Victorian Britain and Ireland · 1845-1852

The Great Famine in Ireland

When blight destroys the potato crop from 1845, about a million people in Ireland die and more than a million leave. Students follow the famine from the fields to the emigrant ships and ask why a disaster inside the world's leading industrial power was so deadly.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, AD 1845 to AD 1850
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

When blight destroys the potato crop from 1845, about a million people in Ireland die and more than a million leave. Students follow the famine from the fields to the emigrant ships and ask why a disaster inside the world's leading industrial power was so deadly.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain the causes of the Great Famine, including blight, poverty and land ownership.
  • Describe how the British government and others responded.
  • Explain the effects of the famine on Ireland's population and on emigration.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1845

Ireland in 1845

Open the map in 1845 and zoom in on Ireland. Which state ruled it? Find Dublin, Cork and the west coast, where the famine hit hardest.

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1847

The emigrant routes

Zoom out over the North Atlantic. Find Cork, Liverpool, New York, Boston and Quebec. Famine emigrants sailed between these ports. Roughly how far is it from Cork to New York?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1850

Ask the atlas

Type "Why did Ireland's population fall after 1845?" in Ask the atlas. Write down two reasons it gives and check them against what you learn in this lesson.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. About a third of Ireland's people depended almost entirely on potatoes for food. Why was that so risky?
  2. Grain and cattle were still shipped out of Ireland during the famine. How could that happen?
  3. The government first paid people to build roads, then opened soup kitchens, then left relief to workhouses. Which approach would you have chosen?
  4. Many landlords evicted tenants who could not pay rent. How did land ownership make the famine worse?
  5. Ireland's population is still smaller than it was in 1841. How can one disaster shape a country for more than 150 years?
4

Game round

10 min

No Rule History ruler fits this famine. Play Elizabeth I: during her reign English settlers were given more and more land in Ireland. Discuss: how did centuries of land held by a few landlords make the famine of the 1840s so deadly?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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