Ireland’s population dropped further because large numbers of people emigrated, or moved away from Ireland, to escape starvation. Perhaps as many as two million people left Ireland during the famine years, never to return. Most of them moved to the United States, Canada, England, or Australia. As a direct consequence of the famine, Ireland’s population fell from almost 8.4 million in 1844 to 6.6 million by 1851. The population continued to decline in the following decades because of overseas emigration and lower birth rates. By the time Ireland achieved independence in 1921, its population was barely half of what it had been in the early 1840s.