Piaras Mac Éinrí in the Atlas of the Great Famine ‘Famine and the Irish Diaspora’ says, ‘the Famine turned the river of emigration into a torrent’ with up to 1,000,000 people leaving Ireland between 1815 and 1845. We have some way to go in assessing the legacy of the Great Famine, which was in part confirmed by Cormac Ó Gráda who said in his Thomas Davis Lecture on RTÉ 1 radio during the 150th commemoration of the Great Famine that the Irish Famine was relegated to being a slogan and taboo for many generations and was hardly even commemorated in the 1940s.