The Irish Potato Famine first occurred during the summer of 1845 in which virtually all potato crops in Ireland were destroyed (“The Irish Potato Famine”). It is suspected that this occurred due to “static electricity,” or because of fumes from the relatively new locomotives (“The Irish Potato Famine”). What some may find surprising is that this event occurred because of a fungus that traveled from Mexico to Ireland (“The Irish Potato Famine”). Because of this occurrence, many of the Irish began to experience cholera; dysentery; scurvy; typhus; and lice; this would come to be known as “Famine Fever,” and it quickly began to spread throughout the Irish countryside (“The Irish Potato Famine”). Because approximately half of Ireland’s population ate potatoes as a large part of their diet – mostly due in part because they were easy to grow – many began to starve, and over the course of ten years, 750,000 Irish died, as well as over two million left to places such as the United States of America, Canada, and Great Britain (“The Irish Potato Famine”). During this time, the British were the acting government over the Irish, and the relief efforts they led were unsuccessful, and the event as a whole created a large distrust of the British from the Irish population (“The Irish Potato Famine”).

My understanding of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, while potentially surprising, is deepened by reading about this event. This is because the Irish Potato Famine reminded me much of the careless nature of Scrooge towards his underlings; Scrooge is Great Britain and the remaining supporting characters in the work are the Irish. This can be seen with both Scrooge’s miserly nature towards the poor, which creates the premise of why he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (Dickens). Furthermore, like the Irish opinion of Great Britain during the famine, many of Scrooge’s peers do not like him, made evident in the quote: “No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge” (Dickens). While Dickens may not have explicitly drawn inspiration from the Irish Potato Famine, it is clear that the parallels between this event and work are uncanny.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. 1843.

“The Irish Potato Famine.” Digital History,

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/voices/irish_potato_famine.cfm.