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During the 17th through the 19th centuries every square inch of Ireland was owned by some great landlord, either and Englishman or a wealthy Irish Protestant. The vast majority of productive agricultural land was given over to sheep farming or raising crops for export to England. The poor Catholic Irish had to make do with trying to raise food on marginally arable land. There was very little that would grow on the acres they had available to them. Potatoes are a hardy crop that will grow almost anywhere and produce abundantly. As a result potatoes became not merely a staple of the Irish diet but were often the only thing they had to eat. Thus they became known as potato eaters or potato people.

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Itzel Brown

Lvl 10
3y ago

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