The Great Potato Famine and the Transformation of Irish Peasant Society

The Great Irish Potato Famine should be understood as primarily the result of British colonialism. While the failure of successive crops resulted from a blight, the famine itself was the result of a historically created peasant dependence on the potato. This dependence was the direct result of the development of Ireland as a colonial holding'. The consequences of the Great Famine were the almost complete elimination of a lineage mode of production and an accelerated class differentiation of the peasantry. The sesquicentennial memorial of the Great Famine provides a good opportunity to clarify the political-economic basis of this tragic event.