The Santa Fe New Mexican from Santa Fe, New Mexico • Page Z010

TRAVEL Conceived as charity projects, 'famine walls' went from nowhere to nowhere and were a colossal failure as a public-works project because most of the laborers were too weak from famine to build anything effectively. The walls still crisscross the Irish landscape. Famine and revival More than a simple blight, the Irish Potato Famine resulted from greed and contempt By Judith Fein Photos by Paul Ross For The New Mexican When I went to school, I learned about the terrible potato famine that had occurred in Ireland in the mid-19th century, and that was why many Irish people came to America. But I didn't learn that plenty of food was available in Ireland at the time, and the Irish were starved to death or driven out of their homeland. Today, according to my charming guide, Will Collins, Ireland is the third richest nation in the world.

The main source of income is high-tech industries. But 150 years ago, the British ruled the Irish. The former dominated the latter for 800 years, until the revolution of 1919-22. (Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom.) The Irish were not allowed to own land, so they had become tenant farmers on the property of English landlords. In the 1840s, Collins explained, a fungus attacked the potatoes, the main staple of the Irish diet in those days.

For more than three years, crops failed, and Irish tenant farmers descended into poverty, malnutrition, illness and death. The British policy was mired in bureaucracy, lack of information (they imported maize, which many Irish appar ently couldn't digest), callousness (a laissez-faire, hands-off policy) and an unwillingness to provide the massive food aid that was required, Collins said. The British stabs at soup kitchens were totally inadequate, and the vile brew usually served (old food, vegetables and corn boiled in water) left many of the malnourished sick with diarrhea and other intestinal disorders. Famine experts contend two types of famine exist: those that occur from a lack of food in an area and those that result because people can't afford to buy what is available. Lack of food is a rare occurrence.

Instead, famine occurs primarily 10 SUNDAY December 3 9, 2006 The New Mexican magazine.