The Potato Famine

The document “description of a potato diet” has a lot of gaps in the context section of it. It is unclear for example on who wrote it and where it was written, we obviously know it was written about Ireland and about the time before the potato famine happened but not much more than that. We also know that it was published by Dublin: National Library of Ireland in 1995 even though the text refers to dates in 1840 and 1841. We could say on the other hand that the document was written for us, the reader, to get an idea on just how important the potato was for the Irish people and its survival back in 1840. Without it, we would later see in history during the potato famine that there would be massive death and misery for many years. We also get to see just how extraordinary the potato is in thriving almost everywhere.
Now all though we think of peasants as being starving and have mal nutrition this was not so much the case for the Irish poor class in one respect. We could argue as does the text, that the potato is extremely nutritious and has other element in it for a healthy diet. Another crucial point that the document makes is that it’s not only a certain percent of the population that are eating potatoes its really almost every last person, about 3 million people did because that truthfully was all they could afford. Another crucial point that the document makes is the importance of land for farming. Even with the smallest amount of land you would be able to grow potatoes for others by selling them and maybe enough for your family to store for the winter. A good thing about the potato is it could literally store for all of winter in the right conditions. On top of being able to be stored for a long time, the potato could grow almost anywhere which was a great thing. It could grow in harsh conditions like a barren rock, the side of mountains where nothing dare try to grow and even in the bog where you could get stuck in if you so much as put your foot in   which...