Editing Irish Famine (1740–1741) (section)

==Cause==
[[File:Lee gravestone Coolaghmore Graveyard.png|thumb|Gravestone in Coolaghmore, [[County Kilkenny]] of the Lee family, of whom three members died in 1741–42, aged 19, 30 and 64. The fact that they could afford a carved headstone makes it unlikely that they died of hunger, but the disease epidemics triggered by the famine may have caused the deaths of some or all of them.]]
An extraordinary climatic shock struck Ireland and the rest of Europe between December 1739 and September 1741 following a decade of relatively mild winters. Its cause remains unknown. Charting its course sharply illuminates how climate events can result in famine and [[epidemic]] disease, and affect economies, [[energy source]]s, and politics.

In the winter of 1739–1740, Ireland suffered seven weeks of very cold weather known as the "Great Frost".<ref name=":0">{{cite book|first=David|last=Dickson|title=Arctic Ireland: The Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740–41|publisher=White Row Press Ltd |location=Belfast |year=1997|isbn=978-1-870132-85-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98YKAQAAMAAJ&q=Great+Frost}}</ref>
Although no barometric or temperature readings for Ireland survive from the Great Frost, a scattered few records survive from Englishmen who made personal readings. The mercury thermometer was invented 25 years earlier by German pioneer [[Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit]]. Indoor values during January 1740 were as low as {{convert|10|°F|°C}}.<ref name="Dickson p 12">Dickson (1997), p. 12</ref> The one outdoor reading that has survived was stated as "thirty-two [[Degree of frost|degrees of frost]]," equivalent to {{convert|0|°F|°C}}. This did not include the effects of the [[wind chill]] factor, which would have been severe. This kind of weather was "quite outside the Irish experience," notes David Dickson, author of ''Arctic Ireland: The Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740–41''.<ref name="Dickson p 12"/>

In the period before the crisis in January 1740, the winds and terrible cold intensified, yet barely any snow fell. Ireland was locked into a stable and vast high-pressure system which affected most of Europe in a broadly similar way, from Scandinavia and Russia to northern Italy. Rivers, lakes, and waterfalls froze and fish died in these first weeks of the Great Frost. People tried to avoid [[hypothermia]] without using up winter fuel reserves in a matter of days. People living in the country were probably better off than city-dwellers because in Ireland country people had cabins sheltered by [[Sod|turf]] stacks, while the latter, especially the poor, dwelt in freezing basements and [[garret]]s.

Coal dealers and shippers during normal times ferried coal from [[Cumbria]] and [[South Wales]] to east and south-coast ports in Ireland, but the ice-bound quays and frozen coal yards temporarily stopped such trade. When in late January 1740 the traffic across the [[Irish Sea]] resumed, retail prices for coal soared. Desperate people stripped bare hedges, ornamental trees, and nurseries around [[Dublin]] to obtain substitute fuel. Also affected by the Frost were the pre-industrial town mill-wheels, which froze. The machinery was stilled that customarily ground wheat for the bakers, tucked cloth for the weavers, and pulped rags for the printers. The abrupt weather change disrupted craft employment and food processing.