The Irish famine?

18-12-2014 11:18am

I would love it if Michael D got up and publicly forgave the proponents of right-wing, 'laissez faire' economics for the famine. That would speak more to the truth and really put the cat among the pigeons.

He'd probably be up for it as well.

ChicagoJoe · 19-12-2014 3:27pm

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

Fred did a decent job of answering it - the narrative about the famine is that it was cause by the British and the Protestant Ascendancy and that they were serving their interests for its duration - that is absolutely not the case - indeed there is copious amounts of evidence to demonstrate that once the famine started certain sections of the 'Irish' society, namely the Catholic (and Protestant - although they were overwhelmingly Catholic) merchants and the Catholic (and Protestant) tenant farmers engaged in widespread manipulation of food supplies and prices to make a financial killing off the misery and death of the rural and urban poor.

I have never heard the famine been exclusively blamed on the Protestant Ascendancy, indeed as an example in John B Keane’s The Field the character of Bull McCabe has his most scathing comments directed at the Catholic church such as “no priest died of hunger during the famine” etc. Naturally enough the British govt and it’s arms of state are rightly held to blame for the conditions that created the famine. Wealthy Irish Catholics did also indeed exploit the situation and the church itself was not shy about evicting people for back rent etc

Chuckieawrlaw · 19-12-2014 5:01pm

famine AKA the great genoicide,propelled by the british

Markcheese · 19-12-2014 8:11pm

Chuckieawrlaw wrote: »

famine AKA the great genoicide,propelled by the british

And the Irish .
Unfortunately

feargale · 19-12-2014 11:33pm

When the GFA was being negotiated every party had an opportunity to confess their "sins" ( i.e. atrocities ) and seek absolution. Too bad for those who acted as if they were without sin.

Jesus. wrote: »

I think a line should be drawn in the sand regarding the troubles. Whether it be IRA, loyalists or the State(s), raking over old coals is going to do nobody any good. It only opens up old wounds and keeps NI stuck in a depressing time warp.

That's what powerful wrongdoers usually say. Remember Ray Burke? To paraphrase the immortal words of Mandy Rice Davies, they would say that, wouldn't they?
Whose old wounds might be opened? And to what effect?

Jesus. wrote: »

Its very hard on the relatives of victims and victims themselves but for the sake of the greater good I believe they'll just have to bear the brunt of the suffering.
Its the lesser of two evils IMO.

There's an age old legal maxim : " Let justice be done though the heavens fall."

feargale · 19-12-2014 11:35pm

Chuckieawrlaw wrote: »

famine AKA the great genoicide,propelled by the british

That's a very succinct summary of whatever massive tome on the Famine you've been reading.

Jesus. · 20-12-2014 12:02am

Well I ain't a powerful wrongdoer Feargale and I don't care too much for old legal maxims either.

Just speaking common sense, that's all

pedroeibar1 · 20-12-2014 1:07am

ChicagoJoe wrote: »

.......indeed as an example in John B Keane’s The Field the character of Bull McCabe has his most scathing comments directed at the Catholic church ..........

Theatre on a history forum - we're in the realms of Father Ted now ...."That's the great thing about Catholicism - it's very vague and no-one knows what its really all about."

ChicagoJoe · 21-12-2014 2:38pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Theatre on a history forum - we're in the realms of Father Ted now ...."That's the great thing about Catholicism - it's very vague and no-one knows what its really all about."

I mentioned The Field as an example of the attitude of many to the Catholic church and the Famine, as John B Keane would have been among Ireland's finest playwrights in the last century with his plays written from his decades of observation and experience of Irish rural life.

pedroeibar1 · 21-12-2014 11:04pm

ChicagoJoe wrote: »

I mentioned ...... John B Keane .... among Ireland's finest playwrights in the last century with his plays written from his decades of observation and experience of Irish rural life.

And I mentioned Father Ted as he was one of Ireland's finest comedians in the last century and about as acceptable a souce for a history forum as JBK:D

feargale · 25-12-2014 12:53am

Happy Christmas everybody, and every good fortune in 2015.
Go mbeirimíd beo ar an dtràth seo arís.

Andrew Purfield · 28-12-2014 3:43am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Good luck with that one.

Maybe it could be focused on Drogheda, after they adopted the Ottoman symbol to remember the aid sent by the emperor.

It speaks to the Humanity and Folk Memory of Drogheda and Drogheda people that they adopted this symbol long long before anybody in Ireland dared talk about the Famine for fear of what their Granda was upto, and whether he was one of the Sheriff's or Bailiff's men.

Every year we have cultural exchanges to and fro from Turkey. The local Football Club has the most prominent symbol and they play Trabzonspor regularly. It is a historical fact the Sultan sent ships and the Brits shamelessly tried to block them from coming, so they had to be sent secretly. He wanted to donate a fortune and Queen Victoria limited what could be accepted.

''In 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £10,000 to victims of the Irish potato famine, but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only £1,000, because she herself had sent only £2,000.[1][2][3] The Sultan sent £1,000 along with three ships full of food. The British administration allegedly attempted to block the ships, but the food arrived secretly at Drogheda harbour and was left there by Ottoman sailors.[4][5] Shipping records relating to the port appear not to have survived. Newspaper reports suggest that ships from Thessaloniki in the Ottoman Empire sailed up the River Boyne in May 1847,[6] although it has also been claimed that the river was dry at the time. A letter written by Irish notables in the Ottoman archives explicitly thanks the Sultan for his help.[7] The ships landed in Drogheda; in 1995, the Drogheda town hall erected a placard in commemoration. In 2012, plans were announced to produce a film on the subject,[8] starring Colin Farrell and several Turkish stars.[9]''

So far from worshipping some foreign emperor, the Humanitarianism is remembered fondly along with the cultural link it spawned between Drogheda and Turkey which still stands to this stay in Commerce(we have a good few small Turkish food outlets and Kebab places), Sport(as aforementioned) and in regular cultural, educational and political exchanges.

A bit of detail wouldn't kill you, while you're denigrating it as 'foreign aid sent by the Emperor'. The Brits were foreigners too in case you forgot, and as aforementioned they shamelessly tried to block the aid, ie food for starving people they themselves as Landlords in Cabinet had stolen farming produce from and wouldn't feed.

Andrew Purfield · 28-12-2014 4:10am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Blame where blame is due. But in Ireland everything gets blamed on the English.

I think it's in Angela's Ashes where the family throw out a mattress riddled with bed bugs and the father blames the English, because there were no bed bugs in Ireland until the English came. Always makes me smile.

But my point is that the Choctaw Indians generosity is mentioned every time the famine is discussed, usually along with protestant proselytizing. Never ever, for example, do the Quakers or Baron Rothschild get a mention.

Then you get crap about Victoria only gave £20 and stopped the ottoman emperor from donating more, then ordered the navy to stop his aid ships coming in to Dublin. There are still people who think Drogheda took his coat of arms in gratitude.

This is degrading to Drogheda People like myself in the extremity. You've done this in a few posts and it's like you have a grudge against the town? Takes some neck and ignorance for an English person who admitted his own historical knowledge of the Famine amounted to somewhere between the Industrial Revolution and World War One to come on and get stuck into Drogheda. You should read a few books.

Are you seriously saying Drogheda People and Politicians took the Turkish coat of arms as an ironic dark humoured historical slight on the British and the Feudal Landlord Classes, and by extension the Victims of the Genocide itself?

Have you ever actually been to or lived in Drogheda and engaged the very well informed local populace and historians on the matter, or indeed other matters as pertaining to British Rule in the vicinity of the locality?

Drogheda was the centre of many intellectual movements since its' entire population was massacred by the invading Army in Cromwell's day. We like to consider ourselves a forgiving people, but we reserve the right to never forget. The Local Saint of Drogheda was decapitated, hung drawn and quartered by the Brits despite being a forward thinking Man of Peace for his time who established Ireland's first multi-denominational schools and college. His friendship with the British elite counted for nothing in the end and the Poor man was brutally slaughtered like all catholic leaders of the time. His head is in our Church in Perpetuity. I suppose that's another plot to provoke, as opposed to gratitude?

What next, The Battle of Julianstown and the Confederation were plots to provoke another invasion?

Drogheda people remember when young men were either sent to Australia or hung in the Town Square for stealing bread. I think you need to explain what your problem with Drogheda is. It smacks of ignorance, almost bigotry.

It's a historical fact that the British Monarch of the day told the Ottoman to limit his donation(the miserable cow couldn't be out done in her Poor Law Relief, could she) and that the Landowning classes in Cabinet tried to stop the ships coming by refusing access to the main Ports.

Just while we're dispensing with our prejudices let's be factual about them. I've lived and spent considerable time in some gutter towns as well as nice cities outside of Ireland, and while Drogheda people certainly never forget their history, they harbour no grudge, but we rightly take offence at misrepresentations from people with an obvious axe to grind against the town. There are far worse and less enlightened places on this planet.

If we are going to be engaging in the Elitist slagging off of provincial towns and calling people 'ueber patriots' who use various 'recruiting tools' based on prejudices they hold in our posts we could do worse than look at some Far Right Racist Provincial English towns who elected a raft of UKIP MEP's and who are now starting to elect UKIP MP's as well. I wonder what Nigel Farage thinks of the Famine/Great Hunger.

Drogheda People vote SF and Independent, which is not a sign of Ueber Patriotism, but of leftwing politics in a deindustrialised town. A more enlightened reaction than blaming Romanians and Bulgarians which is the habit of your own country's 'Ueber Patriots' while we're at it.

My advice to you next time you're lucky enough to be in Drogheda Town is to go into one of the many local businesses such as the many Coffee Houses which have sprung up in recent years and engage with people. Visit the Tower and the Museum in the Cultural quarter in Millmount. In advance of that you might try forgetting your prejudices and reading the odd book on what really happened in Drogheda during the Mass Genocide that was the Great Hunger.

By the way when it comes to Ueber Patriots, the term you use to refer to anybody who sympathises with the Famine generally, whose Parliament has the Lord Persecutor outside of it? That man slaughtered the whole of Drogheda, and 35% of the then Irish population, expelling many hundreds of thousands more into Slavery. The uncomfortable truth for you is British Rule has a long history of Genocide, especially in Ireland.

I don't hold any candle for the sliveens in Dáil Éireann, and indeed am resident abroad because of their actions, but let's not lecture other people's countries on alleged revisionism unless we are willing to acknowledge the very real revisionism propagated in our own. At least the Austrians here preserve and acknowledge the shame that was Mauthausen. The Brits have a Statue outside Westminster of the man the Irish regard rightfully in the same book as Hitler, which sums up ignorant revisionist and illiterate drooling medieval attitudes like yours towards Historical Facts like British blocking and refusal of 'Famine' Aid really.

Andrew Purfield · 28-12-2014 5:04am

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

Fred did a decent job of answering it - the narrative about the famine is that it was cause by the British and the Protestant Ascendancy and that they were serving their interests for its duration - that is absolutely not the case - indeed there is copious amounts of evidence to demonstrate that once the famine started certain sections of the 'Irish' society, namely the Catholic (and Protestant - although they were overwhelmingly Catholic) merchants and the Catholic (and Protestant) tenant farmers engaged in widespread manipulation of food supplies and prices to make a financial killing off the misery and death of the rural and urban poor.

While it is no doubt true that the Political class running this country, the Business classes and the Officer classes, and some other sections of the populace have ancestors who colluded in the oppression of the period, how could a majority of the Merchants and Sliveens have been Catholic when the Protestant Ascendancy owned almost all the land, Property, Foodstuffs, and thus profits and Capital?

Who ordered the evictions?

Who banged down the door for them is a lesser question in many respects.

It was largely the RIC, British soldiers and some hired thugs. Every society has collaborators, chancers and sliveens at moments of national trauma. The true criminals were the heartless people who ordered the ethnic cleansing and killed in effect to steal more land for profit. Several of the British Cabinet were Absentee Landlords so a lot of these eviction orders came from on high too.

Somebody gave the orders for evictions on these feudally owned lands and it wasn't the Sneaking Regarder Gombeen Men but the Hated Feudal Landlords, and the rates and policies imposed on them by the British Government, who maintain ultimate culpability in this crime, and there's a considerable hierarchy before we reach the sliveens and middle men who profiteered towards the end of the Genocide.

You're taking a typical Revisionist view based on the Manifesto and your own hatred of Republicanism, as you've done on other sites.

Read Tim Pat Coogan's The Famine Plot and stop your pejorative revisionism.

Andrew Purfield · 28-12-2014 5:20am

Jesus. wrote: »

Fair enough Jolly Red Giant but you appear to be lurching from one extreme to the other. You're now making no mention of the landlords (who were mainly of the Gentry) who's minuscule plots and high rents helped bring about the disaster in the first place.

You're talking about what people did during the famine and you're right to do so. But you seem to be excusing a large part of the reason for the tragedy which does come across as pretty revisionist to be honest.

Thank you!

Put more succinctly than I could manage.

I disagreed with some of what you wrote-this should be remembered on a State level as its' consequences are still felt today-but ultimately as Tim Pat Coogan said, while many a Native Middle Man profiteered during the actual event, the main beneficiaries of it were the Landlords, Politicians and Civil Servants who instigated it and stood back laughing at its' happenings. Balbriggan and towns like it had been a developing industrial townland as well prior to the Act of Union and later economic sabotage so there's that too.

Coogan makes the point this was Political Economy of Laissez Faire and Religious dogma of 'the will of Providence teaching the feckless Irish a lesson' in a toxic mix-an adherence to Property Rights over the Common Good, like an Anti-Thesis to the Proclamation or Bunreacht if ye will, and Trevelyan was the main force behind this, from limiting and blocking and later closing down Peel's relief programs, from the punitive Poor Law and the dreaded workhouse that multiplied the Death Toll, to on the basis of his limited once-off former travels round Ireland, writing racist but influential anonymous articles and letters to the Press of the Day that held sway in British and Anglo-Irish circles where it counted as it came down to the crunch, they were only too happy to clear the land and if a middleman class emerged and benefited too, then all well and good.

JRG subscribes to a particularly revisionist and one dimensional purely ideological view of history. Not altogether a factual view in every circumstance.

Actually a more leftwing approach than JRG's simplistic and revisionist nonsense is the truth that realises this was classic ultra rightwing orthodoxy of the Landlords and British Elite at play, with a dirty cocktail of prejudice designed to eradicate half the Population one way or another, and it worked.

We may as well blame the Guards at Auschwitz for the invasion of Poland and subsequent horrors. Sure they were only folleying orders we always say pejoratively, and rightly so, but who was giving the orders. Same chain of command applies here in a situation where almost 9 million people became circa 4 million in just 7 years.

Lots of simpletons as you say, who not alone cannot do the Maths, but cannot even tell a chain of command when they see one and in true West Brit anti SF manner will start pointing the finger at the Gombeen Enforcer class as the cause rather than the Symptom.

Fratton Fred · 28-12-2014 12:27pm

Andrew Purfield wrote: »

It speaks to the Humanity and Folk Memory of Drogheda and Drogheda people that they adopted this symbol long long before anybody in Ireland dared talk about the Famine for fear of what their Granda was upto, and whether he was one of the Sheriff's or Bailiff's men.

Every year we have cultural exchanges to and fro from Turkey. The local Football Club has the most prominent symbol and they play Trabzonspor regularly. It is a historical fact the Sultan sent ships and the Brits shamelessly tried to block them from coming, so they had to be sent secretly. He wanted to donate a fortune and Queen Victoria limited what could be accepted.

''In 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £10,000 to victims of the Irish potato famine, but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only £1,000, because she herself had sent only £2,000.[1][2][3] The Sultan sent £1,000 along with three ships full of food. The British administration allegedly attempted to block the ships, but the food arrived secretly at Drogheda harbour and was left there by Ottoman sailors.[4][5] Shipping records relating to the port appear not to have survived. Newspaper reports suggest that ships from Thessaloniki in the Ottoman Empire sailed up the River Boyne in May 1847,[6] although it has also been claimed that the river was dry at the time. A letter written by Irish notables in the Ottoman archives explicitly thanks the Sultan for his help.[7] The ships landed in Drogheda; in 1995, the Drogheda town hall erected a placard in commemoration. In 2012, plans were announced to produce a film on the subject,[8] starring Colin Farrell and several Turkish stars.[9]''

So far from worshipping some foreign emperor, the Humanitarianism is remembered fondly along with the cultural link it spawned between Drogheda and Turkey which still stands to this stay in Commerce(we have a good few small Turkish food outlets and Kebab places), Sport(as aforementioned) and in regular cultural, educational and political exchanges.

A bit of detail wouldn't kill you, while you're denigrating it as 'foreign aid sent by the Emperor'. The Brits were foreigners too in case you forgot, and as aforementioned they shamelessly tried to block the aid, ie food for starving people they themselves as Landlords in Cabinet had stolen farming produce from and wouldn't feed.

lol.

Pretty much the entire story you have posted is a complete myth and the fact you believe it enough to post it demonstrates my point perfectly.

Thank you.

pedroeibar1 · 28-12-2014 1:01pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

lol.

Pretty much the entire story you have posted is a complete myth and the fact you believe it enough to post it demonstrates my point perfectly.

Thank you.

What did you expect?

Anyone who does a "cut & paste" from Wikipedia, (with more from a rabid Irish American site) and regards Coogan's book on the Famine as authoritative, really needs help!:D:D

DecStone · 29-12-2014 12:43am

Andrew Purfield wrote: »

It speaks to the Humanity and Folk Memory of Drogheda and Drogheda people that they adopted this symbol long long before anybody in Ireland dared talk about the Famine for fear of what their Granda was upto, and whether he was one of the Sheriff's or Bailiff's men.

Every year we have cultural exchanges to and fro from Turkey. The local Football Club has the most prominent symbol and they play Trabzonspor regularly. It is a historical fact the Sultan sent ships and the Brits shamelessly tried to block them from coming, so they had to be sent secretly. He wanted to donate a fortune and Queen Victoria limited what could be accepted.

''In 1845, Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £10,000 to victims of the Irish potato famine, but Queen Victoria requested that the Sultan send only £1,000, because she herself had sent only £2,000.[1][2][3] The Sultan sent £1,000 along with three ships full of food. The British administration allegedly attempted to block the ships, but the food arrived secretly at Drogheda harbour and was left there by Ottoman sailors.[4][5] Shipping records relating to the port appear not to have survived. Newspaper reports suggest that ships from Thessaloniki in the Ottoman Empire sailed up the River Boyne in May 1847,[6] although it has also been claimed that the river was dry at the time. A letter written by Irish notables in the Ottoman archives explicitly thanks the Sultan for his help.[7] The ships landed in Drogheda; in 1995, the Drogheda town hall erected a placard in commemoration. In 2012, plans were announced to produce a film on the subject,[8] starring Colin Farrell and several Turkish stars.[9]''

So far from worshipping some foreign emperor, the Humanitarianism is remembered fondly along with the cultural link it spawned between Drogheda and Turkey which still stands to this stay in Commerce(we have a good few small Turkish food outlets and Kebab places), Sport(as aforementioned) and in regular cultural, educational and political exchanges.

A bit of detail wouldn't kill you, while you're denigrating it as 'foreign aid sent by the Emperor'. The Brits were foreigners too in case you forgot, and as aforementioned they shamelessly tried to block the aid, ie food for starving people they themselves as Landlords in Cabinet had stolen farming produce from and wouldn't feed.

This is a thoughtful response IMO and the fact that a poster answered it with a dismissive 'LOL" says more about him than it does your post.

And while yet another poster tried to denigrate your point by saying you used Wiki - your quote regarding Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid is actually from recent work of Christine Kinealy who had done much good research on the Famine.

Fratton Fred · 29-12-2014 8:44am

DecStone wrote: »

This is a thoughtful response IMO and the fact that a poster answered it with a dismissive 'LOL" says more about him than it does your post.

And while yet another poster tried to denigrate your point by saying you used Wiki - your quote regarding Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid is actually from recent work of Christine Kinealy who had done much good research on the Famine.

The Sultan donated money, that is well known. The rest, about the aid ships being blocked, going to Drogheda and the origins of the Drogheda crest is fantasy

Drogheda was a loyal royalist town (why do you think Cromwell attacked it) and its loyalty was rewarded by giving the city a star and crescent by king John.

You might want to check out the badge of Portsmouth fc. The city was awarded a similar emblem by Richard the lionheart.

DecStone · 29-12-2014 2:45pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

The Sultan donated money, that is well known. The rest, about the aid ships being blocked, going to Drogheda and the origins of the Drogheda crest is fantasy

You can't say that this is 'fantasy' and dismiss it so out of hand. Christine Kinealy mentions it a number of times in her work and says that while there is no documented proof of the blockage there is some anecdotal evidence that ships were blocked from landing at Cork and Dublin and went into Drogheda. I'm not saying either way, but that dismissing this so high handedly is not a valid response.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Drogheda was a loyal royalist town (why do you think Cromwell attacked it) and its loyalty was rewarded by giving the city a star and crescent by king John.

The origins of the City's logo are unclear - there is no direct evidence that it came from King John.

And as for Cromwell - the whole of Ireland was 'royalist' or papist as far as he was concerned and this was stated during the trial of Charles I. The Irish had supplied Charles with arms to fight the parliamentarians. Massacring the Papists of Ireland was Cromwell's stated goal. Soon after Drogheda he attacked Wexford and boasted in letters back to London that he was killing papists and Catholic priests 'promiscuously'.

Fratton Fred · 29-12-2014 9:49pm

DecStone wrote: »

The origins of the City's logo are unclear - there is no direct evidence that it came from King John. .

Let me help you then

http://m.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/localnotes/the-arms-of-drogheda-explained-27111958.html

So, despite the "regular" games against Trabvonspor (one game that was rained off in 2013) and the odd Kebab house, it actually looks like Drogheda has far closer links to England than it does Turkey.

Still, it's a good story all the same.

Jesus. · 30-12-2014 2:51pm

Andrew Purfield wrote: »

This is degrading to Drogheda People like myself in the extremity. You've done this in a few posts and it's like you have a grudge against the town?

Maybe he doesn't like the aaaaaacent

Jesus. · 30-12-2014 2:56pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

So, despite the "regular" games against Trabvonspor (one game that was rained off in 2013) and the odd Kebab house, it actually looks like Drogheda has far closer links to England than it does Turkey.

Well of course it would, that's a bloody silly argument to be fair Fred.

But why would that preclude it from having any links whatsoever to Turkey?

DecStone · 30-12-2014 4:26pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Let me help you then

[link removed...]

So, despite the "regular" games against Trabvonspor (one game that was rained off in 2013) and the odd Kebab house, it actually looks like Drogheda has far closer links to England than it does Turkey.

Still, it's a good story all the same.

The Indo article is mostly opinion and speculation. There is no absolute proof regarding where the origins of the crest actually come from - apart from comparisons to similar ones.

And of course Drogheda would have more 'closer links' to England than Turkey. That is not a dispute. The entire country was a colony of the English, later British. That was more than a link - it was a chain.

Fratton Fred · 30-12-2014 5:34pm

DecStone wrote: »

The Indo article is mostly opinion and speculation. There is no absolute proof regarding where the origins of the crest actually come from - apart from comparisons to similar ones.

And of course Drogheda would have more 'closer links' to England than Turkey. That is not a dispute. The entire country was a colony of the English, later British. That was more than a link - it was a chain.

Maybe, but I look forward to you providing the evidence that shows the origins of the drogheda crest are ottoman.

DecStone · 30-12-2014 7:22pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Maybe, but I look forward to you providing the evidence that shows the origins of the drogheda crest are ottoman.

I'm not making that assertion. I began this by saying that your dismissal of it all is the issue. You dismiss something out of hand with a 'LOL' quip without having any evidence to the contrary. I am saying that we are dealing with uncertainty and not something that can be put down with ridicule the way you did.

Fratton Fred · 30-12-2014 7:47pm

DecStone wrote: »

I'm not making that assertion. I began this by saying that your dismissal of it all is the issue. You dismiss something out of hand with a 'LOL' quip without having any evidence to the contrary. I am saying that we are dealing with uncertainty and not something that can be put down with ridicule the way you did.

Yes, yes we can.

DecStone · 30-12-2014 8:38pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Yes, yes we can.

So nothing of any value to add to the discussion. Thought not.

Fratton Fred · 30-12-2014 8:45pm

DecStone wrote: »

So nothing of any value to add to the discussion. Thought not.

What have you added? No actual points, no actual discussion or evidence. You are pursuing a complete strawman argument that because there is no actual proof the Drogheda arms came from king John, we can't discount that they were created as part of a tribute to the ottoman sultan.

The point has been discussed in the media numerous times and very widely discredited by reputable historians. The STORY is just some makey uppey history that has absolutely no basis in fact.

Tell me, as you're the apparent expert, what do you believe?

DecStone · 30-12-2014 9:17pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What have you added? No actual points, no actual discussion or evidence. You are pursuing a complete strawman argument that because there is no actual proof the Drogheda arms came from king John, we can't discount that they were created as part of a tribute to the ottoman sultan.

The point has been discussed in the media numerous times and very widely discredited by reputable historians. The STORY is just some makey uppey history that has absolutely no basis in fact.

Tell me, as you're the apparent expert, what do you believe?

No, you're the self proclaimed expert here as evidenced by your dismissive response that I first pointed out to you. I answered that the origins of the crest are uncertain and therefore shouldn't be dismissed so out of hand. You had added nothing to the poster's long response expect to ridicule it with "LOL". Nothing helpful there.

I also gave Christine Kinealy as a source for the 'possibility' [note the word] of the ships landing at Drogheda. Her work on shipping during the period has added much to the discussion on the Famine experience. She has done work on other ships coming from the United States into Ireland which were delayed or diverted by the British authorities because of what she termed "the labyrinth of bureaucracy attached to the public works" so much so that their attempt at bringing aid proved almost useless to the Famine victims.

The Irish famine?

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