Making a Documentary on The Famine

Siuin

I was doing some geneology work the other day and realised that a whole host of my relatives died in the famine- it's one thing to learn about the famine in an abstract way, but I must say that really brought it close to home...

9959

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

At GAA matches during the famine,visiting Dublin fans especially when playing in the west of Ireland taunted the home supporters by waving various food stuffs and cookery books at them

Does anyone know just who was the Darina Allen of the late 1840's?

Qualitymark

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

At GAA matches during the famine,visiting Dublin fans especially when playing in the west of Ireland taunted the home supporters by waving various food stuffs and cookery books at them

Really? That's impressive. I didn't realise time travel was perfected in 1884 when the GAA was founded, allowing members to appear on the sidelines in 1847.

The Darina Allen of the 1840s was Alexis Soyer, by the way. His help during the Famine crashed his stellar career.

9959

Qualitymark wrote: »

Really? That's impressive. I didn't realise time travel was perfected in 1884 when the GAA was founded, allowing members to appear on the sidelines in 1847.

The Darina Allen of the 1840s was Alexis Soyer, by the way. His help during the Famine crashed his stellar career.

It was perfected in 1884, so they travelled backwards in time to wave their 'coffee table' cookery books in 1847. Simple.

billybudd

steddyeddy wrote: »

She still gave feck all. They were both useless to us really.

I agree, just adding an interesting fact.

Qualitymark

OP, have you thought of posting your request in the History forum, and perhaps also in some of the regional forums where it'll be seen by Cork, Donegal, Clare and Mayo people - areas that were the hardest hit by blight, famine and fever?

In the History forum you're going to find people with an educated interest in history and ancestry. There's also a Genealogy forum.

CruelCoin

http://bbsimg.ngfiles.com/1/23924000/ngbbs4f99f04a1e7a2.jpg

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Qualitymark wrote: »

Those who fought for independence knew that a self-governing Ireland would be committed to its citizens, whereas the British government of the time had an attitude of racist contempt towards the Irish population.

Is it fair to say that this was their intention, and the position is a logical one taking that account of the significance of the Famine - that institutions didn't exist that would help organise our resources to best effect in difficult times, so we needed our own.

Yet, we then have to cope with some of the failures of that independent State. That revolutionary generation had a belief that, with the British gone, Ireland would achieve great things. Instead, 80% of people born in the 1930s emigrated in the 1950s. The language revival became a farce. And you can take your own read on what happened when the Catholic Church found that 90% of the population were subscribers.

All of which is terribly disillusioning. But, I suppose, what I'm feeling around for is the positive message.

Qualitymark wrote: »

And yes, the British feel that they "won" the Battle of Britain. Perhaps if they'd been invaded and conquered by the Nazis they mightn't, though.

Oh, indeed, and I half recall that novel SS-GB where Len Deighton speculated over what an occupied Britain might have been like. My point is more that, if you've a national achievement, it can give collective confidence in the ability to achieve good things together.

Qualitymark

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Is it fair to say that this was their intention, and the position is a logical one taking that account of the significance of the Famine - that institutions didn't exist that would help organise our resources to best effect in difficult times, so we needed our own.

Yet, we then have to cope with some of the failures of that independent State. That revolutionary generation had a belief that, with the British gone, Ireland would achieve great things. Instead, 80% of people born in the 1930s emigrated in the 1950s. The language revival became a farce. And you can take your own read on what happened when the Catholic Church found that 90% of the population were subscribers.

All of which is terribly disillusioning. But, I suppose, what I'm feeling around for is the positive message.Oh, indeed, and I half recall that novel SS-GB where Len Deighton speculated over what an occupied Britain might have been like. My point is more that, if you've a national achievement, it can give collective confidence in the ability to achieve good things together.

I agree with everything you say. The idealists of 1916 were executed; those who remained were largely driven out after the Civil War. Our Republic inherited the merciless right-wing Catholic values of the colonial era.

And yes, national achievement gives collective confidence. We were getting there with the Celtic Tiger - multinationals hiving off tech and pharma and finance SMEs, a growing export business - until those corrupt ... people ... took it all from us by artificially pumping up the cost of housing and land to make profit for themselves and their buddies.

9959

Qualitymark wrote: »

I agree with everything you say. The idealists of 1916 were executed; those who remained were largely driven out after the Civil War. Our Republic inherited the merciless right-wing Catholic values of the colonial era. ............

I refer you to 'the Bible' of historical research Wikipedia (joke), but here goes:

"Pearse's reputation and writings were subject to critisism by some historians who saw him as a dangerous, fanatical, psychologically unsound individual under ultra-religious influences"

So perhaps the "merciless right-wing Catholic values of the colonial era" might have remained intact, or even strengthened, under the leadership of the god-fearing Pearse.

podgemonster

OP I'd recommend visiting the Famine Heritage Centre in Skibbereen, West Cork and from there walking down to the mass graves in the Abbey Graveyard where 8,000 - 10,000 bodies are buried.

LivelineDipso

Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid decided to send 10,000 pounds in aid to Ireland after being informed of how devastating the famine was in Ireland. However, Britain’s evil Queen Victoria replied, stating they would only accept a thousand pounds in aid. In response, Sultan Abdülmecid secretly sent five ships full of food, as well as cash, to Ireland in order to help the Irish, who were shunned by England, the evil of all.

I love editorial impartiality.

Rasheed

OP, you probably know it yourself but the National Famine Museum in Strokestown, Roscommon is really interesting.

http://www.strokestownpark.ie/famine-museum

The landlord that was in the 'big house' is Strokestown at the time, Major Dennis Mahon, gave £4000 to help 1000 of his tenants to emigrate. Some refused to go so he evicted them. He was murdered in 1847, the height of the famine, even though he was thought to be one of the fairer landlords.

http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Major_Denis_Mahon_of_Strokestown_Park_Co_Roscommon


Also in Roscommon town, you can see the old work house with a famine memorial beside it showing how the famine affected the different parishes. It is thought that Roscommon was one of the worst hit counties with a 32% drop in population from the famine.

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Roscommon/

LivelineDipso

Putting on my tin foil hat but is it not just a little curious that these workhouses were all constructed in the years leading up to the famine?

Where the landowners planning a future austerity programme of their own?

Fratton Fred

LivelineDipso wrote: »

Putting on my tin foil hat but is it not just a little curious that these workhouses were all constructed in the years leading up to the famine?

Where the landowners planning a future austerity programme of their own?

it was a result of the Poor Laws enacted in Ireland in 1833 and in England and Wales in 1834.

johnr1

OP, you might want to read the first few chapters of "The Lansdowne Estate in Kerry under Stuart Trench" (2001) by Gerard J Lyne, - it outlines how one of the most detached absentee landlords of all and his despotic agent ran their estate during and after the famine.

The tenants who were forcibly deported en-masse to New York were "the poorest and most ill-prepared the city had ever seen"

I'd also second the poster who suggested the Famine museum in Skibbereen, - to me the place has the same atmosphere as Auschwitz.

.

Grayson

Seaneh wrote: »

Bollocks!

Nice rebuttal. have you got any facts to back it up?

9959

johnr1 wrote: »

OP, you might want to read....

I'd also second the poster who suggested the Famine museum in Skibbereen, - to me the place has the same atmosphere as Auschwitz.

.

Eek!
Does your own personal view of the similarities in 'atmosphere' between the museums of Skibbereen and Auschwitz extend to extrapolating a genocidal equivalence between The Famine and The Holocaust?

Please tell me no.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

9959 wrote: »

Eek!
Does your own personal view of the similarities in 'atmosphere' between the museums of Skibbereen and Auschwitz extend to extrapolating a genocidal equivalence between The Famine and The Holocaust?
Please tell me no.

Although it could be helpful to compare reactions of people who experience these extreme events. I’m thinking of the ending of Daniel Defoe’s novel "A Journal of the Plague Year"

I can go no farther here. I should be counted censorious, and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eye-witness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year therefore with a coarse but sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were written:—

A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive!

Or Primo Levi’s famous reflection on his experience in Auschwitz

I might be alive in the place of another, at the expense of another; I might have usurped, that is, in fact, killed. The "saved" of the Lager were not the best, those predestined to do good, the bearers of a message: what I had seen and lived through proved the exact contrary. Preferably the worst survived, the selfish, the violent, the insensitive, the collaborators of the "gray zone," the spies.... I felt innocent, yes, but enrolled among the saved and therefore in permanent search of a justification in my own eyes and those of others. The worst survived, that is, the fittest; the best all died.

Do we have those perspectives in our Famine accounts? Maybe we do, I just wouldn’t know. I’m not conscious of comment that explores how we’re not descended from the people buried in Skibbereen. We’re descended from the people who buried them.

LordSutch

brosy wrote: »

I'm currently doing my college dissertation as a radio documentary about An Gorta Mór, The Great Hunger.

I'm wondering if any of you fine people with an interest in this period of Irish history would have any information on perhaps less well known stories or personalities from the period, or even characters around Cork or Ireland with a deep knowledge who might be open to an interview.

Any help or discussion is greatly appreciated.

Go raibh maith agat

I have always wondered about 'other foods' that were eaten (not eaten) during this period. Was the humble potato the only food available in Ireland/Britain at the time? What about fish for example, or other vegetables like carrots, cabbage, runner beans, and then all the livestock + rabbits, hares etc etc? what about making & baking bread to fill the Carb deficit? did bread even exist at the time? and if it did, then why . . . .

I have little or no knowlewdge of the period myself, but I have always wondered why people couldn't survive on other food stuffs for the duration of the potato blight.

Neewbie_noob

billybudd wrote: »

At the time the Queen of England gave 10 times more in relief money than the catholic church.

Is this true?? Thought the English seized all of our other food sources and held our religion to ransom (ie, become Anglican or starve) ???

Fratton Fred

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

Is this true?? Thought the English seized all of our other food sources and held our religion to ransom (ie, become Anglican or starve) ???

That's it. Yes. Anything else is considered West Brit revisionism.

Neewbie_noob

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's it. Yes. Anything else is considered West Brit revisionism.

Seriously, it's a serious question I'm asking, did the UK actually help us then or was what I was told just anti British propoganda / hate speech / brainwashing??

awec

billybudd wrote: »

At the time the Queen of England gave 10 times more in relief money than the catholic church.

Didn't know this, if that's true it's pretty shocking. You have to wonder how the church held such power over the people for so long.

Fratton Fred

Neewbie_noob wrote: »

Seriously, it's a serious question I'm asking, did the UK actually help us then or was what I was told just anti British propoganda / hate speech / brainwashing??

There was a lot of help, but no where near enough and very little of it came from the British government.

The Government also failed to clamp down on speculating and profiteering by merchants, which meant that what food was available was way too expensive for the starving to get hold of.

For the Famine itself http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine

and for the Private relief http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Private_Responses_to_the_Famine3344361812

http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/British_Relief_Associations

Proselytism (Or souperism) wasn't as common as it is portrayed and was widely condemned by both the Catholic and Anglican church.

podgemonster

LordSutch wrote: »

I have always wondered about 'other foods' that were eaten (not eaten) during this period. Was the humble potato the only food available in Ireland/Britain at the time? What about fish for example, or other vegetables like carrots, cabbage, runner beans, and then all the livestock + rabbits, hares etc etc? what about making & baking bread to fill the Carb deficit? did bread even exist at the time? and if it did, then why . . . .

I have little or no knowlewdge of the period myself, but I have always wondered why people couldn't survive on other food stuffs for the duration of the potato blight.

If i recall correctly Summer 1846 not a single loaf of bread was availalbe at a farmers market in Skibbereen causing the townsfolk to demand meal be brought in but there wasn't enough and country communites flocked to the town to get food or a place in a workhouse. During the Autumn of 1846 reports in west Cork said how people we living off wild berries and nettles but once winter hit these resources dried up and children eventually started to die. Groups of men also hunted to countryside "Like Wolves" for meat.

Bare in mind families were large and each houshold has no more than an acre of land to farm if at all and the cheap and most rewarding crop in terms of fast growth and sustainance was the spud.

I have often wondering about the fishing question myself, I would assume a lack of wealth to buy a boat/nets/pots. Perhaps someone could shed some light on that.

johnr1

9959 wrote: »

Eek!
Does your own personal view of the similarities in 'atmosphere' between the museums of Skibbereen and Auschwitz extend to extrapolating a genocidal equivalence between The Famine and The Holocaust?

Please tell me no.

For the Great Hunger in Ireland to be definitively a genocide event, as far as I know, there would have had to be premeditation, or shall we say, it would have to have been planned.

Nothing that I've ever read, heard or seen about it convinces me that it was planned.

Therefore, - No, I don't consider it genocide.

However, it was damm handy from a British landowner's point of view.

What I meant in the post you quoted was that if you visit the field where so many hunger victims are buried, it's a chilling place, with a similar feel to Auschwitz.

Note, I won't usually refer to the event as the famine, because there cannot be a famine in a country overflowing with food in my opinion.
.

9959

johnr1 wrote: »

OP, you might want to read....
........I'd also second the poster who suggested the Famine museum in Skibbereen, - to me the place has the same atmosphere as Auschwitz.

.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Although it could be helpful to compare reactions of people who experience these extreme events. I’m thinking of the ending of Daniel Defoe’s novel "A Journal of the Plague Year" Or Primo Levi’s famous reflection on his experience in AuschwitzDo we have those perspectives in our Famine accounts? Maybe we do, I just wouldn’t know. I’m not conscious of comment that explores how we’re not descended from the people buried in Skibbereen. We’re descended from the people who buried them.

Thanks for the well-written reply.
I believe one should be wary when one group of victims attempt to 'hitch their wagon' to that of another group.
It's a pity that de Valera wasn't as empathetic when he signed the book of condolence for Hitler at the German Embassy in Dublin.

I'm more interested in ascertaining whether 'johnr1' equates the 'perpetrators' of the Famine - I'm assuming he blames perfidious Albion, apologies in advance if incorrect - with the Fascist perpetrators of The Holocaust.

johnr1

9959 wrote: »

Thanks for the well-written reply.
I believe one should be wary when one group of victims attempt to 'hitch their wagon' to that of another group.
It's a pity that de Valera wasn't as empathetic when he signed the book of condolence for Hitler at the German Embassy in Dublin.

I'm more interested in ascertaining whether 'johnr1' equates the 'perpetrators' of the Famine - I'm assuming he blames perfidious Albion, apologies in advance if incorrect - with the Fascist perpetrators of The Holocaust.

I've answered and explained my pov after your misunderstanding ofmy first post.

Nowhere did I or anyone else here attempt to "hitch the wagon" of the famine to the Holocaust.

This thread is neither about where I apportion blame or where you do, if indeed you apportion any blame at all for the event.

Stop trying to make a row.

.

kylith

LordSutch wrote: »

I have always wondered about 'other foods' that were eaten (not eaten) during this period. Was the humble potato the only food available in Ireland/Britain at the time? What about fish for example, or other vegetables like carrots, cabbage, runner beans, and then all the livestock + rabbits, hares etc etc? what about making & baking bread to fill the Carb deficit? did bread even exist at the time? and if it did, then why . . . .

I have little or no knowlewdge of the period myself, but I have always wondered why people couldn't survive on other food stuffs for the duration of the potato blight.

The potato was the staple food for most of the country because of it's relatively high yield for the space it took up. Most other vegetable foodstuffs wouldn't have been grown because you could get more potatoes out of a plot of land than carrots or cabbage. Corn (wheat, oats etc.) was generally grown and owned by the landlords and was shipped out of Ireland all throughout the 'famine', and you can't really bake bread when you have no flour. The same would have been true for most farm animals; they'd have been raised for export.

A permit was required to fish, and that was beyond the means of most Irish people. Hunting would probably have involved trespassing on the landlord's property, and can be a very labour intensive endeavour for relatively little caloric payout, especially when you're already half-starved and have contracted one of the many illnesses which were prevalent at the time.

LordSutch

I guess Cholera played a part too.

GRMA

LordSutch wrote: »

I have always wondered about 'other foods' that were eaten (not eaten) during this period. Was the humble potato the only food available in Ireland/Britain at the time? What about fish for example, or other vegetables like carrots, cabbage, runner beans, and then all the livestock + rabbits, hares etc etc? what about making & baking bread to fill the Carb deficit? did bread even exist at the time? and if it did, then why . . . .

I have little or no knowlewdge of the period myself, but I have always wondered why people couldn't survive on other food stuffs for the duration of the potato blight.

The native Irish typically had the worst land - the best was used for crop and cattle - those who tilled the land and cared for those crops often starved. Spuds will grow anywhere with little effort, they are not high maintenance crops. For many tenants the rent they were charged was higher than the value of anything they could possibly grow, so they grew spuds and worked at manual labour.

Spuds were not the only type of food, there was a wide variety, carrots, vegetables etc and lots of cattle and other livestock. As well as wheat etc. The vast majority of this was exported.

Look at the Devon report commissioned just a few years before the famine, it called for the consolidation of farms below seven acres, and the removal of around 192,368 families - a million people.

Massively conveniently the "famine" occurred just a few years later and happily for the British ladlords this was coupled with the easy ejectment laws from 1815 and after, where it was simple to evict those from holdings where the rent was under £50 a year. These laws were unknown in England.
Then we have the new poor law which was enacted to "help" the Irish - no relief until he gave up his land. A man went into the workhouse, a pauper came out. Thus the landlords were able to seize the land off those who got relief and took the land after those who didn't died.

As for food exported, Thoms Almanac records that 1,875,393 quarters of grain were exported in 1847, along with countless amounts of cattle, vegetables, bacon, butter etc etc. The amount of exports were so high that in 1826 the British placed it "on the footing of a coast trade" - no official records were to be kept. If we look at the records which were kept before 1826 there is a clear upward trend, the food exported even then would have been ample to fill all of Ireland's bellies healthily during the famine years. And exports and production shot up in those years between 1826 and the famine, and even increased during the famine.

And if the starving Irish were to steal food, well this example demonstrates what would happen; Timothy Leary and Mary Leary were both indicted for stealing on January 14th, at Oakmount, for feloniously stealing twenty turnips and fifty parsnips, the property of James Gillman. Their punishment was 7 years transportation.

And then we have the whole host of new treason laws which were used to transport those who agitated and attempted to rouse the native Irish.

The Irish were pauperized by the British and their laws. They were relegated to such a plight that they were incredibly vulnerable to a potato failure. The"famine" was nothing less than a land grab by the British, it was facilitated and encouraged.

It was, in my opinion, a more stomachable type of genocide - they didn't have them lined up and shot but killed them by laws and abuse.

Ash.J.Williams

mikemac1 wrote: »

The Sutlan of the Ottman Empire, something like that sent a ship or three with food and aid to the wee county, Drogheda to be exact

And so Drogheda has a town crest with a star and a crescent on it

Mary McAleese told this story a few years back

But then some others said it was incorrect

I don't mind, I like this story

is that 100% fact?

kylith

Has there ever been an official "Sorry for letting everyone starve" from any British agency? Not that I hold anyone now living in any way responsible, of course, but just an acknowledgement that what happened was reprehensible.

Fratton Fred

GRMA wrote: »

The native Irish typically had the worst land - the best was used for crop and cattle - those who tilled the land and cared for those crops often starved. Spuds will grow anywhere with little effort, they are not high maintenance crops. For many tenants the rent they were charged was higher than the value of anything they could possibly grow, so they grew spuds and worked at manual labour.

Spuds were not the only type of food, there was a wide variety, carrots, vegetables etc and lots of cattle and other livestock. As well as wheat etc. The vast majority of this was exported.

Look at the Devon report commissioned just a few years before the famine, it called for the consolidation of farms below seven acres, and the removal of around 192,368 families - a million people.

Massively conveniently the "famine" occurred just a few years later and happily for the British ladlords this was coupled with the easy ejectment laws from 1815 and after, where it was simple to evict those from holdings where the rent was under £50 a year. These laws were unknown in England.
Then we have the new poor law which was enacted to "help" the Irish - no relief until he gave up his land. A man went into the workhouse, a pauper came out. Thus the landlords were able to seize the land off those who got relief and took the land after those who didn't died.

As for food exported, Thoms Almanac records that 1,875,393 quarters of grain were exported in 1847, along with countless amounts of cattle, vegetables, bacon, butter etc etc. The amount of exports were so high that in 1826 the British placed it "on the footing of a coast trade" - no official records were to be kept. If we look at the records which were kept before 1826 there is a clear upward trend, the food exported even then would have been ample to fill all of Ireland's bellies healthily during the famine years. And exports and production shot up in those years between 1826 and the famine, and even increased during the famine.

And if the starving Irish were to steal food, well this example demonstrates what would happen; Timothy Leary and Mary Leary were both indicted for stealing on January 14th, at Oakmount, for feloniously stealing twenty turnips and fifty parsnips, the property of James Gillman. Their punishment was 7 years transportation.

And then we have the whole host of new treason laws which were used to transport those who agitated and attempted to rouse the native Irish.

The Irish were pauperized by the British and their laws. They were relegated to such a plight that they were incredibly vulnerable to a potato failure. The"famine" was nothing less than a land grab by the British, it was facilitated and encouraged.

It was, in my opinion, a more stomachable type of genocide - they didn't have them lined up and shot but killed them by laws and abuse.

You obviously didn't read the links I pasted to above.

Ash.J.Williams

Now that we all have a fair idea how our country really works! It would fair to say there were many irish fat f*ckers eating very well during the famine!

ejmaztec

kylith wrote: »

Has there ever been an official "Sorry for letting everyone starve" from any British agency? Not that I hold anyone now living in any way responsible, of course, but just an acknowledgement that what happened was reprehensible.

Didn't Tony Blair apologise, or was that for something else?

9959

johnr1 wrote: »

I've answered and explained my pov after your misunderstanding ofmy first post.

Nowhere did I or anyone else here attempt to "hitch the wagon" of the famine to the Holocaust.

This thread is neither about where I apportion blame or where you do, if indeed you apportion any blame at all for the event.

Stop trying to make a row.

.

Don't know what happened there, I posted my reply to GCU before I read yours.
Reading your reply above, I don't believe there's any reason for a row, even if I were 'trying to make' one.

mikemac1

kylith wrote: »

Has there ever been an official "Sorry for letting everyone starve" from any British agency? Not that I hold anyone now living in any way responsible, of course, but just an acknowledgement that what happened was reprehensible.

Tony Blair apologized about 5 or 6 years ago

kylith

mikemac1 wrote: »

Tony Blair apologized about 5 or 6 years ago

Ah, that's grand so.

Zebra3

johnr1 wrote: »

For the Great Hunger in Ireland to be definitively a genocide event, as far as I know, there would have had to be premeditation, or shall we say, it would have to have been planned.

Nothing that I've ever read, heard or seen about it convinces me that it was planned.

Therefore, - No, I don't consider it genocide.

However, it was damm handy from a British landowner's point of view.

It was "damn handy" from the British establishment's point of view of driving down the population in Ireland. Death or emigration, it didn't really matter.

It was their obligation to ensure their citizens didn't starve, and they left them to rot in the fields and on the coffin ships.

That alone makes it genocide.

MadsL

Zebra3 wrote: »

It was "damn handy" from the British establishment's point of view of driving down the population in Ireland. Death or emigration, it didn't really matter.

It was there obligation to ensure their citizens didn't starve, and they left them to rot in the fields and on the coffin ships.

That alone makes it genocide.

Damn Handy? Explain the repeal of the Corn Laws by Peel? Doesn't that make seem unlikely as a planned genocide if your Prime Minister works against the supposed genocide?

Zebra3

MadsL wrote: »

Damn Handy? Explain the repeal of the Corn Laws by Peel? Doesn't that make seem unlikely as a planned genocide if your Prime Minister works against the supposed genocide?

And did the repeal of theose laws actually make any difference?

Juging by the number of dead, and the numbers forced to flee starvation, that's probably a no.....

Lots of politicans (here and abroad) pass legislation for window dressing purposes knowing they will make no difference to the status quo.

Fratton Fred

Zebra3 wrote: »

And did the repeal of theose laws actually make any difference?

Juging by the number of dead, and the numbers forced to flee starvation, that's probably a no.....

Lots of politicans (here and abroad) pass legislation for window dressing purposes knowing they will make no difference to the status quo.

if they wanted the Irish dead, why did they let so many emigrate to England?

MadsL

Zebra3 wrote: »

And did the repeal of theose laws actually make any difference?

Juging by the number of dead, and the numbers forced to flee starvation, that's probably a no.....

Lots of politicans (here and abroad) pass legislation for window dressing purposes knowing they will make no difference to the status quo.

Peel's government fell shortly after so we will never know what measures would have been brought in by that Govt.

However, famile relief measures including providing made-up-labour schemes in order to provide some income are not really the actions of a state hell-bent on genocide.

I understand why some wish to turn the British into cartoonish villains but the genocide label is politically charged rather than historically sound.

LivelineDipso

Jesus christ Drogheda United really are a Hun club!

Qualitymark

MadsL wrote: »

Peel's government fell shortly after so we will never know what measures would have been brought in by that Govt.

However, famile relief measures including providing made-up-labour schemes in order to provide some income are not really the actions of a state hell-bent on genocide.

I understand why some wish to turn the British into cartoonish villains but the genocide label is politically charged rather than historically sound.

Peel's Brimstone, they called the Indian corn; it needed to be cooked with ashes (lye breaks it down, and this is done in central and south America), but Irish people didn't know this, and it caused a scouring diarrhoea if you cooked it otherwise.

Not to bring in the Nazis in the classic internet-argument method - but seriously, many of the Nazy labour camps provided food in exchange for slave labour. Saying that labour plans suggest non-genocide doesn't work.

The terrible thing about the Famine roads and Famine walls was that men and women weak from starvation were forced by hunger to attempt to work, while falling from hunger, and they failed to earn enough to feed themselves and their children by this work.

Famine relief work was a shameful crime.

MadsL

Qualitymark wrote: »

Peel's Brimstone, they called the Indian corn; it needed to be cooked with ashes (lye breaks it down, and this is done in central and south America), but Irish people didn't know this, and it caused a scouring diarrhoea if you cooked it otherwise.

Not to bring in the Nazis in the classic internet-argument method - but seriously, many of the Nazy labour camps provided food in exchange for slave labour. Saying that labour plans suggest non-genocide doesn't work.

The terrible thing about the Famine roads and Famine walls was that men and women weak from starvation were forced by hunger to attempt to work, while falling from hunger, and they failed to earn enough to feed themselves and their children by this work.

Famine relief work was a shameful crime.

labour camps provided food in exchange for slave labour = famine relief work. I'm sure you can see through this absurd analogy.

What should the British Govt have done instead given that the food trade and land was in private hands?

brosy

Fantastic to see such a lively debate. Thanks to all who have contributed, you've given me some excellent ideas of avenues to explore. Also just got a copy of Atlas of the Great Irish Famine by John Crowley, William J. Smyth and Mike Murphy. Excited to get stuck into it.

SeaFields

brosy wrote: »

Fantastic to see such a lively debate. Thanks to all who have contributed, you've given me some excellent ideas of avenues to explore. Also just got a copy of Atlas of the Great Irish Famine by John Crowley, William J. Smyth and Mike Murphy. Excited to get stuck into it.

Prof Smyth was the best lecturer i ever had. He is very approachable and enthusiastic about is subject matter. If you could meet with him to discuss stuff i am sure he would be very accommodating.