British TV viewers react with horror to portrayal of famine in ITV drama Victoria.

Wibbs · 05-10-2017 06:52PM

railer201 wrote: »

A very rough period in Irish History which did indeed affect Northern Protestants too, not because of their religion but more because they were small holding tenants, just the same as their Catholic counterparts.

Aye. What is often forgotten by both the common Irish view and even more oddly the common English view is that the English/"British"(but English in culture) ruling classes treated all their subjects with varying degrees of disdain and neglect over the centuries. The Irish peasant class got it more in the neck because of distance and that old sense of "other", but the English peasant class didn't have things much better. The Scottish peasant class got royally fcuked over down the centuries. Highland clearances anyone? The Welsh didn't fare to well either. Being a Northern Protestant peasant had some advantage, but they were still seen as exploitable peasants. A Southern Catholic living in the towns and cities was in a far better state than a Northern Protestant peasant living in the sticks.

Fratton Fred · 05-10-2017 06:52PM

tomwaterford wrote: »

Nitpicking imo is someone who doesn't think laws discrimating against 90+% of the population were anti-irish because a tiny proportion of the population weren't catholic?

to consider the Penal laws as simply anti Irish, just perpetuates this belief that to be Irish means being Catholic.

The Descendants of Brian Boru weren't subject to the penal laws, because they converted, yet John Redmonds ancestors, who came here with the Normans, were.

So, which one of those two is Irish and which isn't?

server down · 05-10-2017 07:05PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

to consider the Penal laws as simply anti Irish, just perpetuates this belief that to be Irish means being Catholic.

The Descendants of Brian Boru weren't subject to the penal laws, because they converted, yet John Redmonds ancestors, who came here with the Normans, were.

So, which one of those two is Irish and which isn't?

I’m sure the majority of the O’Briens didn’t convert. The main line had to for reasons of inheritance.

And the English didn’t really distinguish between “pure” Irish catholic, Norman or catholic old English centuries after the Norman invasion.

You are right that the penal laws were anti catholic across Ireland and England to begin with.

However there were penalties unique to Irish converts to Anglicanism passed by the Dublin parliament.

( I admire your friendly posting and tenacity in this thread btw. Even if you mostly wrong :-p ).

Wibbs · 05-10-2017 07:21PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

to consider the Penal laws as simply anti Irish, just perpetuates this belief that to be Irish means being Catholic.

Pretty much, though the belief that to be Irish meant also Catholic was and often still is an English cultural belief. One that was often spelled out at the time and since*.

The penal laws were anti Catholic but since the majority of the Irish population were Catholic the penal laws became a de facto anti Irish legislation because of basic demographics. They weren't just anti Catholic either. Presbyterians and Dissenters also came under their remit, as did Jews. And for longer than in England, Scotland and Wales.

*more on the subject of this thread and some British folks not being up to speed with aspects of Irish history and culture. Many moons ago I was in England on a visit and while chatting with the "locals" we just got to chatting about all that. It started out with them being surprised I knew so much about them and they so little about us. Sometimes I knew more than they did on some matters. Easily explained by me having grown up with British culture through their media, and they getting pretty much none of ours. Religion came up and they were surprised that I had some Protestant relatives who were Irish, with Irish names and no connections to Britain(and were staunch republicans by temperament). They naturally assumed being Irish with an Irish name that I was Catholic. Church of Ireland confused them a bit too. A couple thought that was some local Catholic thing peculiar to Ireland. On the famine itself I found down the years on my visits there, that on the rare occasions it came up, they might have been scant on details, but they were all quite aware of it as a thing in Irish history and aware of the large numbers who died.

railer201 · 05-10-2017 07:21PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye. What is often forgotten by both the common Irish view and even more oddly the common English view is that the English/"British"(but English in culture) ruling classes treated all their subjects with varying degrees of disdain and neglect over the centuries. The Irish peasant class got it more in the neck because of distance and that old sense of "other", but the English peasant class didn't have things much better. The Scottish peasant class got royally fcuked over down the centuries. Highland clearances anyone? The Welsh didn't fare to well either. Being a Northern Protestant peasant had some advantage, but they were still seen as exploitable peasants. A Southern Catholic living in the towns and cities was in a far better state than a Northern Protestant peasant living in the sticks.

Pretty much so and it's easy to see it was all about class more so than anything else. The English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh lower classes would have more in common with each other than their own respective upper and middle classes. In Ireland there are many unpleasant stories of how 'land agents' and the 'gombeen men' screwed over their own.

The terms British and English need to be separated out too. Being British in NI doesn't necessarily equate to loyalism, more often it refers too 'Half Crown Loyalism' or recognising which side one's bread is best buttered on. The term 'English' in connection with casting blame for the famine does really refer to those who administrated power in Ireland at that time and clearly would not refer to every English person of whatever class, or indeed any contemporary English person.

05-10-2017 07:40PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Aye. What is often forgotten by both the common Irish view and even more oddly the common English view is that the English/"British"(but English in culture) ruling classes treated all their subjects with varying degrees of disdain and neglect over the centuries. The Irish peasant class got it more in the neck because of distance and that old sense of "other", but the English peasant class didn't have things much better. The Scottish peasant class got royally fcuked over down the centuries. Highland clearances anyone? The Welsh didn't fare to well either. Being a Northern Protestant peasant had some advantage, but they were still seen as exploitable peasants. A Southern Catholic living in the towns and cities was in a far better state than a Northern Protestant peasant living in the sticks.

Indeed which is why it's such a pity that both groups have so rarely managed to find common cause throughout history. I wonder how an Ireland where the French had succeeded in the 1790s (and then Napoleon later of course) would have turned out

steddyeddy · 05-10-2017 08:02PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

to consider the Penal laws as simply anti Irish, just perpetuates this belief that to be Irish means being Catholic.

So, which one of those two is Irish and which isn't?

Hi Fred,

Like the Catholicism thing all this is in your head and yours alone. No one except the people who made the Penal laws and particularly the Popery law equated the Irish with being exclusively roman Catholic. The Irish Catholics were subjected to a further more comprehensive set of restrictions than Catholics in Britain.

You're also confusing two perspectives and times. You're asking us, in 2017 do we equate Catholic with being Irish when we're talking about specific laws directed at Irish Catholics a few hundred years ago.

No Fred, we don't, but they did. The term "Anglo-Irish was used as an insult, there were specific laws directed only at Irish Catholics, there are other instances other than laws which indicated large anti-Irish sentiment in British politics. It wasn't a secret that 90 of the island that they were passing anti-Catholic laws in was Catholic.

If it simplifies things for you, you can replace the word "Irish" with natives. The colonising force, mostly Protestant, English passed a law that would affect the natives in the country and wouldn't affect those that were planted in the country.

This had an effect of reducing land of the natives and yielding more land in the hands of loyal to the crown natives. There were also land grabs from the native Irish as well.

Fratton Fred · 05-10-2017 09:12PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Hi Fred,

Like the Catholicism thing all this is in your head and yours alone. No one except the people who made the Penal laws and particularly the Popery law equated the Irish with being exclusively roman Catholic

No, it really isn't.

It never actually occured to me until I spent a drunken night with two protestant friends who were ranting about growing up in Ireland.

After the laughs, you know about the daft things protestants get asked here, like "Do you celebrate Christmas" and "how can you have a christening when you aren't christians?" and the boyfriend who dumped my friend because they were getting too serious and there was no way his mam would let him bring a protestant home to Cork, it then became a bit more ranty. Like being asked who they supported when England were playing Ireland at Rugby, or being told that they wouldn't understand, they weren't Irish.

It mad Ted, you see it on here as well. There is a genuine belief still held in some (admittedly less educated) quarters, that protestants are really Irish.

FrancieBrady · 05-10-2017 09:21PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

No, it really isn't.

It never actually occured to me until I spent a drunken night with two protestant friends who were ranting about growing up in Ireland.

After the laughs, you know about the daft things protestants get asked here, like "Do you celebrate Christmas" and "how can you have a christening when you aren't christians?" and the boyfriend who dumped my friend because they were getting too serious and there was no way his mam would let him bring a protestant home to Cork, it then became a bit more ranty. Like being asked who they supported when England were playing Ireland at Rugby, or being told that they wouldn't understand, they weren't Irish.

It mad Ted, you see it on here as well. There is a genuine belief still held in some (admittedly less educated) quarters, that protestants are really Irish.

Are all your drinking buddies friends idiots?
Because those are the questions of idiots, whether they were Irish, British, Catholic, Protestant or etc.

steddyeddy · 05-10-2017 09:46PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

No, it really isn't.

It never actually occured to me until I spent a drunken night with two protestant friends who were ranting about growing up in Ireland.

After the laughs, you know about the daft things protestants get asked here, like "Do you celebrate Christmas" and "how can you have a christening when you aren't christians?" and the boyfriend who dumped my friend because they were getting too serious and there was no way his mam would let him bring a protestant home to Cork, it then became a bit more ranty. Like being asked who they supported when England were playing Ireland at Rugby, or being told that they wouldn't understand, they weren't Irish.

It mad Ted, you see it on here as well. There is a genuine belief still held in some (admittedly less educated) quarters, that protestants are really Irish.

Fred there's no doubt sectarianism on the island. As I say I think that if you make laws to divide a population based on economics, land and religion then you sow the seeds for sectarianism. There was bound to be conflict between the two.

Arsemageddon · 06-10-2017 01:55AM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Most native Irish were only Catholics because the Normans brought it to Ireland in the first place.

This comment is utterly ridiculous.

There is strong evidence for Christianity in Ireland from the 300s onward having been introduced from North Africa. As Wibbs has pointed out, the notion of Roman Catholicism did not exist in the western church until after the reformation.

There were differences between the way the Irish church observed and practised Christianity compared with Rome in the early medieval period, but these differences were resolved long before the Normans arrived. Such regional variations with Roman practice were common across western Christendom.

In the 1100s there were a series of church synods to standardise Roman practice in Ireland (Rath Brasil; Mellifont, and Cashel) all of which happened before the Norman Invasion. The second synod of Cashel in 1172 was only recorded by Gerald of Wales who is renowned for being a bull sh1tter who wrote pro-Norman propaganda that claimed the Irish were both pagan and savages.

The notion that Laudabilter can be used to back up your argument is bizarre. It's debatable whether the document is even genuine and if so whether it had the status of a papal bull. Then there is the whole rather dodgy issue of an English pope giving permission to an English king to invade Ireland. At best Adrian IV was extremely misinformed, or more likely he was corrupt like most of the other medieval popes.

Jawgap · 06-10-2017 07:31AM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Most native Irish were only Catholics because the Normans brought it to Ireland in the first place.

The Cambro-Normans didn't bring Catholicism/Christianity to Ireland, it was already embedded here.

What they did bring was the continental form of monasticism (and its links to the Roman church), which was in something of a symbiotic relationship with the castellan nobility, the combination of which supplanted the native style of monasticism and helped with the subjugation of the population.

06-10-2017 07:46AM

Not a genocide IMO, but the catastrophic consequences of the Victorian mix of laissez faire policies and the religious zeal of providentialism.

whisky_galore · 06-10-2017 12:53PM

From: Irish History Podcast

Ireland 2017 - History repeating itself....

Many historians consider the Great Famine as a seminal in moment in the struggle for Irish Independence. Its unquestionable that after the horrors of the 1840s the argument that Ireland was better off outside the United Kingdom made sense to far more people.

When I walk to work everyday through the city centre, it’s depressing to look at the society built since Independence. In many respects it’s a mirror of the United Kingdom people fought to leave.

During the Great Famine the British Government refused to import adequate quantities of food. This was due to the influence of the free trade lobbyists and food merchants. They correctly argued that interfering in the free market and importing large amounts of cheap food would have hit them in the pocket. There are few today that agree this was the correct strategy.

However the Republic of Ireland in 2017 operates off a similar logic. We have a chronic housing crisis - every day more and more people are becoming homeless. Tents on the streets of Dublin are now what all too many people call home. Rents are spiralling out of control and beyond what most people can afford.

Like the 1840s the government is unwilling to take effective action and instead are sticking to economic orthodoxy. Effective solution such as the introduction of rent controls and building hundreds of thousands of houses are not being entertained. Instead they remain wedded to similar economic policies to those that exacerbated the Great Famine.

The Government today listen to landlords and speculators who argue they will be hit hard by any such measures. This is true but we have been down this road before and it doesn't end well.

I am not saying Ireland is on the brink of mass death but living in a world where one the essentials of life - houses - are traded as commodities is dangerous and it destroys lives. Of any country on earth we should understand the consequences of putting economic orthodoxies before human need. Pic Paul Reynolds instagram.com/paulfedayn

A Little Pony · 06-10-2017 01:35PM

Steddy why do you keep saying the penal laws didn't effect the 'planters', of course it did, a lot of them fled Ulster and ended up fighting in the Revolutionary War for George Washington. One British general said it was a Presbyterian uprising than anything else.

06-10-2017 01:51PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

No, it really isn't.

It never actually occured to me until I spent a drunken night with two protestant friends who were ranting about growing up in Ireland.

After the laughs, you know about the daft things protestants get asked here, like "Do you celebrate Christmas" and "how can you have a christening when you aren't christians?" and the boyfriend who dumped my friend because they were getting too serious and there was no way his mam would let him bring a protestant home to Cork, it then became a bit more ranty. Like being asked who they supported when England were playing Ireland at Rugby, or being told that they wouldn't understand, they weren't Irish.

It mad Ted, you see it on here as well. There is a genuine belief still held in some (admittedly less educated) quarters, that protestants are really Irish.

I think it's still a problem how segregated the Catholic and Protestant communities are in Ireland, especially out the country. GAA, mass and the primary school would be the focal points of a lot of rural communities with the effect that the handful of Protestants are sort of a shadow community, people you only saw at the shop or post office or in the village once in a blue moon. Their smaller numbers also meant their social groups and community had to extend beyond the parish so they were even further detached from the village. At least that was my experience growing up, joining a cricket club really opened my eyes

And just on the bolded note I've seen some posters on Boards who sometimes claim to be Irish-English Protestants and support the English teams over the Irish ones. I've also known a few Irish Catholics who supported the English soccer team over the Irish one (never in rugby though)

Galwayguy35 · 06-10-2017 08:50PM

I was reading somewhere that the population at the time of the 1740 famine was just under 3 million, yet 100 years later at the time of the second one it was about 8 million.

That's a huge increase in just a century if the figures are correct.

Wibbs · 06-10-2017 10:07PM

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Are all your drinking buddies friends idiots?
Because those are the questions of idiots, whether they were Irish, British, Catholic, Protestant or etc.

Indeed they are, though the "do you celebrate Christmas" question could be asked of some Christian groups. Presbyterians for example have had a long back and forth about Christmas and other "holy days" and how Christian they actually were. In the Reformation in newly Protestant areas of influence the old now "Catholic" rites and feast days were pretty much thrown out as fancies of popery. Understandably enough too as Biblical sources for such celebrations were either non existent or thin on the ground. Christmas in particular was often seen as a Pagan loan festival/invention, as nowhere do the texts give even close to a precise time for Jesus' birth. Going by said texts around August - September seems a more likely date. So oddly enough, that question could have historical/theological merit, though I doubt above mentioned idiots were coming from this position.

steddyeddy · 07-10-2017 10:08PM

A Little Pony wrote: »

Steddy why do you keep saying the penal laws didn't effect the 'planters', of course it did, a lot of them fled Ulster and ended up fighting in the Revolutionary War for George Washington. One British general said it was a Presbyterian uprising than anything else.

I'm sure it did ALP, but the natives were subject to a more comprehensive set of restrictions that effectively reduced them to illiterate renters in their own land. The penal laws are a diverse range of laws. If we're talking about penal laws directed at Irish Catholics then look no further than the popery act.

British TV viewers react with horror to portrayal of famine in ITV drama Victoria.

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