Minute's silence to be held for Famine victims

markopantelic · 15-05-2009 07:48PM

think tony blair apologised if im not mistaken, sure what can they say? would it make anyones life better? honestly i have never ever heard anyone say my *insert relative* died in famine they are all probably living in Argentina, USA, Uruguay, Australia now anyway.

O'Coonassa · 15-05-2009 07:50PM

brummytom wrote: »

"A list of exports from Cork Harbour
on a single day
the 14th of September 1847
ran as follows
147 barrels of pork
986 casks of ham
27 sacks of bacon
528 boxes of eggs
1397 firkins of butter
477 sacks of oats
720 sacks of flour
380 sacks of barley
187 head of cattle
296 head of sheep
and 4338 barrels of miscellaneous provisions

Produced by Irish farmers, large and small, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. You can't really blame the Brits that the farmers didn't give it away free, they too had to pay their rents or face eviction. This is the problem with cash crops for export. When Peel tried to scrap the Corn Laws and lower the price of staple foods the farmers were up in arms and their MP's voted against it. Those were Irish MP's many of them home-rulers.

ScumLord · 15-05-2009 07:50PM

Nodin wrote: »

Unfortunately organising a rural, largely illiterate group of subsistence farmers, who are at the bottom of a system designed to keep them down is a difficult thing to do. The last major rebellion was about fifty years previous, and one might say that slaughtered out substantive rebellion for the next few generations.

I understand that but these people had the option of starving to death or raiding food and being killed by the Brits. At least with the 2nd option you died with a full belly.

Maybe the Irish where just so downtrodden they had given up?

Acacia · 15-05-2009 07:56PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I understand that but these people had the option of starving to death or raiding food and being killed by the Brits. At least with the 2nd option you died with a full belly.

Maybe the Irish where just so downtrodden they had given up?

Perhaps. But you also had 'option C'- workhouses, and from what I can remember , most people would rather die than be sent there.

Emigration was probably the best bet, in fairness.

Elle Victorine · 15-05-2009 07:58PM

Interesting idea to say the least and no harm in observing it.

magick · 15-05-2009 07:59PM

a good idea

arybvtcw0eolkf · 15-05-2009 08:00PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Maybe the Irish where just so downtrodden they had given up?

And this is a legacy which continues to this day in some sections of Irish society, where the people still feel the need to 'doff their hats to their supposed better's.

Its only in the last two generations that a sizable section of Irish society said 'fvck this shoit' to people in again 'supposed' positions of authority and we began to answer back to the clergy, the justice system. We stood up to government and they're corrupt ways - no more will we accept the landed gentry like Charlie Haughey and his ilk who raped and pillaged this land & who tried to keep us subjected to their ways, inherited from the Brits.

/Steps down from the soapbox & grabs a dusts down the ol' Armalite

.

.

Nodin · 15-05-2009 08:13PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Maybe the Irish where just so downtrodden they had given up?

A large number hence the "one might say that slaughtered out substantive rebellion...." remark. And of course as pointed out by another poster above, many would quickly doff the cap and fuck over their own than stand up on their hindquarters. Even today you can see many would rather empathise with the 'anglo' world view than realise we've more in common with the non-white peoples of the world, historically.

O'Coonassa · 15-05-2009 08:19PM

Belle Massive Registry wrote: »

Starved to death indeed

This is actually a mis-perception. Actual starvation was relatively rare, less than 100,000 cases iirc. People didn't know about germ theory in those days. Masses of people with weakened immune systems were crowded together at feeding stations. What really swept people away in great numbers was the communicable diseases.

stovelid · 15-05-2009 08:21PM

brummytom wrote: »

147 barrels of pork
986 casks of ham
27 sacks of bacon
528 boxes of eggs
1397 firkins of butter
477 sacks of oats
720 sacks of flour
380 sacks of barley
187 head of cattle
296 head of sheep
and 4338 barrels of miscellaneous provisions
And your man Mick McCann from the banks of the Bann.

fyp

mike65 · 15-05-2009 08:30PM

Belle Massive Registry wrote: »

Our ancesters at the time fought both the famine & the British crown.

To finish, of course we knew how to fish - our river's ran free with fish, we're surrounded by sea's - but we were an Island nation held in bondage & pushed on to our knee's with our faces in the dirt by a shower of bastards.

Did you type that standing on a box?

ScumLord · 15-05-2009 08:39PM

Belle Massive Registry wrote: »

And this is a legacy which continues to this day in some sections of Irish society, where the people still feel the need to 'doff their hats to their supposed better's.

Now we have the exact opposite, a nation of begrudger's.

arybvtcw0eolkf · 15-05-2009 08:42PM

Belle Massive Registry wrote: »

/Steps down from the soapbox & grabs a dusts down the ol' Armalite

.

.

mike65 wrote: »

Did you type that standing on a box?

Yup!.

IIMII · 15-05-2009 11:26PM

O'Coonassa wrote: »

You can't really blame the Brits that the farmers didn't give it away free

Of course you can. What were they doing here renting back our land to us in the first place? If the British didn't control us at that point, it wouldn't have happened. Sub-division and rack-rent were their gifts to the Irish people, the famine being born of both those parents.

Bottom line is you can't help yourself when you can't manage your own economic system

Terry · 15-05-2009 11:58PM