Irish potato famine - Irish were really this hated??

archer22 wrote: »

The land was owned by the landlords and rented to the strong Irish farmers who worked it and produced the food...their market for the food was the Irish merchants who exported it.

They didn't give the food to the landlord to sell, they paid him a shilling per acre annually or whatever the local rate was.

Well in any famine that occurs there is always going to be that part of the population who are predestined to be able to survive the period of extreme food shortage - and then there is going to be that section of the population that is going to be most vulnerable - and will not survive the extreme shortage of food.
I don't see why the great Irish "potato" famine of the late 1840s would be an exception to this tendency.

Paulina Fat Manganese wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zklucyTFU

I learned about this a little in school but, wasn't aware the full extent of the depravity.

The pivotal aspect for me is this videos description of the British leaders contempt for the Irish "personality".

Abbreviated it goes, "this is a punishment of the character of the Irish, one we don't want to interfere with too much".

No. In reality it's that you have to whip up hatred for people you are condemning to die through your own policies or you look bad.

You have to make them the bad guy.

Help poor people ? Nah its their own fault.

They were just less subtle about it then.

Paulina Fat Manganese wrote: »

Ya'll have lost me completely.

The British compromised Irish supply lines as a means to intentionally damage a class of people, or form of thinking - they despised.

Well, the British leader commissioned for overseeing this situation at the time at least.

I gave the quotation in the OP, "let them starve" - in so many words.
Marked in the history books.

Ya'll are debating over who did what, without presenting any cited facts.

Let's be specific. The UK govt did.

archer22 wrote: »

...it is also worth remembering that many lower class protestants died or had to emigrate.

What is the relevance of this when talking about the causes of the Irish famine?

One should also bear in mind that the story of the famine that most have is the Fenian version of it, and they of course had an agenda and so portrayed events in a way that suited their goals.

You need to provide evidence to substantiate such a statement - sounds like utter nonsense to me. Fenian version indeed...

What do you think the professional historians say?

Tired Gardener wrote: »

Not in all their minds. I am English, and I try to educate myself on what the history is. The older generations, do have the mindset you speak of, but my generation and the younger generation are a bit more knowledgeable... or at least try to be.

And we appreciate that. But I still don’t know that any of you fully understand the full extent of what the British empire did to stay great.

And the famine is a prime example of that. I remember when the series Victoria aired an episode on the famine the immediate reaction from British viewers according to many articles I read was along the lines of ‘no wonder they hate us’. They had absolutely no idea what their own country had done to ours.

And they weren’t all older folks either.

There was plenty of food in Ireland at the time of the famine but what the English did (and this is where they are culpable) is that they exported the food grains etc to feed their own in England.

Convoys of food were delivered under armed guard to Irish ports and exported.

It must be remembered that the potato blight was across most of northern Europe at the time. The English rather than feeding their own people with their own food decided to take advantage and make a quick buck- they exported their food to the continent for profit. In turn, they drained the food out of Ireland to fill the void in England.

Unfortunately, there was nobody filling the food void in Ireland and the English purposely saw to it- exported under armed escort. Of course the poor suffered dreadfully.

They also saw it as 'God's Will' and it would clear the land for the English to taker over the land.

Pretty much close to genocide.

Graces7 wrote: »

OK I am off!

Saying that when I first came Ireland I was in famine areas and started researching, And the deeper I went the more I saw the political lies that were disseminated and widely believed.

Went deeper; the Vatican Library has some very revealing documents re their intentions for Ireland.

Irish folk had large families. So when the very poor had gone..

The aim for Ireland . was \train up mulitudes of nuns and priests and send them out through the world to convert whole countries .

They took out ot the population so many women of marriageable age that the population has barely started to increase,

This is also what gave rise to the penal institutiuons; the Laundries, Mother and Baby homes, Industrial Schools etc and all the cruelty and deaths that went on therein

All stemmed from the famine.

All there for the finding.

While on the subject of the Church, have you noticed in Ireland that the Catholic Church (CC) really turned the screw in the decades immediately following the famine?

You go and check the overwhelming majority of Catholic institutions formed in Ireland and you will notice dates generally between 1850 and 1888- schools and hospitals the most obvious. That is no co incidence.

The CC extensively lobbied London to divide and segregate schooling in Ireland. I have seen this propaganda that "Oh sure the CC stepped in to help the Irish"

Bull ****...they swept in like vultures and planted themselves firmly at the heart of Irish society while Ireland was on its knees and at its most vulnerable.

The famine was the making of the CC in Ireland.