Did you know it was National Famine Commemoration Day today?

William F

I only heard it was National Famine Commemoration Day today when I listened to the 5 o’clock news and heard Enda Kenny giving a speech at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon.

Kenny mentioned in his speech that ‘’…Irish people have a particular empathy with those suffering the effects of hunger in the world today’’ but yet didn’t mention anything about Britain’s policies which contributed to the mass scale starvation, land clearances and deaths of millions of Irish people.

Again another day of national significance passes by without the Irish public been made aware of it and essentially given a whitewashed history of events. I had no idea it was today and like the 1916 Rising Commemoration, I think this commemoration is deliberately played down.

I see Jewish people have no hesitations with commemorating the Holocaust in case they upset the Germans but we Irish pretend as though the Irish Famine/Genocide never happened just in case we sour Anglo-Irish relations.

I think John Mitchell summed up the ‘Famine’ in these words ‘’God sent the blight but the English made the Famine.’’

Perhaps Kenny should of remarked on the impact of colonialism on Ireland and not hunger. There seems to be some confusion there that needs some deciphering!

Jesus Wept

No, and I don't really care either.

sillyoulfool

tragic though it was it was not a genocide. Using that term and comparing it to the Shoah is pure emotional claptrap!

Thespoofer

No

Sir Osis of Liver.

Mmmmmmm........potato

wazky

5 o'clock news?, what class of heathen are you?

Jesus Wept

Sir Osis of Liver. wrote: »

Mmmmmmm........potato

That is some wrong ****.

Snake

Nope.. Don't really care neither... A few spuds went bad people died.. There's a bag of potatoes here that's gone bad, someone's died today, what's the difference?

My name is URL

GrayFox208 wrote: »

Nope.. Don't really care neither... A few spuds went bad people died.. There's a bag of potatoes here that's gone bad, someone's died today, what's the difference?

That's perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever read on AH

Snake

My name is URL wrote: »

That's perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever read on AH

That's nice c:

Rasheed

GrayFox208 wrote: »

Nope.. Don't really care neither... A few spuds went bad people died.. There's a bag of potatoes here that's gone bad, someone's died today, what's the difference?

Ah Jasus bit of a difference. Yeah I knew it was on, couldn't go though. I think it was nice to have a rememberence day.

padma

William F wrote: »

I only heard it was National Famine Commemoration Day today when I listened to the 5 o’clock news and heard Enda Kenny giving a speech at Strokestown, Co. Roscommon.

Kenny mentioned in his speech that ‘’…Irish people have a particular empathy with those suffering the effects of hunger in the world today’’ but yet didn’t mention anything about Britain’s policies which contributed to the mass scale starvation, land clearances and deaths of millions of Irish people.

Again another day of national significance passes by without the Irish public been made aware of it and essentially given a whitewashed history of events. I had no idea it was today and like the 1916 Rising Commemoration, I think this commemoration is deliberately played down.

I see Jewish people have no hesitations with commemorating the Holocaust in case they upset the Germans but we Irish pretend as though the Irish Famine/Genocide never happened just in case we sour Anglo-Irish relations.

I think John Mitchell summed up the ‘Famine’ in these words ‘’God sent the blight but the English made the Famine.’’

Perhaps Kenny should of remarked on the impact of colonialism on Ireland and not hunger. There seems to be some confusion there that needs some deciphering!

Agree with all of this. It is and was one of the worst famines ever experienced on earth at the time... the atitude of the Government in power at the time was let them die. Such a cruel shower that turned there backs on our ancestors at the time..

Ireland though is unique in its history of being colonised in those days, here right in the heart of Europe we had the plantations, the penal laws, the blatant shipping of us to the carribean and virginia to work the plantations for 200 odd years. The list goes on, though to some it up in the words of Marcus Garvey "A people without the knowledge of their past history origin and culture is like a tree without roots"

Snake

Rasheed wrote: »

Ah Jasus bit of a difference. Yeah I knew it was on, couldn't go though. I think it was nice to have a rememberence day.

Not really.. People died because potatoes went bad.. But because that's all they ate food was scarce.. But it's nothing that doesn't happen everywhere... It's not like we're the only country that has famine... Where's there remembrance?

wazky

GrayFox208 wrote: »

Not really.. People died because potatoes went bad.. But because that's all they ate food was scarce.. But it's nothing that doesn't happen everywhere... It's not like we're the only country that has famine... Where's there remembrance?

Ah yeah sure, why didn't they just pop into Tesco for a few spuds?

Morons.

LordSutch

William F wrote: »

Kenny mentioned in his speech that ‘’…Irish people have a particular empathy with those suffering the effects of hunger in the world today’’ but yet didn’t mention anything about Britain’s policies which contributed to the mass scale starvation, land clearances and deaths of millions of Irish people.

I always thought it was one million people who died as a result of the famine + the cholera epidemic. I never heard of dead 'Millions' before now.

How many millions dead are we talking about?

que pasa

GrayFox208 wrote: »

Nope.. Don't really care neither... A few spuds went bad people died.. There's a bag of potatoes here that's gone bad, someone's died today, what's the difference?

The failure of the potato was a factor in the famine. An equally important factor which contibuted to deaths was the exportation of food under military guard,assisted emigration and land clearances in winter time.

The Backwards Man

que pasa wrote: »

The failure of the potato was a factor in the famine. An equally important factor which contibuted to deaths was the exportation of food under military guard,assisted emigration and land clearances in winter time.

Centuries of gavelkind was another factor. I only mention this so as not to make this another big bad Brit thread.

Atlantic Dawn

There was never a famine in Ireland, there was a potato crop that failed but if you look at the manifests of the ships that left Ireland during the same period you would see there was plenty of food and animals that left the country bound for the UK while the poor couldn't afford this food to keep them alive.

Don't be brainwashed, there was never a famine, Irish genocide would be a better description.

Einhard

I knew about it and I live thousands of miless away. You can't except other people to shoulder the burden of keeping you informed. It's not exactly difficult these days to know what's going on around you.

sillyoulfool

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Don't be brainwashed, there was never a famine, Irish genocide would be a better description.

Emotional claptrap!

padma

The shipping documents are pretty extensive of the food leaving the country. Free trade. Controlled by the money men in London at the time. Ships bringing aid being blocked from entering Ireland.

Racist jokes in the British newspapers at the times helping to justify the famine to a fearful public in Britain.

The prevailing attitude that this was God's punishment on the Irish people even though they were robbing the country blind, both landlord and the government of the time.

Larianne

No, I didn't but it now makes sense why there was fresh flowers laid by each statue down by the quays this morning (that famine memorial/sculpture yoke..). The dog even got a flower!

LordSutch

And yet think I'm correct in saying that if you got into a time machine and landed in the Ireland of that time, you could be forgiven for thinking Famine "what famine"? Apparently the famine was only in parts of the island and not visible to many Irish people in large towns & Cities.

I am open to correction on this^

padma

LordSutch wrote: »

And yet think I'm correct in saying that if you got into a time machine and landed in the Ireland of that time, you could be forgiven for thinking Famine "what famine"? Apparently the famine was only in parts of the island and not visible to many Irish people in large towns & Cities.

I am open to correction on this^

Yes..you need to be corrected on this. Watch a documentary or two on youtube or read up about it. The cities were teeming with slums at the time. Food and money was scarce...for the poor of course.... obviously there was a middle and upper class aat the time who werent oblivious but mainly were blind to the suffering of the poor and hungry.

The Backwards Man

padma wrote: »

Yes..you need to be corrected on this. Watch a documentary or two on youtube or read up about it. The cities were teeming with slums at the time. Food and money was scarce...for the poor of course.... obviously there was a middle and upper class aat the time who werent oblivious but mainly were blind to the suffering of the poor and hungry.

The area where I live was largely unaffected, and in fact was improving at the time.

http://www.movilleinishowen.com/history/moville_heritage/donegal_making_of_a_northern_county/social_class_impact_of_donegal_famine.htm

Karl Stein

sillyoulfool wrote: »

emotional claptrap!

sillyoulfool wrote: »

Emotional claptrap!

That's funny coming from someone so disturbed by anti-Republican/Nationalist neurosis you hold ludicrous views like this:

Originally Posted by sillyoulfool

The Irish were every bit as culpable for terrible effects of the famine as the British were.

boards.ie

Perverse victim blaming.

William F

padma wrote: »

Yes..you need to be corrected on this. Watch a documentary or two on youtube or read up about it. The cities were teeming with slums at the time. Food and money was scarce...for the poor of course.... obviously there was a middle and upper class aat the time who werent oblivious but mainly were blind to the suffering of the poor and hungry.

To put the Famine in context, the worst year, 'Black 47', an average of 7,000 Irish people died every week for an entire year. That's 1,000 people per day or 83 people every hour.

I think most people were very aware of what was happening considering that people had to buried in mass graves because cemeteries couldn't cope with the scale of death. People were literally lying dead on the road and had to be picked up by death carts for burial (similar to events seen in the Warsaw Ghetto a century later). Some were even buried alive.

The people who were responsible for this were absolute murdering scum.

Einhard

LordSutch wrote: »

And yet think I'm correct in saying that if you got into a time machine and landed in the Ireland of that time, you could be forgiven for thinking Famine "what famine"? Apparently the famine was only in parts of the island and not visible to many Irish people in large towns & Cities.

I am open to correction on this^

Ireland was desperately poor well before the Famine. Dean Swift's famous satirical essay " A Modest Proposal", advocating that Irish parents eat their most vulnerable children was a response to the horrific levels of poverty he saw around him in Dublin, and elsewhere. During the Famine, the urban Poor Houses were full to bursting and beyond. Practically every town and city on the island will have some sort of Famine-era mass grave near to a former workhouse. In Kilkenny City, there is a Famine Memorial garden on the site of one such mass grave in a shopping centre in the city centre. I think that, while the death rates were higher in rural areas, particularly in the West, the levels of poverty and suffering would have been readily apparent in every parish in the country.

As for the British- I'm not convinced that the establishment "engineered" the crisis for strategic goals, but I do believe that their response or lack thereof leaves them criminally and morally culpable for the death of a million people. It's noteworthy that the same blight affected crops in mainland Britain, but there was nothing like the same consequence. I often wonder how those who decry the push for independence represented by 1916 and 1921 fail to remember how the British behaved towards their oldest and closest colony at that time.

sillyoulfool

Karl Stein wrote: »

That's funny coming from someone so disturbed by anti-Republican/Nationalist neurosis you hold ludicrous views like this:



Perverse victim blaming.

I stand over my posts , the truth (complex though it is) is better than emotion revisionist claptrap and personalized attacks.
Anti Republican? NO
Anti "Irish republican (national socialist psychopaths)? Everytime.

Nodin

sillyoulfool wrote: »

I stand over my posts , the truth (complex though it is) is better than emotion revisionist claptrap and personalized attacks.
Anti Republican? NO
Anti "Irish republican (national socialist psychopaths)? Everytime.

Sad, sad, sad.

Karl Stein

Einhard wrote: »

I often wonder how those who decry the push for independence represented by 1916 and 1921 fail to remember how the British behaved towards their oldest and closest colony at that time.

They've been twisted by anti-independence propaganda and revisionism. In 1915 there would have been people in their 70's who would have remembered what happened and would have had first hand accounts of the suffering and injustice.

the constant language of English ministers and members of Parliament created the impression abroad that Ireland was in need of alms, and nothing but alms; whereas Irishmen themselves uniformly protested that what they required was a repeal of the Union, so that the English might cease to devour their substance. (John Mitchel)