devastated the potato crop, depriv-
ing poor Irish families of their main
source of food and subsistence.
Ironically, as thousands of Irish
starved to death, the British govern-
ment then ruling Ireland callously
allowed tons of grain to be exported
from Ireland to pay absentee land-
lords their rents. "The stranger reaps
our harvest, the alien owns our soul,
wrote Irish poet lady Jane Wilde.
