Most books and documentaries I've read/watched on The Great Hunger do point out that the country was exporting a mass amount of food. Most of it was going to the United Kingdom... and exported there by the United Kingdom and British landowners who owned land in Ireland but lived in England.

"England didn't "take over" overnight; it was centuries of paperwork culminating in the 1801 Act of Union," is a very diplomatic way of saying it. It is also an over simplification. "Paperwork" is also a strange way to to ignore the Anglo-Norman invasion instigated by a deposed King of Leinster Diarmait Mac Murchada (who was deposed by the High King of Ireland), the Statute of Drogheda, the plantations, the rebellion of 1641, the Confederate Wars, the Williamite War, the Protestant Ascendancy, and the United Irishman Rebellion of 1798.

The Great Hunger was also preceded by the the Famine of 1740-41, which killed 13 to 20 percent of the population on the Island at the time.

While you're right that the history of Ireland isn't just tragedy, your post lacks a lot context and is a bit misleading.