TODAY, the white potato or 'earth apple' (pomme de terre in French) is closely associated with Ireland'so much so, that it is referred to commonly, the world over, as the 'Irish potato'.But this is a very recent development, attributable largely to the economic and cultural impact of the Little Ice Age. The plant we call Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum) actually originated in South America, where the Incas of Chile, Peru and Bolivia were growing it as early as 13,000 to 9000 years ago.Spanish explorers and plunderers, having failed to find gold in South America, brought back potatoes instead. At about the same time'the last half of the 16th century'British explorer Sir Walter Raleigh is believed to have introduced the potato into Ireland.Across Europe, the potato was among the plants farmers turned to, along with turnips and other cold-resistant vegetables, to compensate for drastic reductions in cereal output.'During the harsh winters,' notes the website of the U.S. National Earth Sciences Teachers Association, 'bread had to be made from the bark of trees because grains would no longer grow'. Potatoes thus became the staple diet of the common people throughout most of Europe.But the French were caught with their trousers down so to speak, having refused to adopt the potato. Then, in 1787 and 1789, the cold of the Little Ice Age ravaged cereal crops'creating chronic bread shortages.When hungry peasants complained of not having bread to eat, Marie Antoinette, the French queen, is famously (and for her, tragically) reputed to have said, 'Let them eat cake!' While this may or may not be true, it is a fact that the ensuing riots led to the French Revolution'and her eventual beheading.Ireland adopted the potato, to the detriment of other crops and, according to the History Channel, started to rely on only one variety. This led to the Irish famine of the mid-19th century: five years of cholera, typhoid and hunger that killed some 1.5 million Irish, out of a population of eight million.During the Medieval Warm Period, lonely old women often claimed to have mystical powers and were frequently called upon for rain-making and for various occult practices'for which they earned fees. But the scam worked against them during the Little Ice Age, when Pope Innocent VIII officially decreed that witches were responsible for the cold weather and its consequences.'In popular perception,' writes Dr. Promode Kant, in 'The Witch Hunt of the Little Ice Age' (Internet), 'hailstorms were already demonic handiwork of the witches and, with increasing pressure to pinpoint the cause [of the cold] the church succumbed'in 1484''In the years that followed, hundreds of old widows would become scapegoats for the fears and pent-up frustrations European societies, adversely affected by the Little Ice Age. They would be taken from their hovels, accused of witchcraft and burned at the state or murdered by other equally barbaric means.'To be continued
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