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CheBeef
Nobody is going to be offended by "potayto/potahto". Where it becomes offensive is when it becomes glaringly obvious that an English person makes light of the famine or the connection between the Irish and the potato. Often by quoting Neil Francis' "potayto!" in that voice, or something similar. The inference is that they are making light of the situation, seeing it as funny or odd that the Irish would be so dependent on a potato. Totally missing the point that it wasn't just a crop gone bad but the systematic oppression of an entire culture by the English, again. It benefits the English to make light of it and talk down to anyone who "can't take a joke" to assuage their guilt.
The population of Ireland is still less than it was before the famine, such was the level of death and emigration due to the English still insisting that whatever food was viable was theirs or exported. I was even taught (in a Protestant school), that the cause was an unfortunate blight and nothing else, such is the Loyalists' want for the Crown to see them as Daddy's Special Girl.