Sunbelt Celt

THE STORY of the Irish Famine and how it related to the potato will be told in an international potato museum being planned in Peru. Dr Pamela Anderson, director general of the International Potato Center in Lima, arrives in Dublin tomorrow to research the subject. She will visit the Famine Museum in Strokestown, Co Roscommon, and hear from experts on the Famine during her visit. Her visit has been facilitated by Concern, whose chief executive Tom Arnold sat on Ireland’s Hunger Task Force in 2007 along with Dr Anderson. An estimated two million people either died or emigrated between 1845 and 1850, when Irish potato crops failed. Dr Anderson said the Irish Famine contained significant lessons for today, even though it happened more than 150 years ago.