Making a Documentary on The Famine

caste_in_exile

I could agree to this, but what would the focus be on, my diet or my sex life.. you could just set up a camcorder and watch it all unfold.. I mean it's pretty uninteresting; but I guess the non event is the event in itself...

wendell borton

Wasn't the only great famine under britains watch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%931878

Seaneh

wendell borton wrote: »

Wasn't the only great famine under britains watch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%931878

The main difference is that wasn't actually any famine in Ireland.

We produced more grain and meat than any country in Europe in the period of 1840-1855, including the years of "famine".

What happened is the government allowed people to starve when there was food readily available to feed them. They chose to allow it to happen.

That is genocide.

Rhys Essien

wendell borton wrote: »

Wasn't the only great famine under britains watch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%931878[/QUOTE]


This was not a Famine.Have a read of this site.Some shocking stats and figures of the amounts of food being exported amongst other things,during "the famine".The Irish government are too afraid to call it what it actually was.

http://www.irishholocaust.org/home

9959

brosy wrote: »

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

I've got a couple of angles already....

So there you are OP.
Perhaps some of the posts on this thread have given you another angle to add to the couple you already have.
Having read through them it must be obvious to you by now that the title of your radio documentary misses the point completely and is somewhat evasive and reticent in apportioning blame.
May I suggest a punchier more eye-catching title in the manner of the tabloid newspapers.

AN GORTA MOR, IT'S THE BRITS WHAT DONE IT!!!

GRMA

Seaneh wrote: »

The main difference is that wasn't actually any famine in Ireland.

We produced more grain and meat than any country in Europe in the period of 1840-1855, including the years of "famine".

What happened is the government allowed people to starve when there was food readily available to feed them. They chose to allow it to happen.

That is genocide.

What they should have done is what happened previously, ban exports. Thus the Irish market would have been flooded with cheap food. But that didnt satisfy the imperial agenda.

steddyeddy

phoenix999 wrote: »

See my previous posts in the thread. She was a constitutional monarch. It was her inept ministers who made the poor decisions. She had a lot more sympathy towards the Irish than Russell, Trevelyan and his cronies.

Well then she shouold be remembered as such. It still doesnt cahnge the fact that britian let one of it's colonies starve. It was Britian's job to prevent that.

How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irish person?

none

phoenix999

Seaneh wrote: »

The main difference is that wasn't actually any famine in Ireland.

We produced more grain and meat than any country in Europe in the period of 1840-1855, including the years of "famine".

What happened is the government allowed people to starve when there was food readily available to feed them. They chose to allow it to happen.

That is genocide.

Even if all exports were stopped, people would have still starved. 3 million people were almost completely dependent on the potato crop. imports of food were stopped temporarily during earlier 18th century famines. Imports to ireland outnumbered exports by a ratio of 5 to 1 in 1847. Grain does not have the same nutritional content as potatoes. And starving people wouldnt have had the money to buy the non-exported food anyway. What was needed was massive government intervention, which never came. But to say there was enough food in the country to feed 3 million starving is bull. Massive imports were also needed.

Rhys Essien

phoenix999 wrote: »

Even if all exports were stopped, people would have still starved. 3 million people were almost completely dependent on the potato crop. imports of food were stopped temporarily during earlier 18th century famines. Imports to ireland outnumbered exports by a ratio of 5 to 1 in 1847. Grain does not have the same nutritional content as potatoes. And starving people wouldnt have had the money to buy the non-exported food anyway. What was needed was massive government intervention, which never came. But to say there was enough food in the country to feed 3 million starving is bull. Massive imports were also needed.

That post is complete and utter cobblers.Today we are exporting enough food to feed approximately 40 million people.Back then we were exporting enough to feed approx 18 million.Go check it out.It was forced exportation.Our government was the British government remember.

phoenix999

Rhys Essien wrote: »

That post is complete and utter cobblers.Today we are exporting enough food to feed approximately 40 million people.Back then we were exporting enough to feed approx 18 million.Go check it out.It was forced exportation.Our government was the British government remember.

Today is not then.

GRMA

phoenix999 wrote: »

Even if all exports were stopped, people would have still starved. 3 million people were almost completely dependent on the potato crop. imports of food were stopped temporarily during earlier 18th century famines. Imports to ireland outnumbered exports by a ratio of 5 to 1 in 1847. Grain does not have the same nutritional content as potatoes. And starving people wouldnt have had the money to buy the non-exported food anyway. What was needed was massive government intervention, which never came. But to say there was enough food in the country to feed 3 million starving is bull. Massive imports were also needed.

That's a lie. Don't forget the cattle.

brosy

It's mind blowing to think that we went from the most densely populated country in Europe in the 1840s to the only single one which has a lower population now than it had back then. It's just so absolutely amazing to think of the impact this event had on this country.

phoenix999

GRMA wrote: »

That's a lie. Don't forget the cattle.

Read the first paragraph referring to imports. An average of 600,000 cattle were exported each year between 1846-50. Do the maths, not enough to feed 3 million people all year long. Exports of grain could at most feed 2 million in peak years. And grain imports exceeded exports by 5 to 1 in 1847. The statistics speak for themselves. Try doing real research instead of relying on those dodgy anti-Brit history websites.

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume5/issue1/features/?id=113256

Qualitymark

As you've observed in reading the answers to this thread, OP, the Famine is still a deeply sensitive subject for most Irish people. Most people don't have family stories about it, because the Famine was a source of grinding shame and anger for those who survived.

My family do have one: my great-great-grandfather was rector of a parish and died of Famine fever probably contracted from tending his flock and those outside his own flock, on Christmas Eve 1850.

May I suggest that you go up to the Quaker library in Bloomfield, Stocking Lane, Dublin, and ask the librarians there to show you some of their excellent records of the Famine? Quakers are generally deeply methodical, and they did valuable studies of the distribution of food, etc, which had a great myth-busting effect; they were also to the forefront in providing and distributing food.

For example, in Galway, to fish with nets it was required that you buy a licence which cost (if memory serves me) 10/6 - an unimaginable amount for a Claddagh fishing family to raise. If you took your chance and used nets anyway, you faced jail or a large fine. The Quakers bought nets and provided them to fishermen and helped them with the licence fee.

They also did a study of the actual movement and population of fish off the west coast - at the time there was a myth that the seas were teeming with fish, and it was pure laziness that stopped the Irish from going and scooping them out of the sea. Apart from the fact that starving men did not have the strength to navigate currachs in Atlantic rollers; apart from the problems of paying for nets and licences, the Quaker study discovered that the herring that had formerly been populous especially on the Dogger Bank had changed their migration patterns, and other fish populations were also depleted. There were scarcely any fish to be got out of the sea at the time.

(Naturally, huge numbers of starving people had flocked to the shorelines, and had quickly stripped the shores of shellfish, sloke, dillisk and carrageen, which are still derided to this day as 'Famine food' and to some extent still avoided by coastal people. The same is true of some wild foods, such as nettles and sorrel, which are safe to eat as an occasional treat or as a sauce for your potatoes, but are not an adequate or safe central dietary item.)

I'm sure you've read the books Cathal Póirtéir brought out in 1997 on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Famine, using contemporary testimonies, extracts from diaries, newspaper articles, journals and travel books? Famine Echoes is one. It'd be well worth talking to Cathal Póirtéir for some pointers for your research.

The very best of luck with your project. I hope people here can give you their personal family stories.

GRMA

Also read some of John Mitchels work, such as the history of Ireland or his Jail Journal, he lived through it

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Today we are exporting enough food to feed approximately 40 million people.

Not really; I know you'll produce some bit of IDA waffle, but we actually don't.

By value, we export about €9 billion in food. We import about €4.5 billion. If we're exporting enough food for 40 million, we must be importing enough to feed 20 million.

Reports of our food production are greatly overblown.

On the issue of the Famine, there are lengthy arguments over food imports and exports during the period. Available records won't be complete enough to satisfy anyone who doesn't want to be satisfied - on either side of the argument.

But the areas most impacted were places of awful poverty. Mayo had a population of something like 390,000 before the Famine. It's hard to see how that level of population could be sustained there, without permanent aid.

If we're looking for blame, and I suppose people are, it might be good to identify why such large amounts of people ended up living in circumstances that were so vulnerable.

phoenix999

GRMA wrote: »

Also read some of John Mitchels work, such as the history of Ireland or his Jail Journal, he lived through it

Try broadening your reading sometime.

GRMA

phoenix999 wrote: »

Try broadening your reading sometime.

I read a lot, are you saying his perspective isnt a valuable one to have?

phoenix999

GRMA wrote: »

I read a lot, are you saying his perspective isnt a valuable one to have?

All perspectives are valuable when viewed together with other sources. Neither can you dismiss the statistics and hard facts.

GRMA

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Not really; I know you'll produce some bit of IDA waffle, but we actually don't.

By value, we export about €9 billion in food. We import about €4.5 billion. If we're exporting enough food for 40 million, we must be importing enough to feed 20 million.

Reports of our food production are greatly overblown.

On the issue of the Famine, there are lengthy arguments over food imports and exports during the period. Available records won't be complete enough to satisfy anyone who doesn't want to be satisfied - on either side of the argument.

But the areas most impacted were places of awful poverty. Mayo had a population of something like 390,000 before the Famine. It's hard to see how that level of population could be sustained there, without permanent aid.

If we're looking for blame, and I suppose people are, it might be good to identify why such large amounts of people ended up living in circumstances that were so vulnerable.

The Penal laws. And Britain's colonialist activities.

Qualitymark

GRMA wrote: »

The Penal laws. And Britain's colonialist activities.

And the lack of education and technical or vocational training that meant there was no other training and scarcely any other option for second, third, fourth...twelfth sons of farmers than to become conacre farmers themselves. And the law that allowed a farmer to divide the land he rented between all his sons, so that farms grew progressively smaller and smaller. And the fact that the dietary basis of potatoes and buttermilk and cabbage and stirabout, with a few herbs and seaweed and the odd bit of fish and eggs and maybe an annual meal of meat was actually thoroughly nourishing, producing huge families of sturdy boys and girls, so the population was bursting at the seams, even with horrifying levels of emigration. And the mutual contempt of landlords (and landlords' agents) and tenants.

woodoo

I always find it depressing when irish people joke about the famine. Stupidly repeating derogatory jokes they hear on british television. Jokes that are contemptuous of us and our history.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

woodoo wrote: »

I always find it depressing when irish people joke about the famine. Stupidly repeating derogatory jokes they hear on british television. Jokes that are contemptuous of us and our history.

I find it depressing that we never seem to find anything worth learning from study of the Famine.

If it's not telling us something we need to know, why invest time in understanding it?

Qualitymark

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I find it depressing that we never seem to find anything worth learning from study of the Famine.

If it's not telling us something we need to know, why invest time in understanding it?

But surely it does tell us things we need to know? For example, the two most successful groups to come out of the Famine were the gombeen shopkeepers who profited on others' distress (though there were also many shopkeepers who bankrupted themselves or nearly did by running long lines of credit despite having themselves to pay for goods to sell), and the Quakers, whose quiet and reasonable kindness was rewarded by the loyal patronage of the survivors.

And we learned that long oppression leads almost inevitably to violent revolution, and the horrors that it brings. (In a lot of cases you can follow the pattern of oppression by which Big Houses were burned out and which were left alone during the War of Independence and the Civil War, which were themselves, of course, only 70 years after the Famine.)

We learned how the dispossessed rose from squalid starvation and ignorance to become an educated professional political class in America, with a long memory - banners saying "Remember Skibbereen" (Skibbereen in west Cork was totally depopulated by starvation during the Famine) were part of parades in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. We learned how that political class funded the War of Independence.

You can always learn from history. It's what you do with the knowledge that makes the difference.

MadsL

For those being quite free with the word genocide, let me ask you, 29,000 children under 5 died of starvation in Somalia in just 90 days in 2011. Do you consider that you committed an act of genocide in allowing them to die?

woodoo

MadsL wrote: »

For those being quite free with the word genocide, let me ask you, 29,000 children under 5 died of starvation in Somalia in just 90 days in 2011. Do you consider that you committed an act of genocide in allowing them to die?

Nobody here ever governed or was responsible for somalia

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Qualitymark wrote: »

You can always learn from history. It's what you do with the knowledge that makes the difference.

I'll take all that at face value. What's it telling us that we can actually use today? I don't see what it's telling us that would even assist in avoiding a future famine.

In fact, would it be fair to say that we don't really do much to ensure our food security, or even our energy security. Which, I suppose, means I'm saying something a little different - we don't seem to learn much from it, and what we could learn isn't evident.

Because, indeed, the story does seem to be told as a prelude to emigration. Then it gets subsumed into the story of the path to political independence. Yet, perhaps ironically, it's hard to see any particular connection between themes pursued with that independence, and the Famine.

Perhaps because its a failure, instead of a victory, there's nothing in it that can give us a positive sense of what we can collectively achieve. I mean, contrast it with the Battle of Britain - which might be an historical event with similar resonances in the UK. Anoraks can pick over whether the Spitfire was really so good, and wonder what might have happened if German fighters had larger fuel tanks. But it doesn't matter - the basic story is still "we won".

But, whatever way you look at it, the Famine is a downer. There's nothing in it to bring a sense of triumphing over adversity. Well, perhaps for Quakers.

And, apologies, because I know my post is even self-contradictory. I do see study of the Famine as pointless, yet here I am banging on about it. I suppose I'm aware that others seem to take an interest in it, and I suppose I wonder if it does give them something postive and life-affirming to make such an interest worthwhile.

ElChe32

The awkward moment a Protestant offers you soup..

Qualitymark

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

I'll take all that at face value. What's it telling us that we can actually use today? I don't see what it's telling us that would even assist in avoiding a future famine.

We could learn that overpopulation, undereducation, inequality and exploitation lead to famine, and we could deliberately avoid these mistakes.

In fact, would it be fair to say that we don't really do much to ensure our food security, or even our energy security. Which, I suppose, means I'm saying something a little different - we don't seem to learn much from it, and what we could learn isn't evident.

I agree - we don't, and we should. For instance, if the State mass-bought insulation materials and evacuated tube solar panels and installed them in homes, and the citizens and inhabitants paid for these on their utility bills over several years, there would be no cost to the State other than the initial investment which would be repaid, and there would be a massive cut in our carbon footprint.

Because, indeed, the story does seem to be told as a prelude to emigration. Then it gets subsumed into the story of the path to political independence. Yet, perhaps ironically, it's hard to see any particular connection between themes pursued with that independence, and the Famine.

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

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