This short paper revisits two questions that were central to Joel Mokyr's Why Ireland Starved (2nd edition, 1985 …). These are, first, what determined the variation in population change across Ireland during the Great Famine decade of 1841 …-1851 and, second, whether and in what sense can pre-famine Ireland be characterized as 'malthusian'. …

This paper describes the history of famine in Ireland between c. 1300 and c. 1900. Inevitably, most of its focus is on …