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The Dark History Of Green Food On St. Patrick's Day The Irish potato famine of the 1840s, which forced so many Irish to flee mass starvation in their homeland in search of better times in America and elsewhere. Those who stayed behind turned to desperate measures. "People were so deprived of food that they resorted to eating grass," "In Irish folk memory, they talk about people's mouths being green as they died." At least 1 million Irish died in the span of six years, says Kinealy, the founding director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Which is why, for an Irish person, the sight of green-tinged edibles intended as a joyous nod to Irish history can be jolting. George Washington was known to give his Irish soldiers the day off.