Are you offended by Paddy/Mick or potato famine comments?

Cavehill Red

sensibleken wrote: »

I do not see how this would be genocide. The convention on genocide could mean the killing of one or two members of any specific group would be genocide ( Killing members of the group, intent to destroy, in whole or in part)

I suggest you read the Hague Convention again. Especially article 2c.

sensibleken wrote: »

The cromwellian invasion i would certainly say was genocide but teh famine was a mix of incompetence, contempt and arrogance

Both were genocides.

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

I suggest you read the Hague Convention again. Especially article 2c.



Both were genocides.

There were famines in England and Scotland as well, so no, it wasn't genocide.

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

I suggest you read the Hague Convention again. Especially article 2c.

The key word is deliberate. I would interpret this as a policy implemented for the specific purposes of the destruction of an ethnic group, something that Peel's, albeit rubbish, response would not suggest. The British response to the famine was a matter of gross, criminal incompetency and neglect but not a deliberate attempt at genocide.

R P McMurphy

To sum up I think the following would apply in most situations:

If you know the person and get on well with them you are likely to take it as a joke

If you know the person and don't get on with them - it is a slight and a deliberate attempt to put you in your place and will be met with an equal or worse response

If you don't know the person - they are looking for trouble and response will be dependent on what was said, the mood you are in, how many there are, level of drink consumed etc

Helix

Predator_ wrote: »

And god arnt we thankful that the likes of you are around today, what a wonderful upside to the death of a million Irish people.
Fact is your life isnt worth 1 of those poor souls that were murdered by the enemy.

but is the life of every irish person who wouldnt have been born without it worth it? or would you rather have had the millions who wouldve been born in that case instead - which wouldnt included you or your immediate family, or your friends

Micky Dolenz

I lived in the UK for years and I was never called a spud mucher or any other reference to the famine. I think simply because most British people aren't aware that it happened and does who do don't care. It was over 150 years ago. I was however called Paddy and Diddley Dy but only by people who were having the craic, all be it at my expense.

fryup

so what if someone calls you a ....paddy, mick, potato picker, bog trotter, inbred gombeen etc etc

its only names...stick & stones and all that

sure we're suppose to be a tough race anyway, or have we gone soft since the celtic tiger days?

Sonnenblumen

Most of the irish and most of the english are like most of the many other people most of the time: fine and decent. But we all know Bad apples are out there and can be found everywhere.

So stop worrying, relax and enjoy life with/out potatoes:D

ejmaztec

K-9 wrote: »

There were famines in England and Scotland as well, so no, it wasn't genocide.

Apparently, it wasn't as bad as here, because the Scottish people not affected, organised a lot of aid to help out their countrymen and women.

In England, I suppose the aristocracy used the starving as toothpicks.

K-9

ejmaztec wrote: »

In England, I suppose the aristocracy used the starving as toothpicks.

Yep, but it is telling that they treated their own peasants in a similar way.

R P McMurphy

ejmaztec wrote: »

Apparently, it wasn't as bad as here, because the Scottish people not affected, organised a lot of aid to help out their countrymen and women.

In England, I suppose the aristocracy used the starving as toothpicks.

Did a lot of that aid consist of moving produce from Ireland to England and Scotland?

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

There were famines in England and Scotland as well, so no, it wasn't genocide.

Was food removed from those locations at gunpoint by the state?
No, actually food was removed from here to feed people at those locations.
That's not to say that there haven't been genocides on British soil, of course. The Highlands clearances also qualify as a genocide under the terms of the convention.

Cavehill Red

sensibleken wrote: »

The key word is deliberate. I would interpret this as a policy implemented for the specific purposes of the destruction of an ethnic group, something that Peel's, albeit rubbish, response would not suggest. The British response to the famine was a matter of gross, criminal incompetency and neglect but not a deliberate attempt at genocide.

When a population experiences mass death as a result of policies pursued by a government, even if the direct aim of the policies is not to kill them, it's still genocide.
Seriously, read the convention.

PeterIanStaker

You are not allowed to stand up for yourself if you're Irish. Any such action is immediately deemed to be subversive, and you'll be beaten with the property supplement from the Sindo for your seditious acts.

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Was food removed from those locations at gunpoint by the state?
No, actually food was removed from here to feed people at those locations.
That's not to say that there haven't been genocides on British soil, of course. The Highlands clearances also qualify as a genocide under the terms of the convention.

Cavehill Red wrote: »

When a population experiences mass death as a result of policies pursued by a government, even if the direct aim of the policies is not to kill them, it's still genocide.
Seriously, read the convention.

So they committed genocide on their own people as well?

Does that not mean that it wasn't specifically an Irish genocide though?

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

So they committed genocide on their own people as well?

Yes, they did. Though given that the Highland Scots were Gallic speaking and had a very different culture to the Lowland Anglophones, they may not have seen them as 'their own people'.

K-9 wrote: »

Does that not mean that it wasn't specifically an Irish genocide though?

Er, the Highland clearances happened at a different time, and a different place.
The Irish genocide was a specifically Irish tragedy.

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Yes, they did. Though given that the Highland Scots were Gallic speaking and had a very different culture to the Lowland Anglophones, they may not have seen them as 'their own people'.



Er, the Highland clearances happened at a different time, and a different place.
The Irish genocide was a specifically Irish tragedy.

That's why I was thinking more, England. Parts of England had a famine around the time.

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

When a population experiences mass death as a result of policies pursued by a government, even if the direct aim of the policies is not to kill them, it's still genocide.
Seriously, read the convention.

I have read it.

"committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part" so contrary to what you say if the dierct aim of those policies is not to kill them, then it is not genocide

What policies are examples of the intent to destroy the Irish people?

I would argue that although the policies were incompetent they did not have the specific intent to destroy the Irish people.

Cavehill Red

sensibleken wrote: »

I have read it.

"committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part" so contrary to what you say if the dierct aim of those policies is not to kill them, then it is not genocide

What policies are examples of the intent to destroy the Irish people?

I would argue that although the policies were incompetent they did not have the specific intent to destroy the Irish people.

-The poor law amendment which stripped them of their land, for one.
-The stated 'policy of extermination' admitted by the Lord Lieutenant for another.
-The removal at gunpoint of sufficient food to feed the people a number of times over while they were dying.

Let me be clear, I'm not asserting the British invented potato blight or infected potato crops with it. I'm asserting that according to the terms of the Hague Convention, the then government of Britain was guilty of genocide through pursuing policies (to wit, the desire to clear Irish off their land in order to free it up for plantation) that indirectly led to mass death of the populace.

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

That's why I was thinking more, England. Parts of England had a famine around the time.

But England got fed, largely from food taken from Ireland.

Fratton Fred

So was this food taken from Ireland and given randomly to people in England, or was it the people of Ireland selling their crops to the highest bidder?

If it was genocide, why did the British government allow all the soup kitchens to set up and the works commissions employ people doing often pointless work? Why was the Monarch of the country carrying out this supposed genocide actively seeking donations through the state church?

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

But England got fed, largely from food taken from Ireland.

Not much use to the victims in England who didn't get fed.

The point being, yes there was a hatred of Ireland in England but that was largely down to us largely being a country of peasants. Thing is, they hated their own peasants too.

ejmaztec

R P McMurphy wrote: »

Did a lot of that aid consist of moving produce from Ireland to England and Scotland?

There was no reason for the Scots to get food from the Irish, because they had their own, the reason for this being that they weren't all growing spuds.

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

-The poor law amendment which stripped them of their land, for one.
-The stated 'policy of extermination' admitted by the Lord Lieutenant for another.
-The removal at gunpoint of sufficient food to feed the people a number of times over while they were dying.

Let me be clear, I'm not asserting the British invented potato blight or infected potato crops with it. I'm asserting that according to the terms of the Hague Convention, the then government of Britain was guilty of genocide through pursuing policies (to wit, the desire to clear Irish off their land in order to free it up for plantation) that indirectly led to mass death of the populace.

However, why spend several million pounds, God knows what that would be in todays money, in aid to Ireland if the intent was to wipe us out.

Cavehill Red

The soup kitchens last six months before they were cancelled, and were only set up in the first place due to the international outcry that resulted when the state of Ireland became evident.
The soup offered wasn't sufficiently nutritious, fed only a tiny fraction of those starving, and was only offered for a tiny interim during the five year period of genocide.

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

Not much use to the victims in England who didn't get fed.

The point being, yes there was a hatred of Ireland in England but that was largely down to us largely being a country of peasants. Thing is, they hated their own peasants too.

I agree. But the deaths in England were a case of malicious negligence rather than genocide. Having said that, it's no comfort for those who died.
I would never seek to blame the British people for the genocides enacted on Ireland. No one has suffered more at the hands of their elite than they have down through the centuries.
But none of that contradicts the reality that the British elite in the 1840s conducted a genocide in Ireland.

ejmaztec

sensibleken wrote: »

However, why spend several million pounds, God knows what that would be in todays money, in aid to Ireland if the intent was to wipe us out.

..and they certainly wouldn't have allowed the population of Liverpool to quadruple after the influx of Irish people escaping the famine.

K-9

Account also has to be taken of attitudes of the time, otherwise it is revisionism.

The Times Great Irish lives is a great example of that, a collection of obituaries in the times of notable Irish people. The views printed and the changes over time are massive, from a starting point of overt racism.

Daniel O'Connells was telling, racist and sectarian even though the Times actually was quite liberal and supported emancipation etc.

The anonymous obituarist of O’Connell saw no problem in passing this judgment on the man and his religion: “It is difficult to imagine anyone more incapable than he was of maintaining even those outward signs of holiness which are generally observed by the ecclesiastics of his persuasion.”

The Dubliner Magazine: Death Becomes Them


And, it goes on sternly, he was "charged with sundry crimes, public and private, with having, even in old age, seduced and abandoned more than one frail member of the fair sex; with having oppressed his tenantry to an extent which justified his being described as one of the most culpable individuals belonging to the vilest class in all Europe, the middlemen of Ireland". Not something that would readily be taught, even now, in the classrooms of the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy.

Speak well of the dead, be they heroes or villains - Books, Entertainment - Independent.ie

Lux23

I find them really amusing and partly true.

K-9

ejmaztec wrote: »

There was no reason for the Scots to get food from the Irish, because they had their own, the reason for this being that they weren't all growing spuds.

Indeed, they had other options, moreso in England as well.

That was the main reason that so many died. When you couple that with an ignorance and libertarian attitudes from the governing classes.......................................

K-9

Lux23 wrote: »

I find them really amusing and partly true.

Interesting read and yes, there would be an element of truth in them, probably why they touch a nerve! They really did see us as a nation of drunkards. Somethings never change! :eek:

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

Account also has to be taken of attitudes of the time, otherwise it is revisionism.

Only to a certain point.
It's not revisionist to suggest that slavery was wrong and criminal, even though it was considered good business for centuries.
The British elite were well aware, as Clarendon admits, that their policies were causing mass death of Irish people they considered little better than monkeys, as contemporary Punch illustrations and Times editorials reveal.
It's not revisionist to say that they were wrong to oversee the deaths of well in excess of a million people and the emigration of at least the same number from a land they occupied.
Calling it genocide is simply calling it what it was. It doesn't change the events of the time. They're long past. It does however change how we think of them and how we think of ourselves as a nation.
I personally don't believe that remaining in national denial in order to placate British sentiment (which doesn't actually exist - the people living today know they weren't responsible and know already of other genocides committed by British governments of the past, in India and Scotland and elsewhere) is healthy.

K-9

As regards British sentiment, we've had an apology from Blair when PM, so is there much else they can do?

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

As regards British sentiment, we've had an apology from Blair when PM, so is there much else they can do?

I wouldn't expect the British to be doing anything about it. It's akin to those black people in America seeking 'reparations' for slavery. They were never slaves and the people they want money from never kept slaves. It's ludicrous. What's in the past is in the past.
All I'd like to see is recognition here in Ireland that we suffered a genocide. We're the only nation on the planet ever to live in denial of their own holocaust. I find it staggering. It can't be healthy.
Someone once said to me, what would you think of a Jew who described the events of the 1940s as a big German industrial accident? You'd think they were demented. Yet we keep calling the 1840s a famine. It's very disturbing.
As for Blair's apology - neither he nor anyone else was alive when it happened. I've no idea what he thought he was apologising for. He'd be better off apologising for the millions of deaths he caused in Iraq.

Donkey Oaty

Cavehill Red wrote: »

All I'd like to see is recognition here in Ireland that we suffered a genocide.

So we're all zombies?

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

All I'd like to see is recognition here in Ireland that we suffered a genocide. We're the only nation on the planet ever to live in denial of their own holocaust. I find it staggering. It can't be healthy.
Someone once said to me, what would you think of a Jew who described the events of the 1940s as a big German industrial accident? You'd think they were demented. Yet we keep calling the 1840s a famine. It's very disturbing.

What does it achieve?

Cavehill Red

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

So we're all zombies?

Well, perhaps you are.
Would you describe the Jews, Rwandans, Cambodians or Armenians in a similar manner?

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

What does it achieve?

What does remaining in denial about our own history achieve?
Why lie to ourselves and hold 'famine' memorial ceremonies? Why hoist up 'famine' statues?
We should call it for what it is because to do anything else is being dishonest with ourselves, unfair to those who died and indicates some form of national psychosis.

Donkey Oaty

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Well, perhaps you are.
Would you describe the Jews, Rwandans, Cambodians or Armenians in a similar manner?

Yes, if they claimed they were all exterminated.

(Using the popular definition of genocide here, not Lemkin's).

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

What does remaining in denial about our own history achieve?
Why lie to ourselves and hold 'famine' memorial ceremonies? Why hoist up 'famine' statues?
We should call it for what it is because to do anything else is being dishonest with ourselves, unfair to those who died and indicates some form of national psychosis.

We aren't in denial. We are well aware of the Great Famine and the damage inflicted on us.

As you say with the British "What's in the past is in the past".

Cavehill Red

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Yes, if they claimed they were all exterminated.

(Using the popular definition of genocide here, not Lemkin's).

Why not use the actual definition instead of one you make up as you go along?
I use the UN version as codified in the Hague convention and the definition by the man who coined the term.
Both apply to Ireland in the 1840s.

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

We aren't in denial. We are well aware of the Great Famine and the damage inflicted on us.

This is self-contradicting. Since it was a genocide rather than a famine, then we are in denial.

Donkey Oaty

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Why not use the actual definition instead of one you make up as you go along?
I use the UN version as codified in the Hague convention and the definition by the man who coined the term.
Both apply to Ireland in the 1840s.

I am using the popular definition - which is why most people do not refer to it as genocide, but never mind. Let's go with Lemkin.

How do you define "we" then, as in "we suffered a genocide"?

Cavehill Red

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

I am using the popular definition - which is why most people do not refer to it as genocide, but never mind. Let's go with Lemkin.

How do you define "we" then, as in "we suffered a genocide"?

We, the Irish nation.
Are the Armenians wrong to refer to their nation suffering a genocide because it happened some nine decades ago and none of them lived through it?
We, the Irish nation, commemorate a 'famine' which never happened. We erect statues and hold days of commemoration about this phantom famine, all the while denying the reality that a genocide occurred here.
Tell me how that's healthy or why that's preferable to acknowledging the truth?

Mr Benevolent

We didn't suffer genocide, we were over reliant on a single crop that failed, as it was bound to do eventually. We gambled and lost. Yes, British actions made it worse, but it was the Irish people's fault in the end.

Odd, wonder if that same attitude created the economy disaster we have now...

Cavehill Red

Confab wrote: »

We didn't suffer genocide, we were over reliant on a single crop that failed, as it was bound to do eventually. We gambled and lost. Yes, British actions made it worse, but it was the Irish people's fault in the end.

This has already been covered in the thread.
The events of the 1840s fulfil all criteria to be considered genocide under the terms of the UN Convention on Genocide.
You're simply propagating 'Stupid Paddy' syndrome - the idea that the Irish couldn't have possibly have been subjected to deliberate policies designed and implemented to clear them from their land. They're just thicks who killed themselves because they were dumb.
Let me ask you this - do you think the Irish people of that time in anyway chose to export sufficient grain and beef to feed the nation many times over, preferring instead to rely on rotting potatoes?

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

This is self-contradicting. Since it was a genocide rather than a famine, then we are in denial.

Fair enough. I just don't see the need. I think certain elements will jump on it and use it for the wrong ends, certain Republicans eg.

Confab wrote: »

We didn't suffer genocide, we were over reliant on a single crop that failed, as it was bound to do eventually. We gambled and lost. Yes, British actions made it worse, but it was the Irish people's fault in the end.

Odd, wonder if that same attitude created the economy disaster we have now...

Jaysus, hardly comparable now. How exactly could they have helped themselves? The whole point was they couldn't as farms were too small to sustain much else.

Donkey Oaty

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Tell me how that's healthy or why that's preferable to acknowledging the truth?

For me, "we" the nation is who we are now, but let's leave that one.

To answer your question, no, the truth is better, and anyone who has studied that period in even the briefest of detail knows that the term is misleading.

But "The Famine" is what we and the world have called these events for a long time. I'm not convinced that launching a campaign to call it "The Genocide" would be helpful or generally accepted.

Maybe a more neutral expression is needed. Drochshaol, perhaps?

Cavehill Red

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

For me, "we" the nation is who we are now, but let's leave that one.

To answer your question, no, the truth is better, and anyone who has studied that period in even the briefest of detail knows that the term is misleading.

But "The Famine" is what we and the world have called these events for a long time. I'm not convinced that launching a campaign to call it "The Genocide" would be helpful or generally accepted.

Maybe a more neutral expression is needed. Drochshaol, perhaps?

I have no objection to An Gorta Mor, as it was indeed a great hunger, so long as the state acknowledges what they're referring to was a genocide.

Cavehill Red

K-9 wrote: »

Fair enough. I just don't see the need. I think certain elements will jump on it and use it for the wrong ends, certain Republicans eg.

So what if they do? Can't they be argued down in public like happens in democratic states?
I don't really see how the correction of the terminology we use to refer to the genocide of the 1840s could be of use to any political sect to be honest.
Sinn Fein are in a British parliament already. The dissidents are ignored by all bar Garda Special Branch, and they already blame the British for all that's wrong.
How could telling the truth be misused?