Was the Irish famine a famine or genocide

Janedoe10 · 07-02-2012 1:24am #1

We have all had the "irish leaving" history version . Other countries had the abridged version ( or none at all ) . . I never thought much about it until I was told the other day about the famine graves near where I live . Found this link . Good bibliography makes me think how much our history can be glossed over . It's sad . http://www.irishholocaust.org

Nitochris · 07-02-2012 9:20am

Janedoe10 wrote: »

We have all had the "irish leaving" history version . Other countries had the abridged version ( or none at all ) . . I never thought much about it until I was told the other day about the famine graves near where I live . Found this link . Good bibliography makes me think how much our history can be glossed over . It's sad . http://www.irishholocaust.org

To answer the question in the title of the thread the Famine was not a genocide in terms of culpability.
So if not genocide then what was it? Personally I find David Nally's (Human Encumbrances 2011) arguments persuasive: Basically there are certain behaviours governments can engage in which can have a role in famines
(1) wilful genocide
(2) recklessly engage in policies which create and maintain famine
(3) As an authoritarian government they don't care
(4) through incompetence or corruption government cannot deal with a food shortage
He argues that the Irish Famine was not genocide as there was no plan to wipe the Irish out (type 1), equally he suggests that revisionists have minimised the Governments role (type 4) so that he places it between types two and three.

CDfm · 07-02-2012 10:27am

Janedoe10 wrote: »

I never thought much about it until I was told the other day about the famine graves near where I live .

Do you have any links to the famine graves where you live.

It might be interesting to look at it as a local area thing, the lore, the landlords , the relief or non relief effort etc.

MarchDub · 07-02-2012 6:32pm

Further to Nitochris comment above on David Nally's work, I haven't read the book mentioned but have read some of Nally's articles and he brings a refreshing view to the subject of the Famine - and a challenge to the revisionists attempt to downplay the entire event or discount it merely as an act of nature. Nally has also written a number of times on the Huffington Post site:

Fewer than 170 years ago, a devastating famine occurred within the British Isles, then the most economically advanced region in the world. In Ireland, at that time part of the United Kingdom as a result of the Act of Union in 1801, 1 million people perished in what became known as An Gorta Mór or The Great Hunger. The rural Irish poor, many of whom were subsistence farmers renting barely viable plots of ground, were reliant on the potato for their staple diet. When a mysterious blight, later identified as Phytophthora infestans, ruined the potato harvest huge numbers faced starvation. The poorest - who suffered dreadfully even in 'ordinary' years - were soon reduced to digging the ground for seedlings so small 'that only hunger could see them.' Others fed on diseased carrion, noxious weeds, and other indigestible 'famine foods'. When the hunger became intolerable, thousands turned to the government's Public Works schemes or to the Poor Law workhouses where a combination of communicable diseases and punitive labour carried off already weakened frames. Millions more people fled the country with the population of Ireland dwindling from around 9 million in 1845 to 6.1 million in 1851.

When judged in terms of the mortality rate, the Irish Famine was one of the worst demographic tragedies of the 19th century and possibly the worst famine in recorded history.

Well, firstly, the Irish Famine offers some important lessons about how famines are caused and about the vulnerability of certain social groups. In my book, Human Encumbrances, I quote from a public lecture delivered in New York in 1847 by the Catholic Archbishop John Hughes (1797-1864). In his speech Hughes remarked on the importance of distinguishing between the 'antecedent circumstances' and the 'primary' or 'original' causes of the Famine. Hughes was, in other words, insisting on a difference between immediate 'shocks' and long-term 'trends'. While droughts, floods and other climatic events might 'trigger' a food crisis, the real cause of famine, he believed, was the colonial system that produced and maintained poverty by the denying the Irish poor ownership of the land.

Finally history teaches us that 'food is power' and that aid can be used as a political weapon. In Human Encumbrances I discuss how the government used food aid to force political and economic change in Ireland. After 1847, for example, the poor who owned more than a quarter acre of ground were required by law to give up their land in return for food aid, which at the time was in the form of workhouse relief. The mechanism for delivering aid, in other words, was a charter for eviction and land clearance - a goal that some thought necessary for the depopulation and long term modernization of Ireland. It was thought that the poor had neither the fortitude nor the intelligence to better themselves, and Irish smallholders in particular were considered to be backward and immoral. Even the very diets that the people relied on were viewed in moral terms: the feckless and slothful Irish were potato-fed, whereas the thrifty and hard-working English were wheat-fed.

For full link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/david-nally/between-the-stomach_b_907350.html

Gee Bag · 07-02-2012 10:28pm

There are multiple definitions of what constitutes genocide. A good summary of which can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions

Most of the definitions concur that for for an act of genocide to have been commited it must have been deliberate. As an act of genocide is a criminal act, it must meet the legal definition of a crime.

In criminal law the Mens Rea and Actus Rea must be proven.The guilty act (actus rea) must be accompanied by a guilty mind (mens rea).

The best example I can think to illustrate this is the difference between murder and manslaughter. For murder to occur the perpetrator has to have set out with the intent of killing their victim (e.g. often proven by the guilty arming themselves beforehand). With manslaughter, even though the result is the same (i.e. victim dies) there is a lack of intent on the part of the perpetrator to kill the victim (e.g. drunken brawl outside a chipper, victim falls after a punch, cracks their head off the kerb and dies).

Legal Opinon
I don't believe the Great Famine can be classed as an act of genocide. The indifference and subsequent ineffective response by the Government, in my opinion, are not sufficent to prove the neccessary Mens Rea.

Honest Opinion
Morally, the indifference shown to those suffering in Ireland constitutes genocide.

Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis gives a good overrview of the popular attitudes that pertained in government circles in the latter half of the 19th century. (Doesn't cover Ireland though).

I'd like to get a copy of Human Encumberances, never heard of it before.

Janedoe10 · 08-02-2012 1:02am

I found a good link if ye are interested http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/history/historyofcorkcity/1700-1900/corkinthe19thcentury/. Thanks for all ye're information so far .

CDfm · 08-02-2012 1:15am

Gee Bag wrote: »

In criminal law the Mens Rea and Actus Rea must be proven.The guilty act (actus rea) must be accompanied by a guilty mind (mens rea).

The best example I can think to illustrate this is the difference between murder and manslaughter. For murder to occur the perpetrator has to have set out with the intent of killing their victim (e.g. often proven by the guilty arming themselves beforehand). With manslaughter, even though the result is the same (i.e. victim dies) there is a lack of intent on the part of the perpetrator to kill the victim (e.g. drunken brawl outside a chipper, victim falls after a punch, cracks their head off the kerb and dies).

Legal Opinon
I don't believe the Great Famine can be classed as an act of genocide. The indifference and subsequent ineffective response by the Government, in my opinion, are not sufficent to prove the neccessary Mens Rea.

I always like the Wellesley family observations.

Comments of the Duke of Wellington (1830)

Politicians were well aware of the underlying causes though they did nothing to tackle them. For example, on 7 July 1830 the Duke of Wellington wrote:
I confess that the annually recurring starvation in Ireland, for a period differing, according to the goodness or badness of the season, from one week to three months, gives me more uneasiness than any other evil existing in the United Kingdom.
It is starvation, because it is the fact that, although there is an abundance of provisions in the country of a superior kind, and at a cheaper rate than the same can be bought in any other part of Her Majesty’s dominions, those who want in the midst of plenty cannot get, because they do not possess even the small sum of money necessary to buy a supply of food.
It occurs every year, for that period of time that elapses between the final consumption of one year’s crop of potatoes, and the coming of the crop of the following year, and it is long or short, according as the previous season has been bad or good.
Now when this misfortune occurs, there is no relief or mitigation, excepting a recourse to public money. The proprietors of the country, those who ought to think for the people, to foresee this misfortune, and to provide beforehand a remedy for it, are amusing themselves in the Clubs in London, in Cheltenham, or Bath, or on the Continent, and the Government are made responsible for the evil, and they must find the remedy for it where they can—anywhere excepting in the pockets of Irish Gentlemen.
Then, if they give public money to provide a remedy for this distress, it is applied to all purposes excepting the one for which it is given; and more particularly to that one, viz. the payment of arrears of an exorbitant rent.
However, we must expect that this evil will continue, and will increase as the population will increase, and the chances of a serious evil, such as the loss of a large number of persons by famine, will be greater in proportion to the numbers existing in Ireland in the state in which we know that the great body of the people are living at this moment. [Wellington to Northumberland, 7 July 1830, in Despatches, vii 111–2; repr. in P. S. O’Hegarty, A history of Ireland under the Union (London 1952) 291–2]

http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine#FamineinIreland

So you use this assessment.

Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis gives a good overrview of the popular attitudes that pertained in government circles in the latter half of the 19th century. (Doesn't cover Ireland though).

The Duke would probably have classed his family as Irish Gentlemen and he and one of his brothers were on opposite sides of Catholic Emancipation.

So how did he assess it - as an Army officer his experience in his Spanish & Portugeese campaigns allowed him to take an overview.

A major difference between him and Napoleon is that the French lived of the "land" and Wellington supplied his own troops.

So there was a mindset.

Corruptedmorals · 08-02-2012 1:38am

A lecturer always called it criminal negligience on a huge scale. Agreed with some sentiments calling it a genocide but refused to label it as such due to the lack od direct murderous intent. I'd have to agree with this.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 2:07am

Corruptedmorals wrote: »

A lecturer always called it criminal negligience on a huge scale. Agreed with some sentiments calling it a genocide but refused to label it as such due to the lack od direct murderous intent. I'd have to agree with this.

How land was held , landlord, agent, tenant , sub tenant etc does not get discusssed.

All landlords were not absentees, you had native Irish too.

The questions are challenging.

HavingCrack · 08-02-2012 2:12am

I think the main issue with refering to it as genocide is the 'intent' factor.

Did the British (also Irish at the time remember) intend and plan to murder Irish peasants? The answer is no, there is no written record of this.

Did the government not care with a few notable exceptions? Yes.

Therefore it was a gross act of criminal negligence but was not a genocide as is commonly understood.

enfant terrible · 08-02-2012 2:35am

Why was Ireland so poor even by standards of the time being on the doorstep of the richest nation on Earth at the time?

German traveller Kohl, from the early 1840’s;
“No mode of life could seem pitiable after one had seen Ireland. I used to pity the poor Letts in Livonia. Well, Heaven pardon my ignorance! Now I have seen Ireland, it seems to me that the poorest among the Letts, the Estonians and the Finlanders, lead a life of comparative comfort.”

Duke of Wellington, native of County Meath;
“ There never was a country in which poverty existed to the extent it exists in Ireland”

archer22 · 08-02-2012 3:11am

Well if you look at who benefited from the famine you would be surprised.It was not the Landlords or the British but the Irish Catholic strong farmers and merchants.Many Landlords went bust and their land was bought up by the Catholic strong farmers.The people who starved the cottiers and labourers in most cases had no connection to the landlords.They were the tenants of the Irish farmers and were very much exploited by them.Also it was the farmers who were exporting food during the famine and selling some to poorhouses at exorbitant prices.Now lets say the British had banned food exports...would that have solved the problem?..well only if they had seized it from the farmers because they sure as hell were not going to give it away..and if it was seized one year they were not going to produce it the following year,which would lead to even more chaos and disaster.There was no Genocide just a combination of natural disaster, laissez faire economics and downright greed.The latter two we have seen again recently but at least thankfully there is a social welfare system now.This Genocide myth came later from the Fenians who had their own political agenda which this myth fitted nicely into.

enfant terrible · 08-02-2012 4:23am

archer22 wrote: »

Well if you look at who benefited from the famine you would be surprised.It was not the Landlords or the British but the Irish Catholic strong farmers and merchants.Many Landlords went bust and their land was bought up by the Catholic strong farmers.The people who starved the cottiers and labourers in most cases had no connection to the landlords.They were the tenants of the Irish farmers and were very much exploited by them.Also it was the farmers who were exporting food during the famine and selling some to poorhouses at exorbitant prices.Now lets say the British had banned food exports...would that have solved the problem?..well only if they had seized it from the farmers because they sure as hell were not going to give it away..and if it was seized one year they were not going to produce it the following year,which would lead to even more chaos and disaster.There was no Genocide just a combination of natural disaster, laissez faire economics and downright greed.The latter two we have seen again recently but at least thankfully there is a social welfare system now.This Genocide myth came later from the Fenians who had their own political agenda which this myth fitted nicely into.

The much more interesting question is why the famine was so devestating in Ireland.

Blight hit most of Europe but only Ireland was devastated.

European Potato Failure
The effect of the crisis on Ireland is incomparable to all other places for the devastation it wrought, causing 1 million dead and another million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. Excluding Ireland, the death toll from the crisis is estimated to be in the region of 100,000 people. Of this, Belgium and Prussia account for most of the deaths, with 40,000–50,000 estimated to have died in Belgium.

archer22 · 08-02-2012 5:10am

enfant terrible wrote: »

The much more interesting question is why the famine was so devestating in Ireland.

Blight hit most of Europe but only Ireland was devastated.

European Potato Failure
The effect of the crisis on Ireland is incomparable to all other places for the devastation it wrought, causing 1 million dead and another million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. Excluding Ireland, the death toll from the crisis is estimated to be in the region of 100,000 people. Of this, Belgium and Prussia account for most of the deaths, with 40,000–50,000 estimated to have died in Belgium.

I think the huge population growth in Ireland in the decades prior to the famine is the reason.If I remember correctly Irelands population doubled in a few decades.It grew too fast to be absorbed and left millions in a precarious position.But then there is the question what caused this sudden massive population growth?.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 8:52am

archer22 wrote: »

But then there is the question what caused this sudden massive population growth?.

The potato as a food source is excellent. Easy to grow and doesn't need much land or cultivation. Subdivision of land meant the population could expand as long as the potato was available. All this continued while the potato supply existed.

Simply put, the population expanded to fit the available nutritional source supplied by potatoes.

getz · 08-02-2012 9:23am

HavingCrack wrote: »

I think the main issue with refering to it as genocide is the 'intent' factor.

Did the British (also Irish at the time remember) intend and plan to murder Irish peasants? The answer is no, there is no written record of this.

Did the government not care with a few notable exceptions? Yes.

Therefore it was a gross act of criminal negligence but was not a genocide as is commonly understood.

if the intent was genocide,then the same would have to been said about the famine in scotland,the highlands ect were also hard hit,scotlands population dropped by 20%,over 1.7 million left, troops were sent in to stop the riots as food was shipped out of the country, the only difference between the scots and irish was that the scots could walk south to the more wealthy areas of britain,and also that many of the larger scottish land owners shipped starving families to canada/america at their own expense.

Fratton Fred · 08-02-2012 10:35am

If it was genocide, then who was the target?

As has already been said, many Irish landlords and farmers did ok out of the famine and I would expect that plenty of "British" planters died as well.

There was also massive relief campaigns organised by private charities. If the intention was to kill as many as possible, would these not have been banned?

There is also the question of the thousands who came to England. If you are trying to kill off millions of people, the last thing you want is them setting up camp in your own back yard.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 11:51am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

If it was genocide, then who was the target?

As has already been said, many Irish landlords and farmers did ok out of the famine and I would expect that plenty of "British" planters died as well.

What was the bodycount on mainland UK ?

CDfm · 08-02-2012 12:51pm

getz wrote: »

if the intent was genocide,then the same would have to been said about the famine in scotland,the highlands ect were also hard hit,scotlands population dropped by 20%,over 1.7 million left, troops were sent in to stop the riots as food was shipped out of the country, the only difference between the scots and irish was that the scots could walk south to the more wealthy areas of britain,and also that many of the larger scottish land owners shipped starving families to canada/america at their own expense.

Don't forget that the Scots-Irish in Northern Ireland had already been driven from Scotland and will have had first hand knowledge of this attitude.

I often think that it is not useful to include what happened in Scotland as a comparison but as part of the same ethos & event.

And, the Irish landowners shipped the Irish overseas too and it was a wheeze to avoid the Poor Law obligations.

Wellington refered to the landlords as the "proprietors" of the country and they went about clearing the people out.

I often wonder what obligations the owners of serfs had for the welfare of their serfs or slaveowners in the US had for the welfare of their slaves as the Irish seemed to have no rights at all.

Local histories such as Tim O'Sullivans History of Gweedore give some insight

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/chapter_one.htm

Hill was related to Jane Austen by marriage and was one of the good guys. Still his tenants were subsistence farmers and also ate seaweed to get by. Lucky them.

Compare O'Sullivan with this Victorian piece on Gweedore

http://www.libraryireland.com/Jaunting-Car/Gweedore-Glenties.php

These were not benevolent good people that we were talking about. Their tenants lived in mud-huts and ate seaweed.

getz · 08-02-2012 1:31pm

the ruling class in britain did not care about the dirty unwashed,it would be even worse for those who were catholic as well,when doing research on the bronte family in haworth yorkshire,i found that patrick bronte who was a great campainer and writer to parliament for the poor,said in haworth one in three children died of disease before the age of five ,and the average life spanfor a adult was 28 years, remember he lost five girls and one son,only charlotte lived into her thirties, now that was supposed to be a healthy country village,just what was it like in the cities

MarchDub · 08-02-2012 1:46pm

Here we go again with the Famine. Once again into the breach of denial.

How many times do we get here and have to once again hear, yet again, it wasn't so bad, heck, other people starved in other countries [don't get this one at all, so more starvation abroad means less suffering for the Irish? I'm sure the news in Skibereen that people were starving in Scotland must have been a great consolation] Oh and Landlords were making money, their DNA reveals they were not all Brits [I'm so surprised], damn it all why didn't they just eat cake?

A look at the record of the British government's attitude and non-involvement in relief reveals neglect on a grand scale. The definition of genocide - a word only coined in the 1940s - is unimportant IMO. The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 alone spelled the death knell for many as public works were closed and landlords went bankrupt because of the burden of taxation the law placed on them. It clearly stated that there was to be "no further government aid for any form of relief in Ireland".

Over a million innocent, hard working people starved in this country in the 1840s - why do we have such a problem addressing this and accepting it without apology as the ultimate in national tragedy?

CDfm · 08-02-2012 1:49pm

The difference between the Bronte's and the Irish is that they died of TB/consumption and the Irish peasants starved.

This could have been a TB infected household in 1930's or 40's Ireland pre-antibiotics. TB & typhoid etc became public health issues.

There is a big difference between a contagious disease that existed at ordinary times and the effects of the famine .

You are not comparing like with like.

Patrick Bronte was quite a guy and there is no doubt he cared for his congregation. An issue with Ireland is that the rich & poor were largely of different religions.

In NI you had Presbyterians and Methodists in the Scots Irish and Catholics in the general population too.

Too compare you would need famine in England.

Fratton Fred · 08-02-2012 2:08pm

CDfm wrote: »

What was the bodycount on mainland UK ?

I don't see the relevance.

HavingCrack · 08-02-2012 2:26pm

MarchDub wrote: »

Here we go again with the Famine. Once again into the breach of denial.

How many times do we get here and have to once again hear, yet again, it wasn't so bad, heck, other people starved in other countries [don't get this one at all, so more starvation abroad means less suffering for the Irish? I'm sure the news in Skibereen that people were starving in Scotland must have been a great consolation] Oh and Landlords were making money, their DNA reveals they were not all Brits [I'm so surprised], damn it all why didn't they just eat cake?

A look at the record of the British government's attitude and non-involvement in relief reveals neglect on a grand scale. The definition of genocide - a word only coined in the 1940s - is unimportant IMO. The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 alone spelled the death knell for many as public works were closed and landlords went bankrupt because of the burden of taxation the law placed on them. It clearly stated that there was to be "no further government aid for any form of relief in Ireland".

Over a million innocent, hard working people starved in this country in the 1840s - why do we have such a problem addressing this and accepting it without apology as the ultimate in national tragedy?

So what is your point exactly????

Nobody posting denies the Famine occured or a million people died. I don't see the post's relevance. Unless you're arguing that the Famine was genocide or a deliberate attempt by the government of the day to kill Irish people en masse if the term 'genocide' isn't to your liking.

MarchDub · 08-02-2012 2:33pm

HavingCrack wrote: »

So what is your point exactly????

Nobody posting denies the Famine occured or a million people died. I don't see the post's relevance. Unless you're arguing that the Famine was genocide or a deliberate attempt by the government of the day to kill Irish people en masse if the term 'genocide' isn't to your liking.

If you read over the Forum and the many Famine threads you ought to see the point being made.

Otherwise if you can't understand what I wrote or see the relevance - then frankly I can't help you there.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 3:01pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I don't see the relevance.

Its George Orwell's Animal Farm. If you take the original ideals behind the United Kingdom, then things were to improve for Ireland.

Here is the relevant chapter.

http://www.george-orwell.org/Animal_Farm/9.html

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

and

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

The Duke of Wellington predicted the famine a good 15 years before it happened. His brother , Marquess Wellesley (great great great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II) who had more experience with colonial administration wanted wider reform & full Catholic Emancipation & he had been a cabinet member and Chief Secretary for Ireland too.

So if those two could see it ......

I can't help wondering if the rights in England and Wales were somehow different to those in Scotland & Ireland. If so, how come ?

HavingCrack · 08-02-2012 5:07pm

MarchDub wrote: »

If you read over the Forum and the many Famine threads you ought to see the point being made.

Otherwise if you can't understand what I wrote or see the relevance - then frankly I can't help you there.

What point? Please answer.

archer22 · 08-02-2012 5:30pm

It should also be remembered that the majority of the people who died during the famine did not die from starvation but from the Typhoid epidemic that broke out,and food was not going to save them.Also remember this was the 1840s when everthing moved at a snails pace,sailing ships took months to transport food across the Atlantic and then a slow and inefficent Horse drawn distribution service in Ireland meant that even with the best will in the world it was impossible to get aid to all the needy.Remember even in China in the 1960s famine and disease killed at least 50 million.I wonder would the people who talk about "Genocide " tell us what they think realisticaly could have been done to avert the disaster once it had begun.As far as I can see it was so overwhelming that there could be only one outcome.And lets not forget that a lot of people were actually saved..something that is usually overlooked

CDfm · 08-02-2012 6:04pm

I can appreciate that Archer but the typhoid epidemic was as a result of the famine and the conditions that existed because of it.

In fact, Irish nuns took over fever hospitals in the Crimea during the Crimean War for the British Army and pioneered the treatment of typhus.

HavingCrack wrote: »

What point? Please answer.

I suppose that if you don't feel that something like the Derryveagh Evictions were morally wrong and they followed the famine, then, you won't get the whole famine thing.

That would put you at loggerheads with the views of the Ist Duke of Wellington and his brother.

The failure to take title to the land and obtain "Sporting Rights" triggered an incident that might have been a contributing factor in Adair's decision to clear out the Derryveagh tenants a few year later and in so doing to wipe out the hopes, dreams and fond memories of 244 human beings. It so happened that a year after he purchased the right to the rents of the Derryveagh tenants, he decided one day to indulge in his favourite sport of fowling on "his" Derryveagh property. About a dozen or so tenants resented and resisted what they regarded as a trespass on "their" land. They proceeded to beat the bushes to spoil his sport and finally created a ring of persons at 50 paces around him and maintained that ring when he would move. This action infuriated Adair and he threatened them with his fowling gun. As he left the scene, he informed the tenants that "They would pay dearly". Eventually, that prediction came true, not just for the 12 present but for the entire Derryveagh population of 47 families. In 1859, Adair acquired title to all of Derryveagh and was in a position, if he so desired, to carry out his threat.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/gartan/derryveagh.htm

So this was the mindset - eviction meant starvation , death or emigration.

Of course, that may not do it for you. That's up to you.

There is not really an english equivalent and sad and all as the Tolpuddle Martyrs story is, it is fairly small compared with Ireland.

http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/index.php?page=martyr-s-story

Those guys tried to organise for better money, the Irish rural economy did not know the meaning of money.

HavingCrack · 08-02-2012 6:11pm

CDfm wrote: »

I suppose that if you don't feel that something like the Derryveagh Evictions were morally wrong and they followed the famine, then, you won't get the whole famine thing.

Ok, now you're putting words in my mouth. I never posted any such thing. Link me to a post where I said that.

eire4 · 08-02-2012 6:21pm

The famine is still obviously an emotional topic for many and rightly so. I think sometimes that is why the word genocide gets thrown around today as so many were wiped out in such a short time.

I think if genocide is taken as a deliberate, planned and calculated attempt to wipe out a group of people then the Irish famine was not a genoicide. However there is no question that the English ruling class held the Irish in contempt. They looked upon the Irish as at best savages if not subhuman. They certainly went on a campaign of cultural genocide after Kinsale when they were fully in control of the whole island. They reduced the Irish to such a low level of subsistence that when the blight struck it unleashed debastating consequences on the Irish population. The English response to the famine once it was in full force was beyond contempt. As such I would say the famine was an atrocity brought about by English actions without being a direct and deliberate act of genocide.

Bannasidhe · 08-02-2012 6:26pm

Personally I would not term it a genocide as the failure of the food supply was not the result of a deliberate action but a natural disaster. Unlike the Bison Slaughter in the US in the 19th Century where a primary reason was the removal of the food supply for Native Americans

The US Army sanctioned and actively endorsed the wholesale slaughter of bison herds. The US federal government promoted bison hunting for various reasons, to allow ranchers to range their cattle without competition from other bovines, and primarily to weaken the North American Indian population by removing their main food source and to pressure them onto the reservations. Without the bison, native people of the plains were forced either to leave the land or starve to death.

Having said that, once the disaster hit, I have no doubt that both in Ireland and GB there were those - often in positions of influence and power - who ruthlessly exploited the situation for financial and political reasons.

There was also a complete and utter failure by government to deal with either the fragility of the food supply which had been identified many years before the blight hit and the living conditions which allowed famine related diseases (which claimed the majority of the lives lost) to spread unimpeded.

dubhthach · 08-02-2012 6:30pm

HavingCrack wrote: »

What point? Please answer.

Mod
You are all very welcome to the forum and all but reduce the confrontational tone. I won't tolerate behaviour that's borderline on trolling/shít-stirring.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 6:34pm

HavingCrack wrote: »

Ok, now you're putting words in my mouth. I never posted any such thing. Link me to a post where I said that.

It's not my intention to do so.

What I am saying is that the Wellselley family who were bigshots in Britain at the time felt it was wrong and predictable no matter what the law said.

I am willing to discuss the famine on a purely historical basis and the belief systems at the time & comparatively too.

archer22 · 08-02-2012 6:42pm

CDfm wrote: »

I can appreciate that Archer but the typhoid epidemic was as a result of the famine and the conditions that existed because of it.

In fact, Irish nuns took over fever hospitals in the Crimea during the Crimean War for the British Army and pioneered the treatment of typhus.

I suppose that if you don't feel that something like the Derryveagh Evictions were morally wrong and they followed the famine, then, you won't get the whole famine thing.

That would put you at loggerheads with the views of the Ist Duke of Wellington and his brother.

So this was the mindset - eviction meant starvation , death or emigration.

Of course, that may not do it for you. That's up to you.

There is not really an english equivalent and sad and all as the Tolpuddle Martyrs story is, it is fairly small compared with Ireland.

http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/index.php?page=martyr-s-story

Those guys tried to organise for better money, the Irish rural economy did not know the meaning of money.

It is true that there were some appaling landlords,but it is unfair to tar them all with the same brush.In the area where I live I done some research into the 6 local landlords behaviour during the famine..5 of them never evicted anybody and donated everything they could to help the starving..one even had his prize herd of cattle slaughtered.The 6th landlord was the type we always hear about..a total B/stard who threw all cottiers off his property.So at least in this area one bad egg out of six..and guess whose deeds are remembered and whose are forgotten...ok no prizes for getting that.I wish somebody would do a survey of Landlords in Ireland during that era to see what percentage were bad.I have no doubt it was only a minority.I dont think we should focus so much on the Landlords...from what I can see the Irish strong farmers and merchants were the most callous and exploitative..profiteering and totally lacking empathy for the plight of their fellow countrymen.They emerged from the famine better off than ever and now the dominant force in Ireland...the Cottiers and the Landlords were finished.Remember it suited the farmers to be rid of the Cottiers on their land as farming was changing to more profitable dairy farming rather than the previous more labour intensive tillage.

pedroeibar1 · 08-02-2012 7:02pm

I really don’t understand why people get so emotive on the Famine ‘blame game’ and start using words like ‘genocide’ and 'deliberate atrocity'. Yes there was bad management in dealing with the issues, but social policy as we know it today is a recent development. The mindset prevailing in all countries at that time - not just Victorian Britain – was that self help was the cure. Famines always hit the bottom strata of society, the transient beings that had nothing and hope of little more than subsisting on the margins. Any economy/society that is dependent on a single commodity be it palm oil in West Africa, maize in Eritrea or potatoes in Ireland is awaiting disaster. Famines were nothing new in Ireland, they were a regular occurrence. Apart from those resulting from wars/civil disturbance in earlier centuries there were localised famines in the 1700’s; for example the prominent obelisk and many walls on Killiney Hill near Dublin were funded in 1741 by the landlord because ‘the times being hard with the people.’

Because of the Famine social change happened more quickly in politics, society and land distribution. The wheel was turning; the Famine gave it added impetus. Politically, economically and socially Ireland had been in turmoil for the half century before the Famine. The 1798 Rebellion was followed by the Act of Union, which led to many ‘key influencers’ moving to London. Increased exports (e.g. butter and salt beef from Cork), driven by the needs of the wars with Napoleon, created work and wealth (comparative for many) and must have been a factor in family size among the poorer classes. Add Catholic Emancipation, and the fact that the landlord class was squeezed between the threat of agrarian unrest (whiteboys, shanavests, etc) from their tenants and interference from the Government at Westminster, which largely did not understand Ireland. Quasi-total dependence on the potato by the poorer classes was a recipe for disaster and when that crop failed they paid the price accordingly.

From the land and landlord’s perspective, many Irish estates were not profitable and from the early 1800’s the cash income – primarily from rent – usually was not sufficient to support a desired lifestyle, let alone a minimal re-investment in agricultural improvements. That inevitably saddled heirs with debts which inevitably, like death duties and other taxes, were raised by loans secured by mortgage on the estate.

When the cost of Famine relief was placed on the Irish landlords, many of whom were incapable of proper financial management, it caused the bankruptcy of many and led post-Famine to more than five million acres of land changing hands. This allowed the graziers and middling farmers (those with 30 acres or more) to become better off and take a more dominant role in the community. The arrival of the secret ballot in 1872 further reduced the power of the landlord over his tenants, who could now vote for their own candidate without fear of reprisal. These circumstances brought about significant change; when the Government completed a survey in the early 1870’s, it found* that roughly 6,500 men and women owned estates of 500 acres or more. Of these, about 71 percent of these landlords lived on their estates or elsewhere in Ireland. While the richest owners were mostly Anglicans, some 43 percent of all proprietors were Catholics, 48 percent belonged to the Church of Ireland, and 7 percent were Presbyterians.

The various Land Acts of Windham, Gladstone, etc., ensured the transfer of more land. By the early 1900’s the old landed “gentry” was supplanted in most places by middle-class professionals, small businessmen, shopkeepers and strong farmers, most of whom were Catholic and many were nationalist. The Land Commission then finished off most of the old estates that remained.

Would that have happened without the Famine? I doubt it.

*http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKX/is_3-4_38/ai_111265621/pg_2/

CDfm · 08-02-2012 7:03pm

archer22 wrote: »

It is true that there were some appaling landlords,but it is unfair to tar them all with the same brush.In the area where I live I done some research into the 6 local landlords behaviour during the famine..5 of them never evicted anybody and donated everything they could to help the starving..............Remember it suited the farmers to be rid of the Cottiers on their land as farming was changing to more profitable dairy farming rather than the previous more labour intensive tillage.

Absolutely and I posted about this earlier too.

CDfm wrote: »

Do you have any links to the famine graves where you live.

It might be interesting to look at it as a local area thing, the lore, the landlords , the relief or non relief effort etc.

CDfm wrote: »

How land was held , landlord, agent, tenant , sub tenant etc does not get discusssed.

All landlords were not absentees, you had native Irish too.

The questions are challenging.

It would be great to say here were the good guys.And no doubt there are a few Schindlers there.

Now WS Trench's book needs to be approached with some scepticism as do claims by some Irish politicians of the era about the amount of food produced in Ireland.

And , while the concept of freedom is all very well in practice the Irish had less rights and protections than medieval serfs.

The distinction between the ancient slave and the medieval serf in law and custom may seem a fine one, but was significant. The man (and of course there were women slaves) who was enslaved in ancient times was considered to have died; all that was his passed to his master, including the power of life and death. The slave who resisted his master for any reason could be killed, or killed for no reason at all if the master wished to do so.

The serf, by contrast, was a free man except for the obligations he owed to his lord and the rights his lord claimed over him. Both servile obligations and noble rights could be very extensive, but since the serf was a living creature with a soul, they could not be unlimited. The master could not deny his serf the amenities of the Church, work him on holy days, or demand actions of him that were immoral. As a living creature, the serf had the rights accorded him by natural law. He could resist a lord attempting to take his life or one attempting to withhold the necessities of life from him and his.

The distinction was just as significant in practice. The ancient laboring slaves who formed the vast majority of the slave class, even if the literature of the times deals far more with the servant class, were segregated by class and lived in prison-like barracks on the villa. They were under the tight control of a slave-driver who punished any sign of rebelliousness quickly and harshly. They were worked in gangs and possessed nothing to call their own.

Even though the word "serf" comes from the Latin "servus," and means "slave," the situation of medieval serfs was quite different from that of the slave of Classical times. There were two kinds of serf: those who were bound to the soil and those who were bound to the lord. Servants were drawn from the latter class, but the insecurity of their tenure probably made the condition of being bound to the soil preferable. The serf usually had a separate hut with an attached garden and lived with his family. His marriage was a holy union, and married couples were not supposed to be separated. The serf had duties assigned to him by the steward of the manor and was responsible for the tilling of demesne land and the provisioning of the manor house. He received, in return, food and clothing for himself and his family, and often had time to supplement his rations by gardening and, especially during the enforced idleness of the winter, could produce things which he was often allowed to keep for himself or sell. Although the life of the medieval serf was very hard, it was probably preferable to that of the ancient slave.

http://www.vlib.us/medieval/lectures/serfdom.html

MarchDub · 08-02-2012 7:28pm

OK took me a while but I have typed out some stuff from a Scottish reference. I have a few Scottish history books and some don't even mention the famine of the 1840s as being significant but T. M. Devine in his The Scottish Nation a History 1700-2000 gives details of Scotland's experience of the potato crop failure of the 1840s. Devine is a much respected Scottish historian and holds the Fraser chair of history at The University of Edinburgh. Interestingly he contrasts the experience in Scotland in the 1840s with Ireland and makes no bones about saying that the Irish famine was an order of magnitude worse. Emigration was large from Scotland but actual death from starvation was not as significant at all. He begins the discussion with:

The Irish Famine of the 1840s was the greatest human disaster in western Europe in the nineteenth century.

He does a good analysis of why Scotland did not suffer starvation to the enormous extent that Ireland did.

However the reasons why the Highlands did not starve were wider and deeper than the relief effort itself. Many landowners were active in supporting the inhabitants of their estates in the early years of the crisis. ..Civil Servants even contrasted the positive role of Scottish landowners with the indifference of their many counterparts across the Irish Sea. A prime factor in the Scottish case was that many proprietors had the financial resources to provide support for their small tenants. Since the early nineteenth century there had been a great transfer of estates from the indebted hereditary landlord class to new owners who were often rich tycoons from outside the Highlands. Over three quarters of all land in the famine zone had been acquired by merchants, bankers, lawyers, financiers, and industrialists by the 1840s....

The different stages of economic development between Scotland and Ireland was also a crucial factor. The Scottish famine took place in an industrialised society with urbanisation occurring at a faster rate than virtually all European countries. By the 1840s Scotland had much greater per capita wealth than Ireland and an industrial economy that offered a range of jobs in general and casual labouring to temporary and permanent migrants from the Highlands.

BTW his take on Trevelyan is similar to many Irish historians and calls the report ‘racist’.

pedroeibar1 · 08-02-2012 7:35pm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

.........Unlike the Bison Slaughter in the US in the 19th Century where a primary reason was the removal of the food supply for Native Americans

Not in full agreement on that – the primary motive was profit, created by the need for leather, exacerbated by the greed of the buffalo hunters, who massacred whole herds for their hides, usually leaving the meat to rot.

Several ‘British’ aristos were involved in cattle ranching in 1870’s Wyoming and when over there the 4th Earl of Dunraven regularly shot a bison or two for the Native Americans. Curiously for that era his father had converted to Catholicism in the 1850’s it is said as a direct result of his close friendship with his brother-in-law, William Monsell, later Lord Emly. Monsell‘s Famine experience had brought him closer to his Catholic tenantry; working with Catholic clergy on relief work and political activity brought him closer to that church, into which he was received in 1850. When back in Ireland later in life the 4th Earl was the one who was a driving force in the Windham Act of 1903 on tenant land purchase. Both the Dunravens and the Monsells were good landlords; the writer/historian Emily Lawless was of the latter family.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 8:12pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Not in full agreement on that – the primary motive was profit, created by the need for leather, exacerbated by the greed of the buffalo hunters, who massacred whole herds for their hides, usually leaving the meat to rot.

I am not so sure that the intention was not there to eradicate the plains native american's. It was mighty convenient.

Jack Adair had massive landholdings in Texas.

slowburner · 08-02-2012 10:33pm

I would prefer not to become involved in the blame game for the Great Famine but thought that some spatial facts might be of use to the OP.

Total agricultural land available: 10.4 million acresª
Population in 1841: 8,175,124º

10.4 million acres/8.2 million people = roughly 1.3 acres per person.

(Opinions vary too wildly on the quantity of land required to feed one person.)
Of course, this figure would give the false impression that those 10.4 million acres were available to all, which of course they were not.
I'll leave it to others to argue about how much land was really available.
That said, it hard not to get away from the concept of massive overpopulation

ªhttp://www.teagasc.ie/agrifood/
ºhttp://www.libraryireland.com/articles/CensusIrelandDUM23-137/index.php

pedroeibar1 · 08-02-2012 10:54pm

CDfm wrote: »

I am not so sure that the intention was not there to eradicate the plains native american's. It was mighty convenient.

Jack Adair had massive landholdings in Texas.

The objective was to get the natives into reservations, not to eradicate them (I know, I know, 'The only good, etc., etc.,;)) Adair was the one responsible for bringing the 'aristos' over, first to his ranch in Texas and they then went to Montana and Wyoming. The American women (in search of a title) and the aristos (in search of cash) did the rest. That's how Winston Churchill had an American 'Mom'.
It was not the Indians that put a stop to the northern ranching, it was a series of unusually bad winters and overgrazing by sheep farmers.
See http://www.amazon.com/British-Gentlemen-Wild-West-Intensely/dp/0029356016
Rs
P.
PS Horace Plunkett also was involved in ranching around the Powder River

Jolly Red Giant · 08-02-2012 11:07pm

The causes and impact of the Famine are very complex.

One thing that was a major component part of the situation was the exploitation of the shortage of food by Irish tenant farmers who hoarded food supplies in an effort to drive up prices so they could make a killing selling produce. They further exploited the situation by charging exhorbitant interest for food and forcing labourers to work at below wage rates to pay off their debts. Finally, when landlords did cut rents, the tenant farmers refused to pass on the cuts to cottiers and labourers renting 'potato land'.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 11:13pm

Here is a link to estimates of the population drop by county.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ire1841.htm

So anyone can look up their county.

Reekwind · 08-02-2012 11:32pm

slowburner wrote: »

That said, it hard not to get away from the concept of massive overpopulation

The idea that Ireland cannot or could not support pre-famine population levels is a disingenuous myth. The problem is not the amount of arable land available vs the population (and if it was then England would have a population little larger than Ireland's) but the distribution of this land and the level of agricultural development. In both cases economic policies pursued by London played a major role in setting the stage for mass starvation. A growing population with limited access to land and trapped in a state of subsistence agriculture is a recipe for disaster; not population growth itself

That said, I do not believe that the famine was genocidal. London must bear the blame for its gross mismanagement of the Irish economy, and its disastrous response to the crisis, but I do not believe that the famine was deliberate. And if it wasn't then I find it very hard to compare it to intentional acts of ethnic slaughter

pedroeibar1 · 08-02-2012 11:34pm

slowburner wrote: »

I would prefer not to become involved in the blame game for the Great Famine but thought that some spatial facts might be of use to the OP.
Total agricultural land available: 10.4 million acresª
Population in 1841: 8,175,124º

10.4 million acres/8.2 million people = roughly 1.3 acres per person.

(Opinions vary too wildly on the quantity of land required to feed one person.)
Of course, this figure would give the false impression that those 10.4 million acres were available to all, which of course they were not.
I'll leave it to others to argue about how much land was really available.
That said, it hard not to get away from the concept of massive overpopulation

ªhttp://www.teagasc.ie/agrifood/
ºhttp://www.libraryireland.com/articles/CensusIrelandDUM23-137/index.php

I fully agree with the overpopulation; like India & Africa today it is always the poorest families that have the largest families.

It’s not exactly easy to compare farming of the Famine era with today’s version. For starters, the 10 million acres you quoted is today’s farmland estimate, and excludes forestry and built-up urban, much of which was in use in the 1840s. The Coillte woods around me in Kerry held numerous families who eked out an existence in Famine times until most left or died. It is hard to believe how and where people lived, but back then the standard accommodation of 80% of Ireland’s tenant farmers was a one-roomed cabin, usually with a sack for the window.
Today’s food producers have access to markets, a cash economy and a transport network. In the worst Famine-affected areas there was no decent road network and trading boats were the norm around west Cork & Kerry. The railway did not get to Killarney until the 1850’s, and only later was extended to Cahirciveen and Kenmare. Nowadays anyone farming less than 100 acres is almost at subsistence level and needs a second income, hence the huge drop in numbers farming and the aging population of fulltime farmers. Long argument potential, I’m not going to go there.;)

In the 1840’s generally a five acre plot rented by a cottier family was big by the standards of the day, and the purpose (a la Trench) of evicting the smaller cottiers was to consolidate these marginal plots into viable units by giving them to the more hardworking/progressive farmers. The math is easy. Lyne in his book on the Kenmare Estate says that in 1846 it cost more than £5 a year to maintain a pauper in the workhouse, but the cost of a passage to America was on average about £3 and cheaper still to Canada, where more ships were beginning to dock. I’ve researched (local history) some evictions in Kerry - not Kenmare Estate- and fact and oral tradition are poles apart.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 11:37pm

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The causes and impact of the Famine are very complex.

One thing that was a major component part of the situation was the exploitation of the shortage of food by Irish tenant farmers who hoarded food supplies in an effort to drive up prices so they could make a killing selling produce. They further exploited the situation by charging exhorbitant interest for food and forcing labourers to work at below wage rates to pay off their debts. Finally, when landlords did cut rents, the tenant farmers refused to pass on the cuts to cottiers and labourers renting 'potato land'.

Interesting.

Can you explain some more.

Do you have any links or sources.

Yahew · 08-02-2012 11:48pm

Right this needs some sorting out.

1) It is dubious that Ireland was in famine, or food shortage in 1845. Certainly food was being exported at the time, and were borders closed to exports, and the food distributed internally - as it would be with an Irish Catholic run parliament ( one hopes) then the loss of life would have lessened, or zero.
2) The claim that the "poor" suffer in famines is a travesty of the truth. In the dark and middle age famines the urban poor, and middle classes even, died off. This is the main reason for the collapse in Rome's population after the fall of the Empire. Without a central authority the rural poor, without food surplus in famines, hoard - and the urban poor ( and rich) die. If rural food producers are dying then it is because their individually produced food surplus is taken from them and sent to cities. This is generally enforced by a central authority, and backed by laws.
2.1) Ergo, a free market of independent producers would not starve in the 1845-1848. The famine was down to the social structures of the time and the seizure of the produce of food producers to feed everybody else by a feudalistic society.
4) Ireland was part of the UK. If Ireland had a deficit - which it probably didn't - and the Island of Britain had a surplus then the non-transfer of the surplus from Britain was genocidal and intentional.
4.1) If the UK as a whole ( both Islands) had a deficit then the failure of the potato crop in Ireland merely reduced a subsistence crop in an area which produced more food per capita than London, the rest as cash crops. The failure of London ( where everybody is a net food consumer) to starve, despite the UK wide deficit, means that transfers came from Ireland to England to solve a UK wide problem. Act of Union and all. This is genocidal.
5) Most deaths were disease driven and caused by policy : including the working houses, the roads built to nowhere, the deliberate destruction and clearances, not by food deficit, a deficit which could have been ratified by about 500 extra calories per capita.
6) If UK rationing could have saved Irish lives, failure to ration was genocidal. If the UK has pursued the policy in 1940 it pursued in 1845-1848, then Britain would have starved. It didn't, it rationed.
7) Ireland was no more over-populated than England, and England's grew 200% after the famine. The Island of Britain is about twice the size of Ireland, but half of that is the Highlands ( well, Scotland). At the time of famine it had 12 million people, 9M in England which has about the same agricultural land as Ireland.
8) If the UK was to increase its population from 1845 on because it imported cheap American food, then failure to do that in the famine was genocide. Ireland probably wasn't in food deficit in 1845, but even if it was, food deficits didn't kill millions in England subsequently. They imported food. As they do now. Hence they have 60M people in food deficit, and we have 4.5 ( 6 on the island) in food surplus. Both countries produce about enough for 20M people afaik.

Food deficits don't kill people in modern states, people kill people.

( And the modern age was well under way in 1845, if food can be transferred out, it can be transferred in).
Bengal in 1943 was also genocide.

Yahew · 08-02-2012 11:50pm

CDfm wrote: »

Interesting.

Can you explain some more.

Do you have any links or sources.

I doubt he does. Whatever "food hoarding" took place from Ireland'd independent farmers would be insignificant since the majority of Ireland's famers were tenant farmers

EDIt:

Christ, he is blaming "tenant" famers for hoarding. This is effectively holocaust denial on an Irish level. Irish tenant farmers didn't own their non-potato crop, it was paid in rent. It was tenant farmers who were kicked out of the land, and onto the parish.

CDfm · 08-02-2012 11:57pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

followed by the Act of Union,

The Act of Union - "the fur coat no knickers" of all economic
unions ever.

MarchDub has quoted Devine that Ireland was undeveloped industrially as a result of economic policies hampering industrial development.

Laissez faire ,

my arse

, it was more like economic sabotage. The people were on the land as a result of protectionism of the British economy, it was not a union, Ireland was a colony.

LordSutch · 09-02-2012 12:21am

When I think of Genocide I think of Rwanda or the Jewish Holocaust, and when I think of moder day famine I think of Ethiopia, I think of neither when I think about the 'Irish famine' 1845-1852 which was neither genocide as per Rwanda, nor food famine as per Ethiopia. Potato blight saw off the potato crop for sure, but there was other food in abundance. One tribe did not try to wipe out the other, and people were not butcher on the streets, yet so many died, and so many left these shores for ever . . . .