The Great Famine (Irish: An Gorta Mór lit: The Great Hunger) was a period of starvation and disease. The seven–year span 1845–1852 was, as a consequence, a period of mass emigration, much of it to America. Over the span of the famine, the population of Ireland was reduced by 20 to 25 percent. Approximately one million of the population died and a million more emigrated from Ireland’s shores. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as late blight.