Suffering the Great Hunger: Scurvy and tuberculosis as reflected in the skeletons of victims of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852)

The Great Famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1852 was one of the worst health calamities of the nineteenth century. In recent years, palaeopathological analyses of human skeletal remains from archaeologically excavated famine mass burials from Ireland have revealed the physical impact of health deprivation due to starvation and infectious disease. Vitamin C deficiency and tuberculosis were two conditions that caused immense suffering during this period, and which are observable in the skeletal remains of the victims of the Famine. The manifestations of these reveal aspects of physical exhaustion but also that of recovery. Bioarchaeology – which is the study of human remains from archaeological contexts – provides a unique insight how the human experienced famines in the past. In the context of the Great Famine, it has provided means to acknowledge the lives of those who were lost and forgotten during a very dark and relatively recent period in the history of Ireland.