I have read books about this terrible event . I seem to recall being surprised that there could be such utter reliance on just one single foodstuff , in a country entirely surrounded by water ; why didn't they catch and eat more fish ?? But, apparently , as the crisis worsened , all the fishermen sold their boats and nets in order to buy food .Meanwhile , many tenant farmers continued to grow cereal crops in order to raise the money for their rents . Even if there had been sufficient grain available for bread production ,there were too few mills in Ireland to cope with the task of flour grinding ; another consequence of total reliance on the potato .
                     I believe that , in desperation , maize was distributed widely , but unfamiliarity with this alien substance led to tragedy in many instances of people eating it raw and unprocessed ; I believe that many children suffered grievously in this case. I suspect that the Irish ,for whom I have the greatest respect , and therefore no wish to insult them , were ,in many ways , the authors , to some extent ,of their own misfortune . Sorry , but it does seem rather obvious . But , whatever the cause or causes , it was definitely NOT "genocide" ; there were no egg-headed crazed scientists beavering away in secret laboratories in order to cultivate "in vitro" potato blight .Well, probably not ,anyway.