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

Donkey Oaty

Cavehill Red wrote: »

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.

Calling it an Gorta Mór would be a progressive step.

Can't see anyone objecting to that.

Cavehill Red

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Calling it an Gorta Mór would be a progressive step.

Can't see anyone objecting to that.

Well, you've no doubt seen the psychological resistance that many Irish people have to acknowledging it was a genocide, even on this thread. That's the product of years of counterfactual education right there.
That's why I'd be happy to see a term like An Gorta Mor used, but only in the same way the Jewish people use the term Shoah, in conscious acknowledgement that they mean a genocide.
Anything else is a denial of reality and our own history.

Flaregon

I find this topic stupid, everyone should just call everyone everything and be done with it, if no one took offence to any slander the would would be an easyer place right now.

Ickle Magoo

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.

Highland Potato Famine

If it was genocide, it was a genocide against peasantry in ireland, scotland and much of northern england.

Cavehill Red

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Highland Potato Famine

If it was genocide, it was a genocide against peasantry in ireland, scotland and much of northern england.

There is a decent case to be made that in the specific case of the Scottish Highlands, that a genocide was in operation also.
The same does not apply to England. Unlike Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, there were no deliberate state policies aimed at clearing the natives from their land.
This was not the only genocide conducted on the Highlanders, of course. They had already suffered the genocide of the 'Clearances' in the 1740s and 1810s.
Both the genocides of Ireland and the Scottish highlands were aimed at displacing Gaelic-speaking nationals who were considered inferior to Anglican Anglophones, loyal to the London crown.
For this reason, the same set of circumstances did not occur in England, where starvation undoubtedly occurred, though nowhere like the same scale, but a people designated as undesirable to the crown were not displaced by policy from their land in the pursuit of lebensraum.

Ickle Magoo

But in both cases the landed gentry of both irish and scottish decent were as much a cause for their nations suffering as the potato blight. While I think the government and land-owners showed unforgivable apathy and directly contributed to the "famines" and considered their own export profits more important than their fellow man that is still some way from one group of people intentionally and deliberately exterminating a single national or ethnic group. They were ruthless and considered peasants wholly expendable - that is, to a certain extent, testament to those harsh times - calling it a famine isn't historically correct nor accurate but, imo, neither is calling it genocide.

K-9

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Well, you've no doubt seen the psychological resistance that many Irish people have to acknowledging it was a genocide, even on this thread. That's the product of years of counterfactual education right there.
That's why I'd be happy to see a term like An Gorta Mor used, but only in the same way the Jewish people use the term Shoah, in conscious acknowledgement that they mean a genocide.
Anything else is a denial of reality and our own history.

Nope, not counter factual education or psychological resistance. more as Ickle Magoo puts it:

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

While I think the government and land-owners showed unforgivable apathy and directly contributed to the "famines" and considered their own export profits more important than their fellow man that is still some way from one group of people intentionally and deliberately exterminating a single national or ethnic group.

Cavehill Red

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

But in both cases the landed gentry of both irish and scottish decent were as much a cause for their nations suffering as the potato blight. While I think the government and land-owners showed unforgivable apathy and directly contributed to the "famines" and considered their own export profits more important than their fellow man that is still some way from one group of people intentionally and deliberately exterminating a single national or ethnic group. They were ruthless and considered peasants wholly expendable - that is, to a certain extent, testament to those harsh times - calling it a famine isn't historically correct nor accurate but, imo, neither is calling it genocide.

That merely indicates that, like probably a majority of people, you're not familiar with the actual legal definition of the term genocide, nor the meaning attributed to it by the man who coined the term.
Allegations of genocide have been successfully upheld in the Yugoslav conflicts in relation to cases of as few as under 10,000 deaths. The Serb, Croat and Bosnian peoples still exist. But the fact that the bulk of them survived doesn't mean that there was no genocide.
In Ireland, over a million people were starved to death while food was exported at gunpoint out of the country, and a million more forced to emigrate, so that the self-acknowledged 'policy of extermination' enacted by the then government could achieve it's aim of 'a Celt on the banks of the Shannon being as rare as a Redskin on the banks of the Hudson river.'
I don't specifically dispute your analysis of the role played by landowners, by the way. To my analysis, they were merely conduits of governmental policy to clear the land of its people, however.

Ickle Magoo

But of course, because that allows you to cling onto the idea that irish & scottish landowners selling food over the heads of their countrymen was actually genocide by the british government...

The legal definition, as far as I am aware, includes the very important distinction that any action must be done with the intent to destroy in whole or part of an ethnic group. The landowners and government didn't cause the potato blight to wipe out a population, nor did they export the food for the express purposes of destroying the irish/scottish people - they just didn't care that was also the end result.

sensibleken

K-9 wrote: »

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".

hmmm. I would definetely say that there is denial and ignorance about our history.

Most of Irish history seems to be 1916 and famine centric, few people could name three high kings, tell you what laudabiliter was, brehon law, or anything positive thats happened in our history. Honestly, it wasnt all bad.

I think perhaps we're getting a bit tied up on the word genocide. It really doesny change what happened, although I do take the case that it changes peoples perceptions from something natural to something man made

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Allegations of genocide have been successfully upheld in the Yugoslav
In Ireland, over a million people were starved to death while food was exported at gunpoint out of the country, and a million more forced to emigrate, so that the self-acknowledged 'policy of extermination' enacted by the then government could achieve it's aim of 'a Celt on the banks of the Shannon being as rare as a Redskin on the banks of the Hudson river.'

Just to clarify, that was not a self acknowledged policy of the government but rather an accusation by the lord lieutenant, he may have been their representative in Ireland but he was speaking back at the government about policies he had no hand in developing. No government minister stated they were conducting such a policy.

curlzy

sensibleken wrote: »

hmmm. I would definetely say that there is denial and ignorance about our history.

Most of Irish history seems to be 1916 and famine centric, few people could name three high kings, tell you what laudabiliter was, brehon law, or anything positive thats happened in our history. Honestly, it wasnt all bad.

I think perhaps we're getting a bit tied up on the word genocide. It really doesny change what happened, although I do take the case that it changes peoples perceptions from something natural to something man made

Have to agree, we were one of the first countries to have equality betweent the sexes (ok we had slavery too, but still), brehon law was way ahead of it's time, until the ****ing christians came in and ****ed that up in the 6th century.

sensibleken

curlzy wrote: »

Have to agree, we were one of the first countries to have equality betweent the sexes (ok we had slavery too, but still), brehon law was way ahead of it's time, until the ****ing christians came in and ****ed that up in the 6th century.

Although Brehon law was still going after the christians got here. It even improved the situation under things like Adomnáns law and the like. In fact the reason for the Anglo-Norman Invasion was sanctioned by Rome was because the Irish church refused to cow tow to Canon law on subjects like marriage, divorce, womens rights (not quite equal though) etc.

Yup, plenty of positive stuff in our history to celebrate and learn from

Fratton Fred

Cavehill Red wrote: »

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.

The thing is, calling it a famine suits everybody. If the state wanted to call it genocide, then it would have to look at the actions of the Irish people themselves. It is easier to just leave it as it is rather than unravel a whole can of worms.

This extract is from the UCC Multitext on the famine http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine

The Poor and their Betters

The poor could expect little charity from the Irish merchants, shopkeepers, officials, and prosperous farmers who treated them much as Irish society has treated itinerants until the present time. The Nation pointed out on 12 December 1846, that the widespread increase in arms sales, reported in the newspapers, was not for any revolutionary purpose. In fact, the arms were being bought by comfortable farmers to defend their property and crops from attack and theft by the large numbers of the poor and unemployed who wandered the countryside in search of food.

It seems that many evicted small farmers and labourers had held sub-leases, not from Protestant landlords, but from Catholic head tenants and strong farmers who now turned them out. Under pressure from famine, grown children turned out their parents. Fearful of hunger and death, many saved themselves at the expense of neighbours, family, servants, and dependants. Their actions were described by a Quaker observer in 1848 as

‘the most unscrupulous … knavery, cunning & falsehood’.

The survivors’ sense of guilt and shame led to ‘famine denial’ and a transfer of the whole responsibility for starvation and death to others—the Government and the landlords. Few families admitted that any of their members died in the Famine or sought refuge in the workhouse. After the Famine many districts distanced themselves from the shame of famine: they claimed, wrongly, that they were unaffected, while others suffered.

The poor had long been spiritually neglected by a Roman Catholic clergy whose care was principally for the better-off elements in society. However, in the moment of crisis, most clergy of all denominations (though there were exceptions), usually in an unwonted spirit of ecumenical cooperation, were effective advocates of their starving flocks, publicists on their behalf, and tireless helpers in the relief efforts. Besides, clergy of all churches suffered severe losses by ministering, in workhouses and parishes, to the fevered and the dying. In 1847 forty Protestant parish clergy died from famine fever, sufficient evidence of their selfless care for the distressed. However, a small minority of Protestant clergymen, mostly evangelical New Reformers, engaged in proselytism, urging the people to change their religion in return for food. This was vigorously denounced by Roman Catholic priests in sectarian terms. The best known of these attempts is Edward Nangle’s Protestant colony in Achill but there were many others. These attempts at conversion generally failed: most converts returned to Catholicism, as the 1861 Census shows, and English support for the Protestant mission in Ireland fell away.

I wonder if this is the "Attitude of the People" that Trevellyan spoke about?

Donkey Oaty

Fratton Fred wrote: »

This extract is from the UCC Multitext on the famine http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine

Great link there, Fred. The "Private Responses to the Famine" section is full of gems that have a peculiar resonance today.

Here's an example:

Lord Londonderry, one of the ten richest men in the United Kingdom, who owned land in counties Down, Derry, Donegal and Antrim, in addition to property in Britain, was criticised for his meanness: he and his wife gave £30 to the local relief committee, but spent £150,000 renovating their house.

Cavehill Red

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

But of course, because that allows you to cling onto the idea that irish & scottish landowners selling food over the heads of their countrymen was actually genocide by the british government...

The legal definition, as far as I am aware, includes the very important distinction that any action must be done with the intent to destroy in whole or part of an ethnic group. The landowners and government didn't cause the potato blight to wipe out a population, nor did they export the food for the express purposes of destroying the irish/scottish people - they just didn't care that was also the end result.

British government documents, and contemporary media make clear that the state wished to clear the land of Irish people so as to plant it with Britons.
Pursuing a policy which has the direct OR indirect effect of mass death is genocide under the terms of the Hague convention.
Whether the same intent was there to clear the Highlands of Scotland, I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me given two previous attempts by London to do so in the previous century.

Cavehill Red

sensibleken wrote: »

Just to clarify, that was not a self acknowledged policy of the government but rather an accusation by the lord lieutenant, he may have been their representative in Ireland but he was speaking back at the government about policies he had no hand in developing. No government minister stated they were conducting such a policy.

Remind me where Himmler stated they were conducting genocide again?
Clarendon himself called it a policy of extermination because that's what it was. No one was better positioned than he was to call it at that time.
I don't see why people are insisting on seeing some sort of mythical document marked 'Genocide of the Irish people, 1847' from the archive in Kew before they accept that it fulfils all the criteria of the Hague convention.
No one's ever found a document marked 'Der Genozid der Juden aber Adolf Hitler' because there isn't one. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a genocide.

Cavehill Red

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The thing is, calling it a famine suits everybody. If the state wanted to call it genocide, then it would have to look at the actions of the Irish people themselves. It is easier to just leave it as it is rather than unravel a whole can of worms.

The same applies in every genocide. There were people who tried to prevent atrocity and people who exacerbated it in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Nazi Europe too.
I'd very much welcome what you call 'a can of worms' being opened. Why is it preferable for people to be ignorant of their own history, and commemorate false history?
This is only a few generations ago. The buildings, the ghost villages, the mounds of dead can all still be seen and visited. It's pertinent to today, in other words. I'd love for people to know about what actually happened in the 1840s where they lived, to know who tried to help (often Protestant missionaries) and who did not (like local landowners and the military.)

Ickle Magoo

Cavehill Red wrote: »

British government documents, and contemporary media make clear that the state wished to clear the land of Irish people so as to plant it with Britons.
Pursuing a policy which has the direct OR indirect effect of mass death is genocide under the terms of the Hague convention.
Whether the same intent was there to clear the Highlands of Scotland, I don't know. But it wouldn't surprise me given two previous attempts by London to do so in the previous century.

Wishing to have the lands cleared and pursuing a policy of deliberate & systematic extermination are two different things, let's be clear.

I think the suffering endured by the peasantry in scotland, ireland and northern england was horrendous and the boorish superiority and lack of any shred of humanity shown by certain members of the irish and scottish aristocracy and the british government was and is absolutely unforgivable - however, that still doesn't constitute the british government identifying and singling out irish people with the express purposes of killing them for being irish. The peasantry all over europe experienced food crises precisely because they were peasants.

That said, if all criteria is met under international law to consider the irish and highland potato famines as genocide or the highland clearances as ethnic cleansing, why hasn't already done so? If it's a clear case with plenty of supporting evidence then I look forward to a ruling by the united nations shortly.

Cavehill Red

The UN is only going to rule on cases where people can be prosecuted today. That's why it doesn't address the Armenian genocide either.
The issue here is that the Jewish, Armenian, Cambodian and Rwandan survivors of genocide were quick and insistent to ensure that the atrocity they had lived through was acknowledged as such. In the case of the Armenians, they are still insisting despite fierce resistance from the inheriting power of the guilty party.
By contrast, Ireland and the Highlands remained firmly under colonial rule, and people in both have thus far failed to insist on the atrocity being properly considered. Of course, some have. I'd be one of them.
In the current climate of a reorganisation of power structures on these islands, with an independent state in most of Ireland and a devolved parliament in Scotland, I don't see why people ought to remain in denial of their history any longer.
It's primarily an issue of education. That's why I'd like to see that 'can of worms' opened. Imagine trying to tell Jewish people to get over the holocaust and let it go. That it was a 'can of worm' for all involved.

Ickle Magoo

Again, if it's an open and shut case we wouldn't be having this discussion - it would have been declared a genocide. I'm sure the irish & scottish people and the irish & scottish government would have demanded retrospective acknowledgement of westminster having implemented a deliberate and systematic policy of ethnic destruction - but I suspect the sheer numbers of scots and irish who played a part in their own peoples misery would render the title & any demands to acknowledge the events as genocide, absurd.

Far from stemming from a lack of education the scots, at least, are taught all about the highland clearances and the famines as part of the compulsory school syllabus. I don't know who says "get over it" - I know the scots have far from forgiven westminster for treatment met and being considered second class citizens but they also have had to accept the part their own forefathers played in proceedings.

Cavehill Red

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Again, if it's an open and shut case we wouldn't be having this discussion - it would have been declared a genocide. I'm sure the irish & scottish people and the irish & scottish government would have demanded retrospective acknowledgement of westminster having implemented a deliberate and systematic policy of ethnic destruction - but I suspect the sheer numbers of scots and irish who played a part in their own peoples misery would render the title & any demands to acknowledge the events as genocide, absurd.

How so? Plenty of Jews profited during WW2. Plenty of Bosnians likewise in the early Nineties. The examination of culpability is one of the reasons we should be honest with ourselves about what happened. Terming the genocide a 'famine' merely exonerates both the British colonial government AND those local landowners of responsibility for what occurred.

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Far from stemming from a lack of education the scots, at least, are taught all about the highland clearances and the famines as part of the compulsory school syllabus. I don't know who says "get over it" - I know the scots have far from forgiven westminster for treatment met and being considered second class citizens but they also have had to accept the part their own forefathers played in proceedings.

But they aren't taught as genocides, is the issue. Which makes it counterfactual.
I'd hazard the following guess too - they're taught those syllabi in English too. That itself is evidence that a genocide occurred. The Highlands, after all, were strongly Gallic-speaking prior to the repeated attempts to wipe out the inhabitants.

Donal Og O Baelach

We can equate it with the attitude that reigned when fat Generals sat in their chateaus drinking brandy while sending tens of thousands of young English, Irish, Scottish, etc, lads to charge machine guns and die for nothing in 1914 - 18. It wasn't the location of their birth that put them there, it was their position in society. These same atitudes reigned throughout Europe for centuries, until they were overthrown with the likes of the French andt the Russian revolutions.

Fratton Fred

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Great link there, Fred. The "Private Responses to the Famine" section is full of gems that have a peculiar resonance today.

Here's an example:

I think lord Lucan in particular was singled out in the House of Commons, for criticism.

This is why i can't understand what the British had to gain from killing off the Irish as Cavehill seems to think. Many of these landlords were making a fortune exploitung their tenant farmers and subsequently went bankrupt when they all left their land, for one reason or another.

If you are making money by exploiting people, why on earth would you want to kill them off? seems a bit pointless to me.

Cavehill Red

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I think lord Lucan in particular was singled out in the House of Commons, for criticism.

This is why i can't understand what the British had to gain from killing off the Irish as Cavehill seems to think. Many of these landlords were making a fortune exploitung their tenant farmers and subsequently went bankrupt when they all left their land, for one reason or another.

If you are making money by exploiting people, why on earth would you want to kill them off? seems a bit pointless to me.

Because the authorities didn't have the landlords' interests in mind either. The issue was lebensraum. Too many Gaelic speaking Irish remained a constant threat to the colonial authority. Far better to repeat the events of the early Seventeenth century and clear the land for plantation.
When the blight occurred (not the first mass starvation in Ireland in which the authorities stood idly by either), it was the perfect opportunity to permit 'providence', by which they understood God's will, to do the job for them.
As things deteriorated, they ensured that sufficient food was shipped from Ireland at gunpoint so that similar starvation in England would be alleviated. In this regard, they assisted the landlords temporarily, by ensuring their ongoing incomes.
But as coffin ships began arriving in North America, and word got out globally of the state of the situation in Ireland, the government was shamed into taking token action, which consisted of limited workfare schemes and the facilitation of private soup kitchens, which were shortly discontinued.
While all this was happening, the media in London crowed about making the Irish extinct and planting the land, and the authorities spoke among themselves of their policy of extermination.

Ickle Magoo

Cavehill Red wrote: »

I'd hazard the following guess too - they're taught those syllabi in English too. That itself is evidence that a genocide occurred. The Highlands, after all, were strongly Gallic-speaking prior to the repeated attempts to wipe out the inhabitants.

You'd be wrong - scotland and england have different education systems & therefore different syllabi.

I know what the highlands & islands were, since that's where me & mine hail - in fact scots gaelic was my grandparents first language.

Donal Og O Baelach wrote: »

We can equate it with the attitude that reigned when fat Generals sat in their chateaus drinking brandy while sending tens of thousands of young English, Irish, Scottish, etc, lads to charge machine guns and die for nothing in 1914 - 16. It wasn't the location of their birth that put them there, it was their position in society. These same atitudes reigned throughout Europe for centuries, until they were overthrown with the likes of the French andt the Russian revolutions.

Lions led by donkeys, isn't that the famous expression? We visited the somme, tyne cot and passhendaele as part of a history trip. The rows and rows of graves for as far as the eye can see of young lads sent out as cannon fodder by generals only given their stripes by virtue of being nobility is something I'll never forget.

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Because the authorities didn't have the landlords' interests in mind either. The issue was lebensraum. Too many Gaelic speaking Irish remained a constant threat to the colonial authority. Far better to repeat the events of the early Seventeenth century and clear the land for plantation.
When the blight occurred (not the first mass starvation in Ireland in which the authorities stood idly by either), it was the perfect opportunity to permit 'providence', by which they understood God's will, to do the job for them.
As things deteriorated, they ensured that sufficient food was shipped from Ireland at gunpoint so that similar starvation in England would be alleviated. In this regard, they assisted the landlords temporarily, by ensuring their ongoing incomes.
But as coffin ships began arriving in North America, and word got out globally of the state of the situation in Ireland, the government was shamed into taking token action, which consisted of limited workfare schemes and the facilitation of private soup kitchens, which were shortly discontinued.
While all this was happening, the media in London crowed about making the Irish extinct and planting the land, and the authorities spoke among themselves of their policy of extermination.

Some of the media reporting was anti- irish, others was not.

Illustrated London produced a series of accurate scetches and reports from skibereen on the famine at a time when a lot of the reports were thought to be exageration
(Daniel O'Connell, the British Press and the Irish Famine, Leslie Williams, p211)

When emigration and the worforce schemes were initiated Russell was PM, Peels attempts at aid had occured way before that.

Its precisely this dichotomy which makes an arguement for genocide hard to sustain. Yes there were policies if viewed in isolation that bare comparrison to the Nazis but when you factor in other opinions at the time and other actions it looks less and less like the key word, intent, was there.

Also I do not see these as an intention to create lebensraum as you put it. That case can be easily made with regards to 1649-52 but could you supply a link to something that shows intent to clear land in ireland for use by british farmers?

Cavehill Red

Try the infamous 1847 Times editorial.

Cavehill Red

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

You'd be wrong - scotland and england have different education systems & therefore different syllabi.

How am I wrong? Unless you're suggesting the Scottish syllabus isn't taught through the English language?

Fratton Fred

Living space for who? Are you suggesting that the ruling classes wanted to move their cheap labour away from the factories and mills to replace the Irish farmers?

sensibleken

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Try the infamous 1847 Times editorial.

there were a lot of editorials that year. can you link to which one shows an intention by the government, not a journalist, to remove Irish people and replace them with British people?

Ickle Magoo

Cavehill Red wrote: »

How am I wrong? Unless you're suggesting the Scottish syllabus isn't taught through the English language?

What I mean is that schools in england and scotland don't share a syllabus regardless of language - if you are meaning that I didn't learn history in the gaelic then you'd be right. But then I was schooled in the lowlands where the the historic local vernacular would have been scots.

Much like ireland the lack of spoken gaelic in scotland is as much to do with unenthusiastic locals as anything else. Where my family hail from, and still croft, 75% of the local population speaks gaelic fluently.