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Did you know it was National Famine Commemoration Day today?

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24

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    #32
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    I thought you had me on ignore? Damn, that's disappointing.
    sillyoulfool wrote: »
    I stand over my posts

    That the Irish were every bit as culpable for what happened to them in the famine? Unjustifiable victim blaming. Sick.
    the truthis better than emotion revisionist claptrap

    It's completely lost on you, isn't it, that evasion and revisionism is what you're dimwittedly engaging in.
    From the late 1960s on, a historian could be seen as having sympathies with the IRA if he or she explored the negative effects of the Famine in too much detail. The fact that Anglo-Irish relations are now on a different footing means that historians feel less reluctant to get involved in this vexed period of our shared history. (Kevin Whelan, 1995)
    Anti "Irish republican (national socialist psychopaths)? Everytime.

    Is there some sort of Irish NAZI SS I'm unaware of? Do they march through your nightmares or something?

    Ireland must in return behold her best flour, her wheat, her bacon, her butter, her live cattle, all going to England day after day. She dare not ask the cause of this fatal discrepancy – the existence of famine in a country, whose staple commodity is food – food – food of the best – and of the most exquisite quality. (The Chronicle and Munster Advertiser, May 1846)


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    #33
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    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?

    Look how cool i am... look how much i hate my own people and their history... wish i was british.. blah blah blah...


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    #34
    padma
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,874 ✭✭✭padma


    The Backwards Man wrote: »
    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

    My answer was in relation to cities etc..no doubt some places were spared the horrors of the darkest of the suffering..thankfully as who knows you may not have been born at all.


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    #35
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    padma wrote: »
    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.

    You are right and it makes me quite sad how much we seem to have absorbed the british line on the famine. We have developed a sort of contempt for the memory of the millions who starved here in Ireland. Our own ancestors and relations no doubt.


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    #36
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    William F wrote: »
    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.

    I play AstroTurf quite near a mass burial grave of famine victims. It has the plaque commemorating them on the wall. I have often wondered what sort of misery is buried in that grave. It must have been awful.


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    #37
    padma
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,874 ✭✭✭padma


    woodoo wrote: »
    You are right and it makes me quite sad how much we seem to have absorbed the british line on the famine. We have developed a sort of contempt for the memory of the millions who starved here in Ireland. Our own ancestors and relations no doubt.

    Still though my great granny could remember her granny telling her stories of the famine..localised stories...my aunts and uncles always reminded us in song about the famine...there is books galore in my aunts house about the famine and other matters of recorded Irish history..

    And im pretty sure there is hundreds of thousands if not a high percentage of the population who have an interest in the famine but have no need of coming on to boards to discuss it.

    The guy above who slag with the potatoes remark is just not interested in history..end of story..similar to me having no interest in science..only difference is I do my best to stay away from scientific discussions..


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    #38
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,252 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?

    None!















    *gets coat...*


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    #39
    padma
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,874 ✭✭✭padma


    Then again I suppose its important to educate your children yourself sometime


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    #40
    Spring Onion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,087 ✭✭✭Spring Onion


    sillyoulfool wrote: »
    tragic though it was it was not a genocide.

    Agree with this. It was not genocide.


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    #41
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    endacl wrote: »
    How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?

    None!















    *gets coat...*

    You are an Irishman.. think how silly you'd look telling that joke to a group of Englishmen. What might they think of you?


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    #42
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,252 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    woodoo wrote: »
    You are an Irishman.. think how silly you'd look telling that joke to a group of Englishmen. What might they think of you?

    Luckily enough, I'm on an Irish discussion board.

    ;)


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    #43
    padma
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,874 ✭✭✭padma


    woodoo wrote: »
    You are an Irishman.. think how silly you'd look telling that joke to a group of Englishmen. What might they think of you?

    I wouldnt even call that a joke.


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    #44
    bumper234
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,250 ✭✭✭✭bumper234


    woodoo wrote: »
    You are an Irishman.. think how silly you'd look telling that joke to a group of Englishmen. What might they think of you?

    Yeah!!!!

    How dare you have a sense of humour and mock something that happened over 200 years ago? Go and sit in the corner and think.about what you have done :mad:


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    #45
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,252 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    bumper234 wrote: »
    Yeah!!!!

    How dare you have a sense of humour and mock something that happened over 200 years ago? Go and sit in the corner and think.about what you have done :mad:

    Sorry. Feel bad. Sitting on naughty step now. Eating a spud.


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    #46
    The Backwards Man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,299 ✭✭✭✭The Backwards Man


    bumper234 wrote: »
    Yeah!!!!

    How dare you have a sense of humour and mock something that happened over 200 years ago? Go and sit in the corner and think.about what you have done :mad:

    In fairness lads, jokes about human suffering are the lowest form of wit, no matter how long ago it happened.


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    #47
    arybvtcw0eolkf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,878 ✭✭✭✭arybvtcw0eolkf


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH1vbl1b1g


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    #48
    Lapin
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 18,184 ✭✭✭✭Lapin


    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.

    This is quite possibly one of the most idiotic pieces of shíte I have ever read anywhere.

    Yet another moronic comment from the 800 years of misery and woe victim brigade.

    I'm glad our Taoiseach didn't embarrass us by bringing up such pointless drivel.

    If you were awake in 1997 you got your apology then. What more do you want?

    Quit prostituting the dignity of genuine Irish people for your own petty slice of bitter gratification.

    Get over it FFS and join the 21st century.


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    #49
    wazky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,516 ✭✭✭wazky


    bumper234 wrote: »
    Yeah!!!!

    How dare you have a sense of humour and mock something that happened over 200 years ago? Go and sit in the corner and think.about what you have done :mad:

    How many years ago was WW2?, is it ok to start telling jokes about gassing Jews now?


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    #50
    bumper234
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,250 ✭✭✭✭bumper234


    wazky wrote: »
    How many years ago was WW2?, is it ok to start telling jokes about gassing Jews now?

    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.


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    #51
    wazky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,516 ✭✭✭wazky


    bumper234 wrote: »
    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.

    That wasn't my question your answering, you suggested a suitable time had passed that now it was ok to joke about a million people starving to death.


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    #52
    arybvtcw0eolkf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,878 ✭✭✭✭arybvtcw0eolkf


    Lapin wrote: »
    This is quite possibly one of the most idiotic pieces of shíte I have ever read anywhere.

    Yet another moronic comment from the 800 years of misery and woe victim brigade.

    I'm glad our Taoiseach didn't embarrass us by bringing up such pointless drivel.

    If you were awake in 1997 you got your apology then. What more do you want?

    Quit prostituting the dignity of genuine Irish people for your own petty slice of bitter gratification.

    Get over it FFS and join the 21st century.

    I bet your high horse would have been a tasty treat in famine times.


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    #53
    My name is URL
    Registered Users Posts: 25,068 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    bumper234 wrote: »
    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.

    Look.. ffs.

    Blaming potato blight for the death of a million people on an island this small, and as part of a friggin' 'empire', is like blaming fire for the death of all those Jews.


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    #54
    dirtyden
    Registered Users Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭dirtyden


    bumper234 wrote: »
    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.

    People being allowed/forced to starve, whilst the plentiful food in the nation was stolen. It is not far from deliberate murder, it is not just that the ruling powers looked away they continued a policy of stripping the agricultural produce of the nation whilst hundreds of thousands starved to death.

    It was not a deliberate attempt to wipe out a race you are correct there, but it was not as simple as just potato blight.


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    #55
    Richard Hillman
    Registered Users Posts: 12,033 ✭✭✭✭Richard Hillman


    wazky wrote: »
    How many years ago was WW2?, is it ok to start telling jokes about gassing Jews now?

    In about 50 to 100 years time I am sure it will be.


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    #56
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    bumper234 wrote: »
    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.

    The famine victims didn't perish for lack of food, oh and the starvation was met with quite a bit of quasi-genocidal, racist, glee by those who had the power to ameliorate it.
    The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people. (Charles Trevelyan, December 1846)
    Before our merciful intervention, the Irish nation were a wretched, indolent, half-starved tribe of savages, ages before Julius Caesar landed on this isle, and that, notwithstanding a gradual improvement upon the naked savagery, they have never approached the standard of the civilized world. (The Times, January 1847)


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    #57
    RobertKK
    Registered Users Posts: 33,733 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    The famine was caused by the Whig government believing one should not interfere in the market, it was cruel as Ireland was a net exporter of food during a famine.
    This is not how our government at the time should have acted, so one then can look and see was if it was deliberate, some of the things said at the time would point to it being deliberate.
    A few decades later the British empire had mass starvation in parts of India where millions also died.

    Tony Blair in 1997 apologised for the role of the British government in the famine.


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    #58
    Crann na Beatha
    Registered Users Posts: 11,763 ✭✭✭✭Crann na Beatha


    This post has been deleted.


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    #59
    mr_edge_to_you
    Registered Users Posts: 3,048 ✭✭✭mr_edge_to_you


    Going to mark the day by having a Singapore Fried Rice.

    Rice won't let ya down.


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    #60
    Precious flower
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,812 ✭✭✭Precious flower


    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!

    I think commemorating the famine today is just more to highlight hunger issues in other countries. I don't think it's meant to be played down I just think that it was so long ago that people roughly know what happened and have moved on. The Holocaust memorials are more about highlighting the fact that should never have happened and should never happen again, just like famine should not be allowed to happen in the 21st century.
    It of course should be remembered but it also should be remembered that it wasn't all ''the brits' fault.

    It was a mixture of bad policy, aggressive and poor policies by landlords (not all the landlords were bad either) that caused people to split up land into tiny plots and made them rely on a single crop, a single variety of that crop and just mother nature getting crappy and poverty making everything worse making the spread of disease (which most people were killed by, not starvation), so much easier. It's stupid to put a majority of blame on the British government.

    A lot of those in government were appalled at the landlord system in Ireland due to there lack of care towards their tenants which was more the system in England. I'm not saying the British are blame free by any means, I just hate those people that lump all the blame on the British government.


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    #61
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    bumper234 wrote: »
    The deliberate murder of people with the intent of wiping out an entire race is slightly different to people starving over a potato blight.


    You have just been indoctrinated.. told what is unacceptable to joke about and what is not. Holocaust - not acceptable... starvation of millions of Irish - fine. You've absorbed it all.


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