WordNet
the Great Calamity
n. a famine in Ireland resulting from a potato blight; between 1846 and 1851 a million people starved to death and 1.6 million emigrated (most to America) [syn: the Irish Famine, the Great Hunger, the Great Starvation]
Usage examples of "the great calamity".
And typical 'tis that even you, gentle reader, will automatically respond with the genocidal impulse of your bestial race, so evident even in ancient times and now, since the Great Calamity, grown systematic and ruthless in its horror.