Anti-British Xenophobia and Hatred in Ireland

There was plenty of food in the country (and plenty more exported) problem was that most people couldn't afford it and the government didn't want to know.

As you say there was plenty of food in he country but people could not afford it. The reason is poverty which was bad in Ireland pre-famine. The reason, too many people chasing too few jobs in an agrarian economy.

I do not condone the elite's actions but -

Potato blight happened in many places in Western Europe, only in Ireland was it devastating.

Scotland in many ways similar to Ireland (also had a potato blight) had a population of 2.8M at the time - one third the population of Ireland

You have to remember the poverty of the Irish Catholic population was a deliberate policy aim of the UK government, as expressed in the penal laws. The aim was to reduce the majority of the Irish population into a desperately poor, subsistence existence and the penal laws were very successful at achieving that result. In such circumstances, an event like the famine was merely a matter of time.

As you say, potato blights and crop failures were common. They had occurred in Ireland before. In such times, to prevent unrest, the Irish parliament had closed ports to prevent the export of food forcing its sale in Ireland to mitigate the worst effects of the potato crop failure. After the act of union in 1800, the legislative power moved to London where politicians were ideologically convinced of the purity of free markets and free trade. So when the crops failed in the 1840s a) The majority of MPs couldn't care less. Ireland was a foreign country in their minds. Some UK civil servants, like Trevelyan, considered the famine to be a good thing. b) To the extent they did consider the problem, preventing exports from Ireland was ideologically impossible for them.

However, the malicious indifference of the UK political aristocracy of the 19th century isn't a good reason to harbour grudges against the British generally or the English specifically in the 21st century. The same UK political aristocracy unleashed a heavy cavalry charge against 60,000 English people protesting for parliamentary reforms in 1819, killing 18 unarmed people in the "Battle of Peterloo". We were all victims of the same regime.

Ok I am prepared for scary and hard - explain to me why my statement is so utterly off the mark.

That’s pretty meaningless considering the vast majority of that 8 million people were living in extreme poverty on half acre plots of land.

Population size is misleading. We were no where near militarily putting it up to the Brits in the 19th century .

The huge population of the 19th century did make a huge impact and enhance massively the US diaspora. Which is crucial to our soft power. Something that dumbfounds the Brits to this today.

I wonder about the British education system. A large number of their society seen to be knuckle daggers.

Draggers.

It does make me wonder.

It's probably because of your intellectual superiority and innate modesty.

And the ability to avoid careless generalisations.

"...If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.."

This happened all over the world. Indigenous people pushed off their own land. Was culturally acceptable at that time. What's surprising that it went on for so long and still reverberates in NI. Yet there's almost no awareness of this British history in Britain.

I'll wager you know all the background to this.

I've read some of this history.

It was in a book.

Bought it in England.

Covered in whitewash it was.

Go away out of that, the Irish breed like rabbits -> overpopulation as Bobby (I think) explained. As also pointed out, the Irish peasants relied on one crop. This was because they were handicapped by the twin evils of low intelligence in combination with a backward and ignorant culture unlike the English farmers. People don't like these hard truths so they try to blame the British rulers unfairly, contributing to the massive amount of "Anti Britsh Xenophobia and Hatred in Ireland" to this day. These rulers only ever tried to help the benighted natives of this land and bring them them railways, well fitting suits, flushing toilets, and common law and stuff. Thankfully despite the hatred stirred up by myths about the causes of the potato famine, some British still travel west and live here in the darkness to bring the sparks of civilisation and knowledge to us.

The blight did impact the Scottish highlands but as you can see the population at risk was 200K

In the Scottish Highlands, in 1846, there was widespread failure of potato crops as a result of potato blight. Crops failed in about three-quarters of the crofting region, putting a population of about 200,000 at risk; the following winter was especially cold and snowy and the death rate rose significantly. The Free Church of Scotland, strong in the affected areas, was prompt in raising the alarm and in organising relief, being the only body actively doing so in late 1846 and early 1847; relief was given regardless of denomination. Additionally, the Free Church organised transport for over 3,000 men from the famine-struck regions to work on the Lowland railways. This both removed people who needed to be fed from the area and provided money for their families to buy food.[3]: