The news in recent days that the blight that wreaked havoc across Ireland in the 1840s has surfaced in the northeastern United States has been disturbing for farmers and amateur gardeners alike.
Phytophthora infestans has been devastating potato and tomato crops, and even Petunia plantings, in a number of states that have experienced wet and cool weather through June and into July.
The spread of what is more generally known as “late blight” was reported in a front page story in the Journal News, the main daily serving Westchester County in New York.
The headline atop the story was “Irish famine disease hits N.Y. gardens.”
It was, the report stated, “the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s.”
The Irish Potato Famine was the worst in Europe in the 19th century. About one million people died of related diseases and up to 1.5 million more left Ireland, the report added.
Arguably though, the headline appeared to give dubious ownership of Phytophthora infestans to the Irish, much in the same way that some people are of the view that the swine flu is somehow Mexican.
Either way, the headline over the story on the Journal News web site later in the day was slightly different. The word “Irish” was absent and the word “Great” was in its place.
The generally accepted historical record traces the outbreak of Phytophthora infestans that resulted in the Great Hunger as first manifesting itself in Pennsylvania, then Belgium, and only later, Ireland.