Ireland has suffered much pain and trouble but one can be compared with the Famine. It was the greatest calamity that occurred in Ireland since history began. At that time the people depended on the potato for their chief food but in 1847 the crops failed and the people died in hundreds and thousands of starvation and fever. The potatoes were not dug at all that year because the blight came when they were growing and they were not worth digging. And in Spring when they were digging the land for aosts they gathered the "fiorheens" and buried them deep in mud lest they should be stolen until they got time to sow them And they had a great crop the following year. During the Famine the people were going mad with hunger and they ate horse flesh and the leaves of turnips, and weeds. Indian meal was given as relief, but it was not enough to keep them in health and they died in the fields and on the roadsidesFrank Bouchier-Hayes