The Great Irish Famine

phill106

My name is URL wrote: »

It wasn't really a famine.. was it? =/

It should be a crime to deny the fact that there was a famine, similar to the crime of denying the holocaust of WW2.
And really.. A smiley?!

Wild Bill

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Care to explain how a man made famine is not a famine?

If I lock you up and starve you - you die of starvation. But it isn't a famine. Geddit?

It was a man made mass starvation; aka genocide.

We call it the famine for political reasons - we don't want anyone to be able to use the genocide as justification for modern day rebellion.

In fact, one RTE Groupthinker yesterday referred to it as the "potato famine"!

Y'now, they think it was the potatoes that starved.

Cú Giobach

Wild Bill wrote: »

If I lock you up and starve you - you die of starvation. But it isn't a famine. Geddit?

It was a man made mass starvation; aka genocide.

We call it the famine for political reasons - we don't want anyone to be able to use the genocide as justification for modern day rebellion.

In fact, one RTE Groupthinker yesterday referred to it as the "potato famine"!

Y'now, they think it was the potatoes that starved.

A famine is defined as "An extreme scarcity of food over a large area", how that scarcity comes about is not relevant.
In German it is called "Hungersnot" meaning "Hunger-distress" as it is in most other germanic languages. English took its form from the Latin word for hunger "Fames" (which is also the root of the word "Famished").

Famine means Hunger.
What happened here was a man made famine.
If someone wants to use famine for genocide you don't stop calling it a famine.

lividduck

Wild Bill wrote: »

Ah! I think we misunderstand.....I wasn't criticizing the victims for not rebelling; the "million" I referred to were the Irish who formed the armed guards for the exports, populated the British Forces, the Dublin middle classes and all the rest who make any Imperial occupation possible.

No Empire in history could have survived past the initial conquest without the local Quislings - it is by no means just an Irish thing.

It's the same sort of criminal self-interest and/or craven cowardice that will lead to a "yes" vote on May 31st. That's what I think the poster was saying and I was agreeing with that

Strange how you demand "Democracy" in one part of the world in another thread , yet show your abject loathing for the democratic will of the people expressed in a free and fair ballot as "criminal self-interest and/or craven cowardice" in this one.

ch750536

An emotional subject....
In a large part capitalism was trusted to sort the issue, that failed badly and showed poor judgement of the 'leaders' of the time.
The west received food aid, the cities received sponsored work. The west generally fared better than the cities.
Imagine for a moment there was no occupation at the time. When the crop completely failed in 1847 would things have been any different?

fryup

why didn't they grow turnips, cabbage, beetroot.. instead?

Dravokivich

Shryke wrote: »

With regards to Holocaust denial laws: it's not Orwellian thought crime though is it? It's espousing belief as far as I know which is a different kettle of fish. Rhetoric and propoganda and the like are what the law is there to prevent, and I have to say I don't see anything wrong with it when the law is only defending the existence of a horrible atrocity that occured in history.

The problem with it is, that it implies a guilt the next generation have to accept as a burden unto themselves for actions they were not in anyway responsible for.

And it has come up with a few German people I've worked with who'd be around the same age as me ( Mid / Late 20's).

A law is meant to protect the people, not to guilt trip them.

ch750536

fryup wrote: »

why didn't they grow turnips, cabbage, beetroot.. instead?

Although perhaps flippant a very good question.
Since they were introduced they quickly became a staple, they also proved a good return for land owners as they needed little work.
The crop had failed nearly 20% of the time in some areas & they had warning of blight 2 years before it happened in the US but they still continued.
Bad leadership, bad judgement but also bad luck.

fryup

fryup wrote: »

why didn't they grow turnips, cabbage, beetroot.. instead?

ch750536 wrote: »

Although perhaps flippant a very good question.

wasn't being flippant, the above crops mentioned hardly ever fail

and while i'm at it.. the rivers and lakes were full of fish...why not fish?? (not flippant)

Hannibal Smith

Are people now saying the famine wasn't a famine :eek: Isn't it the same case in most famine affected places, that it could all be avoided if the wealth of the country was evenly distributed?

There were plenty of other crops grown on the island, but they were shipped off to other British colonies. They had a small amount of land to grow as much as they could.

It's sad the Irish have come to trivialising even this.

Crooked Jack

Famine? Maybe not technically.
Attempted genocide? Definitely.

Duggy747

maiden wrote: »

100% agree there was no famine.

My uncle from Tullamore was instrumental in creating what is now the Irish Hunger Memorial in Battery Park NY, when it came to naming the memorial The famine he firmly stood his ground literally and refused to let it happen as it was NOT a famine, it was man made,

Thanks to him it is known as The Irish Hunger Memorial (An Gorta Mor)

there is a FB page which is fantastic and even gone as far as getting the history books in some states in the US to change from using the word famine and telling the facts as they are!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent!

I was in New York 9 years ago and came across this by complete accident, since then it's been bugging me as to what the name of it was as it's a spot I want to go back to.

It has stones from all countys (each one marked) and a rebuilt cottage belonging to some family during the 19th century, I think.

If I remember it's not too far of a walk from where you get off the boat after visiting Ellis island.

Ostrom

fryup wrote: »

wasn't being flippant, the above crops mentioned hardly ever fail

and while i'm at it.. the rivers and lakes were full of fish...why not fish?? (not flippant)

Those who suffered most were the cottier class who subsisted on 1-2 acre sublet plots in return for their labour. Occupiers of all classes were bound to pay rents, which were met through the sale of grain. Potatoes acted as a primer for corn, and allowed the cottier class to emerge due to the ability of the potato to provide subsistence on so small a plot. Many landlords charged levies for turf cutting, and shore charges for gathering seaweed (fertilizer). Fishing was both capital and time-intensive; with rent and other obligations such as county cess and turbary levies, it was not viable for many.

swimming in a sea

the price of a large chip must have gone through the roof:eek:

Cú Giobach

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Famine? Maybe not .
Attempted genocide? Definitely.

How was the famine that occurred here during the mid 19th century maybe not technically a famine?

I could call a cow a sheep if I decided to use my own arbitrary definitions for things, but that tends to make communication difficult, so why are people making up their own definitions for the word "famine"?

Fratton Fred

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Famine? Maybe not technically.
Attempted genocide? Definitely.

I know i am going to regret this, but on what basis was it genocide?

maiden

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Care to explain how a man made famine is not a famine?

No

maiden

In my opinion it was genocide, I am not anti English and have no political views!

But I have read the actual events of that time and that is my conclusion, simple!

cbyrd

Famine as we term it today means a widespread scarcity of food.. the 'famine ' in Ireland wasn't cos they still produced lots of foods/crops that were shipped out of the country to England. It was common practice to close ports in time of blight so there'd be enough to feed the home population, but in the 1840's the British government left the ports open and shipped out the food with the army guarding the ports and the food depots..

They also had no way to fight back if they were thrown off the land they farmed for generations, this led to the poorhouse where disease was rife death was almost a surety.. so not really the same thing as no available food..

Fratton Fred

maiden wrote: »

In my opinion it was genocide, I am not anti English and have no political views!

But I have read the actual events of that time and that is my conclusion, simple!

how did you come to that conclusion?

My name is URL

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I know i am going to regret this, but on what basis was it genocide?

How was it not? If the same thing was happening today it'd rightly be called a genocide. There may have been a potato famine at the same time, like there was in various other parts of Europe, but so many died in Ireland as a direct result of the actions of the British.

The courts even tried to block aid from being delivered by the Turks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd%C3%BClmecid_I#Emblem

A popular tale says that in 1845, the onset of the Great Irish Famine resulted in over 1,000,000 deaths. Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send 10,000 sterling to Irish farmers but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only 1,000 sterling, because she had sent only 2,000 sterling. The Sultan sent the 1,000 sterling but also secretly sent 3 ships full of food. The English courts tried to block the ships, but the food arrived at Drogheda harbor and was left there by Ottoman Sailors.[5][6]

Due to this the Irish people, especially those in Drogheda, are friendly to the Turks. This event led to the appearance of Ottoman symbols on Drogheda's coat of arms.

Saying that it was simply a famine is the worst kind of historical revisionism imaginable.

maiden

Fratton Fred wrote: »

how did you come to that conclusion?

What URL said above!

Fratton Fred

cbyrd wrote: »

Famine as we term it today means a widespread scarcity of food.. the 'famine ' in Ireland wasn't cos they still produced lots of foods/crops that were shipped out of the country to England. It was common practice to close ports in time of blight so there'd be enough to feed the home population, but in the 1840's the British government left the ports open and shipped out the food with the army guarding the ports and the food depots..

They also had no way to fight back if they were thrown off the land they farmed for generations, this led to the poorhouse where disease was rife death was almost a surety.. so not really the same thing as no available food..

the food wasnt shipped by the government, that would have been contrary to their lassez faire policy. The food was shipped by Merchants who were responsible for driving up the price of food, so the poor couldn't afford it. The ports would have been guarded by crown soldiers, but a lot of the militia that guarded the food shipments (around the country) were locally recruited militia in the pay of farmers and merchants, not the government.

The Poor houses also complained that hoarding and speculating was forcing the price of food up so the poor houses were struggling to afford it.

Nothingbetter2d

My name is URL wrote: »

It wasn't really a famine.. was it? =/

it was a famine because the brits had knicked all the wheat, oats, and other foods, leaving rotting potatoes for the millions of irish people.

for those wealthy enough to emigrate they had to go through tests before they could board any ship to make sure they didn't have tb (many still had tb but didnt show symptoms). a fair percent of those emigrating died on route from tb, cholera or starvation.

the brits all sat back and watch millions die from starvation or disease as a result of those dying.

Cú Giobach

cbyrd wrote: »

Famine as we term it today means a widespread scarcity of food.. the 'famine ' in Ireland wasn't cos they still produced lots of foods/crops that were shipped out of the country to England. It was common practice to close ports in time of blight so there'd be enough to feed the home population, but in the 1840's the British government left the ports open and shipped out the food with the army guarding the ports and the food depots..

They also had no way to fight back if they were thrown off the land they farmed for generations, this led to the poorhouse where disease was rife death was almost a surety.. so not really the same thing as no available food..

A famine is not the scarcity of food, it is the result of a scarcity of food. If there is loads of food around but people cannot afford to buy it, the result is famine, get it?

Fratton Fred

My name is URL wrote: »

How was it not? If the same thing was happening today it'd rightly be called a genocide. There may have been a potato famine at the same time, like there was in various other parts of Europe, but so many died in Ireland as a direct result of the actions of the British.

The courts even tried to block aid from being delivered by the Turks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd%C3%BClmecid_I#Emblem



Saying that it was simply a famine is the worst kind of historical revisionism imaginable.

You do realise that story about Drogheda has been dis-proven many times over and is nothing but a myth. (My signature might just give you clue as to the origin of Drogheda's crest).

There were no direct actions that caused the deaths, it was a culmination of events. You're right, saying it was simply a famine is not correct, but genocide? no way.

if it was genocide, who was the target, who were the big bad Brits trying to wipe out?

cbyrd

Cú Giobach wrote: »

A famine is not the scarcity of food, it is the result of a scarcity of food. If there is loads of food around but people cannot afford to buy it, the result is famine, get it?

the result of a scarcity of food is malnutrition starvation disease and death. the overall effect of famine.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/famine

it wasn't that they couldn't buy it, it was that food was being withheld from them. there's a huge difference. If you were an Irish catholic in the 17th and 18th century penal law stated you were not allowed vote, be educated, enter a profession, own land or lease it, hold political office or live in or within 5 miles of a corporate town. this led to the Act of Emancipation They grew potatoes as a high calorie filling food that didn't take up too much space so they could grow other crops to sell to pay rents for tiny plots of land.

cbyrd

Fratton Fred wrote: »

if it was genocide, who was the target, who were the big bad Brits trying to wipe out?

If you go back to the 17th 18th century to the introduction of Penal Laws you'll see very clearly who was the target of the British.

http://www.risingroadtours.com/a7_penallaws.htm

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/penallaws.html
just a peek
The Catholic Church forbidden to keep church registers.
The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
He was forbidden to receive education.
He was forbidden to enter a profession.
He was forbidden to hold public office.
He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.
He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.
He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.
He was forbidden to own land.
He was forbidden to lease land.
He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
He was forbidden to vote.
He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.
He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.
He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than 30 shillings a year.
He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.
He could not be guardian to a child.
He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.
He could not attend Catholic worship.
He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.
He could not himself educate his child.
He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.
He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.
He could not send his child abroad to receive education.
* From: MacManus " the story of the Irish Race" 1921.Devin-Adair Publishing Co., New York.

Cú Giobach

cbyrd wrote: »

the result of a scarcity of food is malnutrition starvation disease and death. the overall effect of famine.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/famine

it wasn't that they couldn't buy it, it was that food was being withheld from them. there's a huge difference. If you were an Irish catholic in the 17th and 18th century penal law stated you were not allowed vote, be educated, enter a profession, own land or lease it, hold political office or live in or within 5 miles of a corporate town. this led to the Act of Emancipation They grew potatoes as a high calorie filling food that didn't take up too much space so they could grow other crops to sell to pay rents for tiny plots of land.

You say it wasn't that they couldn't buy food, and then give the very reasons why they couldn't.

From your own link.
famine - a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death.

You can have a severe shortage of food but only when it results in widespread malnutrition is it called a famine, here there was a shortage of food for such a large number of people and so many died as a result, it was a famine.

Fratton Fred

cbyrd wrote: »

If you go back to the 17th 18th century to the introduction of Penal Laws you'll see very clearly who was the target of the British.

http://www.risingroadtours.com/a7_penallaws.htm

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlker/penallaws.html
just a peek
The Catholic Church forbidden to keep church registers.
The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
He was forbidden to receive education.
He was forbidden to enter a profession.
He was forbidden to hold public office.
He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.
He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.
He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.
He was forbidden to own land.
He was forbidden to lease land.
He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
He was forbidden to vote.
He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.
He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.
He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than 30 shillings a year.
He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.
He could not be guardian to a child.
He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.
He could not attend Catholic worship.
He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.
He could not himself educate his child.
He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.
He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.
He could not send his child abroad to receive education.
* From: MacManus " the story of the Irish Race" 1921.Devin-Adair Publishing Co., New York.

the Penal Laws applied to all Catholics and Dissenters, not just Irish ones. you are getting confused though, the claim is that the Mid 19th century famine was genocide. Listing a load of acts that were pretty much entirely repealed by that time doesn't tell us anything.

cbyrd

It was the set up for the famine.. Ireland was ravaged by the time the famine started.. as Benjamin Disreali put it in 1844 Ireland , "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world." One historian calculated that between 1801 and 1845, there had been 114 commissions and 61 special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland and that "without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low."

The Famine was just the icing on the cake..

Fratton Fred

cbyrd wrote: »

It was the set up for the famine.. Ireland was ravaged by the time the famine started.. as Benjamin Disreali put it in 1844 Ireland , "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world." One historian calculated that between 1801 and 1845, there had been 114 commissions and 61 special committees inquiring into the state of Ireland and that "without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low."

The Famine was just the icing on the cake..

The Duke of Wellington warned of famine as well.

It doesn't make it genocide though.

cbyrd

More people were killed by malnutrition-related diseases (such as dysentry and scurvy) as well as cholera that swept through the famine-ravaged countryside, than by actual starvation. While already prevalent in the west, many of these diseases spreads most effectively in damp conditions where people live closely together. Dysentry is not caused by hunger, and its incidence was not significantly higher during the famine as before. However, recovery from Dysentry depends upon good nutrition and in many cases this was unavailable. The Cholera epidemic was coindicental to the famine, but was responsible for a large number of deaths. It was the closely packed west that suffered most from these effects.

cbyrd

Genocide is a very strong word but what word would you put on it?
The British government at the time turned a blind eye, took the food that could've been made available to the people who were starving and could have in the first place allowed a population to help itself.. they did everything in their power to take the country from it's people and leave them to mass starvation and disease.. What word would you apply?

Mr.Biscuits

My name is URL wrote: »

It wasn't really a famine.. was it? =/

You're not really serious.. are you? =/

Fratton Fred

cbyrd wrote: »

Genocide is a very strong word but what word would you put on it?
The British government at the time turned a blind eye, took the food that could've been made available to the people who were starving and could have in the first place allowed a population to help itself.. they did everything in their power to take the country from it's people and leave them to mass starvation and disease.. What word would you apply?

the government didn't take the food. They just turned a blind eye to it being exported.

The merchants, middlemen and to an extent, the farmers one of two rungs up the ladder were making a fortune on the spiralling price of food. They weren't in a hurry to start giving it away.

golden lane

cbyrd wrote: »

Genocide is a very strong word but what word would you put on it?
The British government at the time turned a blind eye, took the food that could've been made available to the people who were starving and could have in the first place allowed a population to help itself.. they did everything in their power to take the country from it's people and leave them to mass starvation and disease.. What word would you apply?

a complete disregard for people and their sufferings........as was the order of the day.....

only a few years later.....they treated their own soldiers with the same lack of compassion in the crimean war.....


of course, the europeans (many irish included)..did the same with the american indians.............."we want land, and we don't care how we get it"....

thank god we have moved on a bit from there.........

My name is URL

phill106 wrote: »

It should be a crime to deny the fact that there was a famine, similar to the crime of denying the holocaust of WW2.
And really.. A smiley?!

Well, I wasn't trying to deny that it ever happened. I just think that calling it merely a famine is simplistic and ignorant of other factors that were in play at the time.

Min

fryup wrote: »

why didn't they grow turnips, cabbage, beetroot.. instead?

Because potatoes produced the most food for the land required, other crops were grown but they were to pay for the rent of the land.

It should be remembered the British not long after the Irish famine allowed millions to die in India in famines not that long after the Irish famine, it shows how the rulers in Britain had learned nothing from what happened on their doorstep in Ireland.

Crooked Jack

Cú Giobach wrote: »

How was the famine that occurred here during the mid 19th century maybe not technically a famine?

I could call a cow a sheep if I decided to use my own arbitrary definitions for things, but that tends to make communication difficult, so why are people making up their own definitions for the word "famine"?

I just think the term famine is too simplistic for what actually happened.
Im not making up my own definitions, a famine is, at its most basic description, a general shortage of food. But there wasnt a general shortage of food. Working class catholics were disproportionately affected while the landed class were not.
There was plenty of other food apart from the potato being produced in Ireland but it was being exported out of the country by English or quisling landlords (most nauseatingly to British troops abroad.)
Since landlords owned much of the land in any area hunting and fishing on "their property" was often forbidden with extreme punishments for "offenders." In fact statistics show that deaths from hunger were less common in coastal areas where people could fish freely.
Furthermore when crops failed and people couldnt afford rent landlords were all to eager to turf them out of their homes leading to more deaths from the elements and disease.
It just seems to me that attempted genocide or An Gorta Mor, is a more appropriate name for what happened than "famine."
"Famine" implies their was no food when their quite clearly was, it was just a case of who was and who wasnt getting it.

Min

Fratton Fred wrote: »

the government didn't take the food. They just turned a blind eye to it being exported.

The merchants, middlemen and to an extent, the farmers one of two rungs up the ladder were making a fortune on the spiralling price of food. They weren't in a hurry to start giving it away.

I think you will find the majority of the population were in the agricultural sector with farming on a subsistent level.

Min

It was a famine because there was a lack of food for the ordinary people, people died from famine related diseases due to weak immune systems from the effects of malnutrition and hunger.
The ships leaving with people became known as coffin ships as people too weak and vunerable to disease died in large numbers.

It doesn't matter if free market economics was the cause or the dependence on one crop. At the most basic level what happened meets the criteria to call it a famine.

yuppies

Anyone else think Charles Trevelyan looks a bit like Chris Morris?

http://multitext.ucc.ie/images/thumbnails/682.jpg

cbyrd

Fratton Fred wrote: »

the government didn't take the food. They just turned a blind eye to it being exported.

The merchants, middlemen and to an extent, the farmers one of two rungs up the ladder were making a fortune on the spiralling price of food. They weren't in a hurry to start giving it away.

But why not close the ports then and why guard the food for export with a shoot to kill order for anyone who steals it? And sentencing of deportation to Van Dieman's Land..

The merchants did object to the import of food in 1845 but Lord John Russell the Prime Minister of the time would only allow relief to Munster and Donegal and refused to allow it out to the rest of the affected areas in 1846 when the death toll started to rise dramatically. They were hoping that the merchants, who promised to supply food to the home markets, and the employment scheme set up in 1845 would work, but with the work houses at full capacity (100,000) by the end of 1845 and the money from the employment scheme often late and delays in getting the food aid into the region, the plan was not working.
When people from rural areas started moving into to townships they were initially looked after but when the famine fever hit, they were turned away..people relied on private charity and the Society of Friends in America and Britain and of the local priests. In the winter of 1846/47 tens of thousands of people died. It was only now that the British Government realised that they're plan didn't work. It was a complete disaster with nearly 5 million being spent on employment works that failed. In the summer of 47 they finally decided to take Peel's advice and start to give out food rations to everyone who needed it.
Although there was not enough of it and it was poor quality the rate of death from starvation decreased the rate of death from disease rose. It was a complete failure from successive British Governments ignoring the problem that led to the halving of the Irish population through death and Emigration.

kowloon

Sauve wrote: »

Maybe, but the Germans feel so strongly about the wrong that was done that they've made it a crime to deny it. I think that's fair enough.

As an aside, I think being a moron should be a crime unto itself, but that's a debate for another day!

What the Germans have done is drive neo-nazis underground, given them a sense that they're being persecuted and persuading others that there must be more to it if the government are so worried about denial.

I'm in favour of keeping it all in the open and let people speak their bit. Bad arguments kill themselves when they have to compete on an open stage.

Cú Giobach

Crooked Jack wrote: »

I just think the term famine is too simplistic for what actually happened.
Im not making up my own definitions, a famine is, at its most basic description, a general shortage of food. But there wasnt a general shortage of food. Working class catholics were disproportionately affected while the landed class were not.
There was plenty of other food apart from the potato being produced in Ireland but it was being exported out of the country by English or quisling landlords (most nauseatingly to British troops abroad.)
Since landlords owned much of the land in any area hunting and fishing on "their property" was often forbidden with extreme punishments for "offenders." In fact statistics show that deaths from hunger were less common in coastal areas where people could fish freely.
Furthermore when crops failed and people couldnt afford rent landlords were all to eager to turf them out of their homes leading to more deaths from the elements and disease.
It just seems to me that attempted genocide or An Gorta Mor, is a more appropriate name for what happened than "famine."
"Famine" implies their was no food when their quite clearly was, it was just a case of who was and who wasnt getting it.

How is calling a famine a famine "simplistic".
A famine implies one thing, masses of people dying of starvation itself or illness and diseases brought on by or enhanced by malnutrition.
The causes and reasons for the famine (so called because it was a fucking famine) are irrelevant to whether it was or wasn't a famine, as is the fact that there was food around, if you can't avail of that food it has the same result as it not being there, famine.

Fratton Fred

Min wrote: »

I think you will find the majority of the population were in the agricultural sector with farming on a subsistent level.

yes, in reality it was only the very bottom rung of the ladder that was decimated, but that would have been a huge number of people.

cbyrd

Cú Giobach wrote: »

How is calling a famine a famine "simplistic".
A famine implies one thing, masses of people dying of starvation itself or illness and diseases brought on by or enhanced by malnutrition.
The causes and reasons for the famine (so called because it was a fucking famine) are irrelevant to whether it was or wasn't a famine, as is the fact that there was food around, if you can't avail of that food it has the same result as it not being there, famine.

Because it wasn't just the effect of the potato failure for 5 years that caused it. Irish Catholics (80% of the population) were starving, living in hovels unable to work or better themselves because penal law said they couldn't. The Famine became official in 1845. Catholic Emancipation was granted in 1829, however British Absentee Landlords, Anglo Irish landowners had limitless power over their tenants, the revenue was sent to England as were the crops and livestock harvested by the tenant, who lived on the easy to produce potato, until the blight. The hardship started way before there was no potatoes

Fratton Fred

cbyrd wrote: »

But why not close the ports then and why guard the food for export with a shoot to kill order for anyone who steals it? And sentencing of deportation to Van Dieman's Land..

The merchants did object to the import of food in 1845 but Lord John Russell the Prime Minister of the time would only allow relief to Munster and Donegal and refused to allow it out to the rest of the affected areas in 1846 when the death toll started to rise dramatically. They were hoping that the merchants, who promised to supply food to the home markets, and the employment scheme set up in 1845 would work, but with the work houses at full capacity (100,000) by the end of 1845 and the money from the employment scheme often late and delays in getting the food aid into the region, the plan was not working.
When people from rural areas started moving into to townships they were initially looked after but when the famine fever hit, they were turned away..people relied on private charity and the Society of Friends in America and Britain and of the local priests. In the winter of 1846/47 tens of thousands of people died. It was only now that the British Government realised that they're plan didn't work. It was a complete disaster with nearly 5 million being spent on employment works that failed. In the summer of 47 they finally decided to take Peel's advice and start to give out food rations to everyone who needed it.
Although there was not enough of it and it was poor quality the rate of death from starvation decreased the rate of death from disease rose. It was a complete failure from successive British Governments ignoring the problem that led to the halving of the Irish population through death and Emigration.

anyone trying to steal would have been shot or sent to Oz, in London kids were rounded up and sent there for daring to look a bit shifty.

You've summed it up nicely, there were several things that could have been done, but the Laissez Faire policy was a complete disaster.

But it was insensitive, uncaring and a total shambles, but it wasn't genocide.

My name is URL

"The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated... The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people."

- Charles Trevelyan, Administrator of famine relief