New website allows users to track the impact of the Great Irish Famine

A website mapping the impact of the Great Irish Famine on individual parishes was launched at the Annual National Famine Commemoration at University College Cork (UCC) on 12 May.

The Great Irish Famine Online ( bit.ly/famineonline) features four maps of Ireland, based around themes of population, families and housing, occupation and education. They are each divided into historic boundaries of more than 3,000 civil parishes and 1,600 towns, which users can click on to compare the 1841 and 1851 census data for these factors. They can also use a swipe bar to view the overall population changes in Ireland during this decade.

The census returns track information including the distribution of families by type of housing, the percentage of families classified as working in agriculture, and the percentage of individuals over the age of five who were illiterate. The website also includes a world map showing how potato blight, which caused the famine, spread from the Americas to Ireland. Between 1845 and 1849, the famine led to the deaths of over one million people, while over a million more emigrated. Virginia Teehan, director of cultural projects at UCC, called the commemoration “an opportunity to rethink how it has shaped an Irish psyche and how it continues to connect us to each other and to the rest of the world”.