His latest book is Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine. From 1845 to 1851, Irish potato crops were destroyed by a novel pathogen, the fungus-like organism Phytophthora infestans.

Great Famine and Irish independence struggle linked by geography and historyOpens in new window ] It had a higher nutritional yield per acre than cereals and would grow where they could not.

The situation was made worse by the Corn Law, which kept the price of corn too high for Irish people to afford to buy it. However, the famine worsened when the potato harvest failed again in 1846 ...

It was quite the career for Xavier Watts, and the now former Notre Dame football star looks like he treasured every moment he had with the Irish. The soon-to-be early NFL draft pick shared on his ...