It was a myth in the sense Irish people died of starvation cause of no spuds.What about all the other tuber plants turnips,parsnips and carrots and let us forget the Irish had cows or pigs and sheep.
It disgusts me to this day that the Irish had to leave Eire cause our spuds got sick.
The brits rewrote history kinda like if Hitler had won WW2 the jews would have died from a famine.
No doubt that there was other food, not potatoes, that was available.
Ireland exported food during the famine. The food they exported didn’t belong to the people who were starving. The government didn’t think it necessary or proper to take A’s food to feed B. There was charity, it just was overwhelmed by the extent of the problem.
The Brits also imported indian corn (maize) into Ireland, and the price was subsidized. People didn’t know how to cook it, and with a failure of the potato crops, didn’t have any money to buy corn, no matter what the price.
I don’t think the brits rewrote it. I just don’t think that people at that time knew what the right answer was. They just had a choice of different wrong answers from which to select.