Bliain an Áir — the Great Frost

1740 - 1741 — A forgotten famine: an extraordinary cold snap killed a greater share of the population than even the Great Famine a century later.

A century before An Gorta Mór, Ireland suffered a catastrophe that is now largely forgotten. In the winter of 1739–40 an extraordinary and prolonged frost — part of a climate shock felt across Europe — froze rivers, killed stored potatoes and destroyed the following harvest. The disaster years of 1740 and 1741 became known as Bliain an Áir, "the Year of the Slaughter."

Famine and the diseases that followed killed an estimated 300,000 to 480,000 people — proportionally an even greater share of the population than the more famous Famine of the 1840s. Because it struck before the age of mass communication and left fewer records, it faded from memory, but it stands as one of the deadliest events in Irish history.