The Highland Potato Famine was a famine caused by potato blight that struck the Scottish Highlands. While the mortality rate was less than other Scottish famines in the 1690s, and 1780, the Highland potato famine caused over 1.7 million people to leave Scotland during the period 1846 - 52. Famine was a real prospect throughout the period, and certainly it was one of severe malnutrition, serious disease, crippling financial hardship and traumatic disruption to essentially agrarian communities. The causes of the crisis were similar to those of the Great Irish Famine and both famines were part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe.
Of course the Irish famine is more infamous than the Scottish one.
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