An Gorta Mor , the Terrible Irish Famine Quiz

Answer: 8.2 million

The population was probably larger as people were slow to get involved with officials taking census returns. At 8 million, it is still double the 2001 population of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined.

Answer: West

The Atlantic seaboard, comprising parts of modern Munster, Ulster and all of Connacht were the most densely populated. The vast majority depended for their living on the land. They did not possess marketable skills, and most spoke only Gaelic.

Answer: Inheritance Law

This was one of the infamous "Penal Laws" of the previous century. It split up Catholic owned estates on a father's death between all his sons or daughters or next of kin. It had been designed to impoverish Catholics and 'prevent the spread of Popery'. It did just that by 1841, by when a staggering 44.9% of farms were under five acres.

Answer: 2 million

In a survey of 1835, a shocking 2 million did not have regular employment. How did they live? Seasonal work on farms in Spring and Autumn and their little potato patches.

Answer: Lumpers

Lumpers are very long potatoes and will grow well in poor soil. Focusing on one variety proved a terrible mistake. A disaster was waiting to happen ...

Answer: All of these

The fungus came on the crop very quickly, the stalks wilted before people's eyes, while the potatoes turned to mush in their hands and the stench was appalling.

Answer: Yes

Sir Robert Peel, the English PM, ordered that American corn/maize for import and sale at cost price to the starving. This was a remarkable effort in laissez-faire times. Few knew how to cook it and ate it half raw hence the name 'brimstone'. It was also called 'stir-about', as gradually people learned to make it palatable.

Answer: Quakers

All religious groups helped as much as they could. Ironically, the Quakers efforts back-fired in a very sad way. Wooden bowls were used for the soup, they were washed afterwards, but typhus passed on very easily from one user to the next.

Answer: All of these

Hoping for better yields extra crops were planted, but in vain. 1847 was one of the wettest/coldest years on record. The 'Gregory Clause' meant that no relief would be given to anyone who owned as much as one quarter acre of land.

Answer: Yes

Ireland is a rich agricultural country, and wheat, oats, beef cattle, sheep, meat etc. were all exported under armed guard while people starved. For every relief ship that came in six went out carrying food.

Answer: Mass evictions

At its worst, this meant getting rid of 'surplus population'. Some landlords paid fares if their tenants wanted to emigrate, some paid fares and forced their tenants to emigrate or starve in a ditch, and some just threw their tenants off the land and did not care.

Answer: Coffin ships

A single fare to either the USA or Canada was $4.50c. and anything that could float seemed to find its way into Irish ports to make money from the crisis. The worst ships were 'Naomi' and 'Virginius', every second person died, a death rate of 52%.

Answer: Permanent Secretary to the Treasury

From his desk in London he had an enormous influence on the various relief schemes and on expenditure on public works. His name has passed with loathing into Irish folklore. After a million people had died he wrote "[it's] not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people", that we have to contend with.

It was his decision to allow food to be exported under armed guard while millions starved.

Answer: USA

These were sent by the US government laden with food and blankets to Ireland.

Answer: unprofitable

Money was paid to the workers if they could get on the scheme. 400,000 applied in Mayo county for 13,000 jobs. They built roads going nowhere, bridges where there was no river, lowered the level of a road which was perfectly adequate to begin with, etc., etc.

Answer: 3,000

It was a farce as you can see. Most just walked in one door and out another. This had serious repercussions- in particular, fever and death at sea, quarantine on landing and understandable terror in the countries where they landed in case the fever would be passed on.

Answer: 26%

Most of these spoke very little English and were not used to urban life. Their physical strength was their only marketable skill which they used to good effect. They began the process of Chain Migration, whereby they built up a network of contacts and sent money home to help other family members to join them.

Answer: Canada

It is 30 miles from Quebec on the St.Lawrence River. It was once a quarantine station for emigrants and has a monument to 'those who fleeing pestilence in their own land, found in America nought but a grave'.

Answer: 6.5 million

It was two million less than 1841. The precise split will never be known, but most agree on an estimate of a million dead and a million emigrated.

Answer: New York

The monument is in Battery Park. It is a reassambled roofless shell of a farmhouse with 32 stones, one for each county. The area is landscaped with plants that would have been common in Famine times and known for their medicinal properties. The south side faces Ellis Island, the entry point of so many to the US.