# What really caused the Irish Potato Famine

- Institution: TED
- Department: TED-Ed
- Speaker: Stephanie Honchell Smith
- Year: 2023
- Level: For everyone
- Language: English
- Subjects: Biology, Society and politics, History, Teaching and learning
- Source: [TED](https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_honchell_smith_what_really_caused_the_irish_potato_famine)
- Licence: [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) (Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions.)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

For over 200 years, potatoes thrived in Ireland; roughly half the country’s residents lived almost entirely on potatoes. But when harvesting began in 1845, farmers found their potatoes blackened and shriveled. While this failed harvest created a crisis, the government’s response turned it into a national catastrophe. Stephanie Honchell Smith digs into Ireland's Great Famine. \[Directed Denys Spolitak, narrated by Pen-Pen Chen, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio\].

## Lectures

1. [What really caused the Irish Potato Famine](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/ted/stephanie_honchell_smith_what_really_caused_the_irish_potato_famine/49454520c6c3), 5 min (TED's player)