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Any evidence of cannibalism during Irish Famine

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Comments

  • #62
    space_man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 663 ✭✭✭space_man


    greenflash wrote: »
    Do cannibals prefer ketchup, brown sauce or Ballymaloe relish?

    No but I hear a drizzle of
    "BALLSaMick Vinegar" can do wonders.


  • #63
    signostic
    Registered Users Posts: 5,878 ✭✭✭signostic


    WoollyRedHat wrote: »
    Why does everything strange and different food wise get compared to chicken?
    What does that human foot taste like? Tastes like chicken. Same with kangaroos.

    Our ancestors ate neanderthals, apparently the meat tasted neanderthal


  • #64
    WoollyRedHat
    Registered Users Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    Gummy Panda wrote: »
    Because the machines didn't know what certain foods taste like so they made them taste like chicken
    signostic wrote: »
    Our ancestors ate neanderthals, apparently the meat tasted neanderthal

    Hmmmm, food for thought.


  • #65
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,957 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I wonder whether the stories have anything to do with Swift's Modest Proposal? He put forward a strong (satirical) argument advising impoverished Irish parents to sell their children as meat for rich people ... :o

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • #66
    greenflash
    Registered Users Posts: 499 ✭✭greenflash


    signostic wrote: »

    Our ancestors ate neanderthals, apparently the meat tasted neanderthal

    Leave the Dutch out of this.


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  • #67
    jugger0
    Registered Users Posts: 1,453 ✭✭✭jugger0


    Been googling cannibals there, cannibal island takes the biscuit

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

    "On the island there was a guard named Kostia Venikov, a young fellow. He was courting a pretty girl who had been sent there. He protected her. One day he had to be away for a while, and he told one of his comrades, "Take care of her," but with all the people there the comrade couldn't do much.... People caught the girl, tied her to a poplar tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything, everything.... They were hungry, they had to eat. When Kostia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood."

    fook


  • #68
    Rabidlamb
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,202 ✭✭✭Rabidlamb


    WoollyRedHat wrote: »
    Why does everything strange and different food wise get compared to chicken?
    What does that human foot taste like? Tastes like chicken. Same with kangaroos.

    What we recognise as the taste of chicken is actually the bacteria in the meat.
    As the same bacteria reside in many types of flesh they have a similar taste to us.

    Take away the bacteria & these meats would be very tasteless.
    Enjoy your lunchtime sandwiches.


  • #69
    R P McMurphy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭R P McMurphy


    ScumLord wrote: »
    Of course they probably said the same about any of the barbarians on the edge of their world.

    It's hard to know what Ireland would have truly been like. I watched a BBC documentary "How the Celts saved Britain" and while it was very complimentary to Christian Ireland it dismissed Pre Christian Ireland as a completely backwater (for the time) and "had no roads to speak of" when Ireland did have it's own version of roads. They may not have been as technologically advanced as Roman roads of the time but they were more than just a trail worn in the ground.

    You can get a good idea of what the times were like through looking at brehon law. These were pretty advanced and were considerably more progressive than the English common law that was transplanted here. We still have some catching up to do in a lot of areas


  • #70
    Devi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 446 ✭✭Devi


    Thing I don't get about the famine is, why didn't people eat more fish being surrounded n all. Do we hate fish that much that we'd rather stave?


  • #71
    gobnaitolunacy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,073 ✭✭✭gobnaitolunacy


    Devi wrote: »
    Thing I don't get about the famine is, why didn't people eat more fish being surrounded n all. Do we hate fish that much that we'd rather stave?

    I *think* (open to correction) people living on or near the coast used collect shellfish alright, fishermen may have sold their nets and gear for food when they couldn't get out in bad weather.

    I did hear of people cooking and eating blood from cattle, make an incision and fill a bowl with it, not so much as the poor cow keels over.


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  • #72
    R P McMurphy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭R P McMurphy


    Devi wrote: »
    Thing I don't get about the famine is, why didn't people eat more fish being surrounded n all. Do we hate fish that much that we'd rather stave?

    it was a potato blight, causing a shortage in the staple. There was an abundance of other crops but these were for export. Famine may have natural causes but it always political in nature. As for fish those on coastal areas did


  • #73
    Fratton Fred
    Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    R P McMurphy wrote: »

    it was a potato blight, causing a shortage in the staple. There was an abundance of other crops but these were for export. Famine may have natural causes but it always political in nature. As for fish those on coastal areas did

    The other crops were for sale to the highest bidder, not necessarily export.

    I'm not sure fishing was that widespread. Take connemara for example, that area was decimated, but the coastline and lakes ideal for fishing.


  • #74
    Colash
    Registered Users Posts: 1,377 ✭✭✭Colash


    I had a book made up by an aunt of mine a while ago . It took her years to compile . It' consisted of every news head line an articles from a local newspaper here In Roscommon from the year 1810 to the year 1890 or something . Alot of the book focuses on the famine era. And let's just say that cannibalism was present during these times an is documented. The book is truly amazing to read


  • #75
    R P McMurphy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭R P McMurphy


    Fratton Fred wrote: »
    The other crops were for sale to the highest bidder, not necessarily export.

    I'm not sure fishing was that widespread. Take connemara for example, that area was decimated, but the coastline and lakes ideal for fishing.

    Most crops are this time were exported to english markets where they were then resold to a global market. The fact is that there was no food shortage in Ireland, only of one crop, other crops were still being produced.

    Some coastal areas fared better than others, the further south you go the worse the impact of the famine. Donegal for example did not do too badly


  • #76
    R P McMurphy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭R P McMurphy


    Colash wrote: »
    I had a book made up by an aunt of mine a while ago . It took her years to compile . It' consisted of every news head line an articles from a local newspaper here In Roscommon from the year 1810 to the year 1890 or something . Alot of the book focuses on the famine era. And let's just say that cannibalism was present during these times an is documented. The book is truly amazing to read

    What is the title of the book?


  • #77
    Colash
    Registered Users Posts: 1,377 ✭✭✭Colash


    R P McMurphy wrote: »

    What is the title of the book?
    There is no title as such . It was a book compiled by her for a few family members an friends . It's a few hundred pages of news paper headlines an local accounts of incidents. It's not written like a book but more like reading a collection of newspapers


  • #78
    sbsquarepants
    Registered Users Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    What is the title of the book?
    Ye olde 30 minute meals - cannibal edition:D


  • #79
    Devi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 446 ✭✭Devi


    R P McMurphy wrote: »
    it was a potato blight, causing a shortage in the staple. There was an abundance of other crops but these were for export. Famine may have natural causes but it always political in nature. As for fish those on coastal areas did

    But nearly every county has a river or lake and with it an abundance of food an yet its in our culture not to eat river/lake fish. For example people in Ireland regard pike as inedible where as eastern Europeans love them. I’m wondering would this aversion have contributed to the famine.


  • #80
    Duggys Housemate
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,298 ✭✭✭Duggys Housemate


    Devi wrote: »

    But nearly every county has a river or lake and with it an abundance of food an yet its in our culture not to eat river/lake fish. For example people in Ireland regard pike as inedible where as eastern Europeans love them. I’m wondering would this aversion have contributed to the famine.

    What caused the famine was the export of food during a potato blight. To fish you need a boat, equipment and skills. These people were farmers.


  • #81
    Peregrine
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 26,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peregrine


    Seachmall wrote: »
    I've tried cannibalism but the smell of fish makes me heave.

    The thanks is funnier than the post..


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  • #82
    BiomaBan
    Registered Users Posts: 1 ✭BiomaBan


    For a bit of evidence of cannibalism during the Great Famine check out:
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2209806


  • #83
    MOC88
    Closed Accounts Posts: 430 ✭✭MOC88


    Devi wrote: »
    But nearly every county has a river or lake and with it an abundance of food an yet its in our culture not to eat river/lake fish. For example people in Ireland regard pike as inedible where as eastern Europeans love them. I’m wondering would this aversion have contributed to the famine.

    All the lakes, rivers etc. were generally landlord's property, the sentencing was a lot harsher at the time ie. years in prison or deportation. A lot of poaching still went on but there wasn't enough to supply the population of Ireland without some other source.

    As far as fishing goes there was no real tradition of it as much of it was destroyed by a multitude of laws trying to ensure that Irish people couldn't assist an invasion from another country by removing them from the coast. That's as far as I know I've never really researched the famine. I'm sure the history forum would probably know a lot more about it.


  • #84
    Cody Pomeray
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,648 ✭✭✭Cody Pomeray


    BiomaBan wrote: »
    For a bit of evidence of cannibalism during the Great Famine check out:
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2209806

    Thanks for that. Very interesting paper from an Irish perspective.

    I felt this was something right out of Hansel and Gretel
    Captain Trevor and many honest gentlemen lying in the Newry can witness, that some old women of those parts used to make a fire in the fields, and divers little children driving out the cattle in cold mornings, and coming thither to warm them, were by them surprised, killed and eaten, which at last was discovered by a great girl breaking from them by strength of her body, and Captain Trevor sending out soldiers to know the truth, they found the children’s skulls and bones, and apprehended the old women, who were executed for the fact.

    This report, from a Galway newspaper in 1848 is the reference to which Mikom referred earlier, I imagine
    Mr. Dopping, Resident magistrate, stood up and addressing the Court said, that he felt bound to explain to the Court that he knew of this case. He had been told that the prisoner and his family were starving when this offence had been committed. One of his children had died and he had been credibly informed that the mother ate part of its legs and feet after its death. He had the body exhumed and found that nothing but the bones remained of its legs and feet. A thrill of horror pervaded the court at this announcement. There was deep silence for several minutes, during which time many a tear trickled down the cheeks of those present. Even the court wept. The prisoner was instantly discharged.38


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