2012.

Colm Toibin & Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Famine: A Documentary. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001.

James S. Donnelly Jr., The Great Irish Potato Famine, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2012.
Steve Taylor, editor. Views of the Famine: Contemporary newspaper articles and illustrations from the Great Hunger in Ireland, 1845-52
Mayo County Library, The Famine in Mayo 1845 - 1850.
 
 
 


Last modified in April, 2024 by Rick Thomas