“Must’ve been a helluva famine or war or something in Ireland if 50,000 people suddenly need to go home today for funerals.”
The Brits at them again? We’re gonna need reparations at some point. /s?
The Great Famine in Ireland began as a natural catastrophe of extraordinary magnitude, but its effects were severely worsened by the actions and inactions of the Whig government, headed by Lord John Russell in the crucial years from 1846 to 1852. A million died.
Altogether, about a million people in Ireland are reliably estimated to have died of starvation and epidemic disease between 1846 and 1851, and some two million emigrated in a period of a little more than a decade (1845-55).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml
Why bring that up? This is about illegal Irish immigrant here today, not 5 or 6 generations ago.