Highland Potato Famine

The Highland Potato Famine was a period of 19th-century Scottish Highland history, running from 1846 to roughly 1856, during which the agricultural communities of the Hebrides and the western Scottish Highlands saw their potato crop repeatedly devastated by the same potato blight responsible for the Great Irish Famine occurring at the same time. Prompt and substantial charitable relief efforts from the rest of the United Kingdom meant the Highland famine was far less extensive and took many fewer lives than its Irish counterpart, though the terms on which relief was distributed still produced widespread destitution and malnutrition, and a government inquiry ultimately recommended reducing the at-risk population through emigration to Canada and Australia rather than proposing any short-term agricultural solution.