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Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Videos and Teaching Aides About the Irish Potato Famine and the Great Migration

There are an estimated 80 million people worldwide who claim Irish heritage/ethnic identity.  About 40 million United States citizens claim Irish as their main ethnicity.  The entire population of the island of Ireland, both the Republic and Northern Ireland, is only 6.3 million.  The reason for this practically unrivaled 12 to 1 ratio of diaspora to homeland (there are 1.6 Jews outside of Israel for every Jew living in Israel, for example) is the Great Irish Potato Famine and migration due to the famine.

The Irish-American fraternity group the Ancient Order of Hibernians created a series of videos and teaching tools about the An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger.  Their teaching tools such as document-based questions, crosswords, fill in story, multiple choice questions, word searches, and even a vocabulary sudoku are available at the An Gorta Mor website.  The videos are available on YouTube or the DVD can be purchased.  I have posted the videos below for easy access.







2 comments:

Tony Burton / Geo-Mexico said...

And don't forget about Mexico's role in this potato famine and migration... see http://geo-mexico.com/?p=683

Unknown said...

Before the migration of millions of Jews back to Israel over the 20th century, and especially before the turn of the 20th century, there was an unbelievably high diaspora to homeland ratio among the Jews. I'm sure much higher even than among the Irish!