Was the Irish famine a famine or genocide

CDfm · 24-02-2012 7:27pm

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

I wouldn't necessarily agree - yes policy decisions were made, primarily to drive thouse tenants with less than 5 acres down into the landless labouring class - but in most cases everyone from the landlords and the merchants right down to the tenant farmers were engaged in exploiting the crisis for personal gain.

These guys were just a little step up the ladder on the next step of vulnerable.

Convince me because I can't see it.

If it is business its on the scale of Dinny & Myley in Glenroe.

P. Breathnach · 24-02-2012 8:56pm

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

...
Just on Rundale - by 1820 it was pretty-much gone in practically every part of the country expect for isolated pockets of Connacht.

All my West Kerry ancestors were shareholders in rundale leases at the time of the Famine, and some were for decades later (the earliest non-rundale letting to any of them was in 1871).

Jolly Red Giant · 24-02-2012 9:54pm

CDfm wrote: »

These guys were just a little step up the ladder on the next step of vulnerable.

That next step up the ladder allowed them to survive the famine relatively unscathed and they did that by walking onto of those below them.

The one thing that bugs me about the written (and spoken) history of the nineteenth century in Ireland is the pretext that it was 'Irish good - brits bad' and it was 'all the Irish V all the British'. The reality was that the landlord exploited the tenants and the Irish tenant farmers exploited the landless labourers and the cottiers. In the urban areas the Irish merchant class exploited the urban working class. If you read through all the records from the nineteenth century the vast majority of the complaints by the poorest sections of society were at the treatment being meeted out to them by their fellow Irish who were the next step (or few steps) up the ladder.

When writing about his tour of Ireland in 1780, Arthur Young outlined the status and condition of life for the rural labourer. He argued that ‘such is the weight of the lower classes in the great scale of national importance, that a traveller can never give too much attention to every circumstance that concerns them’ and calls the system whereby landlords and farmers (my emphasis) kept accounts with the poor as a ‘cruel abuse’ (Arthur Young, A Tour of Ireland, (ed.) Constantina Maxwell, Belfast, 1983, p. 15)

CDfm wrote: »

Convince me because I can't see it.

Take a trip to the national archives - read the police reports, outrage reports etc.

CDfm wrote: »

If it is business its on the scale of Dinny & Myley in Glenroe.

That was the nature of business in the 19th century - the gap (in terms of scale) was significantly smaller then than now - that 20 steps ladder at the time of the famine is now the height of a skyscraper.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

All my West Kerry ancestors were shareholders in rundale leases at the time of the Famine, and some were for decades later (the earliest non-rundale letting to any of them was in 1871).

Came across these few comments - the first two about the late 18th century and then from 1816

The rundale settlements, which developed in the seventeenth century, were housing clusters, which grew organically through the subdivision of land holdings (Heritage Council, Rural Housing in Ireland, Dublin, 2005, p. 3)

A concerted effort was made to eliminate the rundale system, which many viewed as being a serious impediment to agricultural development.(Heritage Council & Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972, London, 1989, p. 201)

Mason’s Parochial Survey of County Clare, carried out in 1816, described rundale as an ‘injurious mode of tenure’ explaining that it ‘has been nearly abolished, particularly on Mr. Vandeleur’s estates; but it prevails still, with its usual ill consequences, in some parts of “The West”’(Rev. John Graham, Mason's Parochial Survey, 1814-19, Vol. II, 1816, Union of Kilrush, Killard, Kilfieragh, Moyferta, and Kilballyhone, Chapter IX. Modes of Agriculture, Crops, &c)

bergheim · 24-02-2012 10:15pm

Population overshoot would immediately be felt in a year with bad crop back then. Unlike today when one country has a bad crop, food is brought in by plane, ships and trucks from other countries with surplus to sell. So I think population overshoot relative to the local means of producing food was a major cause

Jolly Red Giant · 25-02-2012 2:19pm

I was doing some research this morning and came across this chapter - Roger Wells, ‘The Irish Famine of 1799-1801: Market Culture, Moral Economies and Social Protest’, Adrian Randall & Andrew Charlesworth (Eds.) Markets, Market Culture and Popular Protest in Eighteenth Century Britain and Ireland - dealing with the economics of food supply immediately following the Act of Union. Wells, dealing with Limerick, outlines that local food supplies were integrally linked into the national and British economies.

In Ireland, as in Britain, market forces exercised a powerful influence over later eighteenth century agrarian economy. Local marketing systems, with numerous modest market towns drawing foodstuffs from limited hinterlands, were themselves subsumed in a national marketing system that embraced most of the country with the possible exception of the remotest parts of Connaught (p.163)

The food supply to the Irish was affected by its colonial status and the aftermath of 1798 rebellion by further complications deriving from the political situation as the authorities struggled to extinguish the residues of the rebellion (p.163).

Serious inflationary pressures forced a substantial jump in prices. Small farmers, cottiers and labourers consumed stocks set aside for seed driving up the price of seed potatoes (p. 165).

The potato shortage injected fierce inflationary pressures into the market for corn (p. 166).

Military commanders also articulated perceptions derived from moral-economic outlooks. General James Duff spoke of ‘many rich individuals employed in the monopoly of grain’ at Limerick (p. 178). [The rich individuals Duff was referring to were the Irish Catholic merchants who dominated food supplies in Limerick at the time]

Secret society intervention aimed to protect the poorest strata from exploitation at the hands of their wealthier neighbours, notably in Tipperary, Limerick and Kerry. In this extensive area, the intensification and then continuation of the crisis after the 1800 harvest brought recent and current agrarian changes into even sharper relief. So much land had been converted to permanent pasture for cattle that there was ‘little employment’ for the poor and then at ‘very…low wages’. A mere five or six pence per day ‘which bears no proportion’ to present food prices. Employment was further jeopardised by the influx of labourers from west Kerry. Rents were high and rising (p.183).

eire4 · 27-11-2014 8:48am

One of the aspects of the famine that for me is not focused on enough is the reality that most of those who died or were forced to emigrate were mostly Irish speakers. These were people who degraded and debased as they were were looked upon as sub human, lazy, prone to violence etc by their then Britsh colonial rulers. This racist outlook by the British I feel was a major factor in their unwillingness to take measures to prevent this horrific event from unfolding. What happened was not a premeditated genocide. But certainly once things were unfolding the British decision makers were quite fine with the outcome which when the scale of what took place is looked at made what happened a genocide in effect especially with regard to the degraded and impoverished Irish speakers.

We as a nation and people I feel have still yet to come to terms with the trauma of that period and that is something I feel we need to address. Like an individual who has suffered a traumatic event we need to deal with what happened, acknowledge and accept it as a monumental and in many ways defining part of our heritage and instead of finger pointing we need I feel to come to know as much as that is possible our ancestors and what they suffered and commemorate and respect that trauma.

Jesus. · 15-12-2015 1:06pm

New book

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/michael-nicholson-famine-novel-changed-my-mind-on-england-s-guilt-1.2465994#.Vm8Sw58Iwb4.twitter

jonniebgood1 · 15-12-2015 10:09pm

Whilst the authors view changing is interesting im not so sure about the books. Its a novel or quote "famine novel", this is a concept I dislike. Why does it need to be a novel when the facts are so serious.

eire4 · 16-12-2015 5:44pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Whilst the authors view changing is interesting im not so sure about the books. Its a novel or quote "famine novel", this is a concept I dislike. Why does it need to be a novel when the facts are so serious.

Have you read Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor? I thought that was well done. Well worth a look.

Jesus. · 16-12-2015 6:04pm

eire4 wrote: »

Have you read Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor? I thought that was well done. Well worth a look.

I read that. Sinead's brother wasn't it? Decent read alright

eire4 · 16-12-2015 6:11pm

Jesus. wrote: »

I read that. Sinead's brother wasn't it? Decent read alright

I didn't know he was Sinead's brothert thats interesting. I certainly liked it thought it was very well done.

whisky_galore · 23-12-2015 12:30pm

eire4 wrote: »

One of the aspects of the famine that for me is not focused on enough is the reality that most of those who died or were forced to emigrate were mostly Irish speakers. These were people who degraded and debased as they were were looked upon as sub human, lazy, prone to violence etc by their then Britsh colonial rulers. This racist outlook by the British I feel was a major factor in their unwillingness to take measures to prevent this horrific event from unfolding. What happened was not a premeditated genocide. But certainly once things were unfolding the British decision makers were quite fine with the outcome which when the scale of what took place is looked at made what happened a genocide in effect especially with regard to the degraded and impoverished Irish speakers.

We as a nation and people I feel have still yet to come to terms with the trauma of that period and that is something I feel we need to address. Like an individual who has suffered a traumatic event we need to deal with what happened, acknowledge and accept it as a monumental and in many ways defining part of our heritage and instead of finger pointing we need I feel to come to know as much as that is possible our ancestors and what they suffered and commemorate and respect that trauma.

I don't think it mattered a jot to the British whether Paddy spoke Irish or not, save perhaps for an English speaker might be more malleable and perhaps be of use as a soldier... or with a bit of smarts a civil servant, but Irish speakers would have by and large lived on the more marginal land in the West which would have been far harder to eke a living out of.

JupiterKid · 23-12-2015 12:35pm

CDfm wrote: »

The potato as a food source is excellent. Easy to grow and doesn't need much land or cultivation. Subdivision of land meant the population could expand as long as the potato was available. All this continued while the potato supply existed.

Simply put, the population expanded to fit the available nutritional source supplied by potatoes.

Yes, this is true. Malthusian economics at its most obvious.

LordSutch · 29-12-2015 10:20pm

When the potato blight hit, why didn't people eat other foods like grain/barley-breads, cereals, fish, fowl, rabbit, hare, pigs, sheep, cows, horse, berries, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, turnips, milk, stews, runner beans, fungi . . . .

Why did the potato blight result in one million deaths from starvation?

tabbey · 30-12-2015 12:14am

LordSutch wrote: »

When the potato blight hit, why didn't people eat other foods like grain/barley-breads, cereals, fish, fowl, rabbit, hare, pigs, sheep, cows, horse, berries, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, turnips, milk, stews, runner beans, fungi . . . .

Why did the potato blight result in one million deaths from starvation?

Because the lumper potato was the only thing that would grow on the cottier's quarter acre, this usually being the poorest piece of land on the small farmer's farm.
Even the smallest farmer looked down on the landless labourer, and felt no obligation to assist his starving neighbour.
It was not only the comfortable farmer who felt superior. If someone else was hungry, that was God's will, not society's problem.
Some things never change.

galwaycyclist · 31-12-2015 7:08pm

tabbey wrote: »

Because the lumper potato was the only thing that would grow on the cottier's quarter acre, this usually being the poorest piece of land on the small farmer's farm.
Even the smallest farmer looked down on the landless labourer, and felt no obligation to assist his starving neighbour.
It was not only the comfortable farmer who felt superior. If someone else was hungry, that was God's will, not society's problem.
Some things never change.

I seem to recall* that in his book "Ireland 1912-1985 - Politics and Society" J.J. Lee observed that the foundation of the state was followed by the disappearance of the Irish farm labourer as a class and that this happening did not seem to provoke any comment or concern.

(* might be something I picked up from Ray Crotty)

recedite · 01-01-2016 6:47pm

Janedoe10 wrote: »

It's sad . http://www.irishholocaust.org

Just reading through this document of the OP, there are a lot of claims and allegations in it. It seems to sourced from an Irish-American person (which is fine).
I looked into one aspect; the page about Liverpool mentions a secret mass grave of Irish emigrants...

They may have also been used to dig the secret mass graves that have been unearthed in the city and recently came to light, the latest in 1973 containing 3,561 bodies stacked in order of presumed age that were secretly incinerated before tests could be carried out. This was on British Home Office orders which it now denies knowledge of. It is now known as the 'Mystery' Mass Grave, It took eight years before this mass grave was reported in the press and then only in the Catholic Pictorial (September 6,1981).

Here is a bit of local history from the area in question, Old Swan, which shows that the building work uncovered coffins carefully buried, over a number of years, in coffins, at a place marked on old maps as a burial ground. It is simply a case of the presbytery taking over a very normal old graveyard as a garden, and then a subsequent generation being ignorant of that fact, decided to build a school on "the garden".
The "secrecy" seems to be due to (a) a few red faces and (b) nobody wanted the school project to be abandoned, therefore the old coffins and their contents had to be "got rid of" somehow.

So with this allegation disproved, it does throw some doubt on the others.

Nevertheless, there are some claims made in this document which would be worth proving or disproving one way or the other, partly because they appear fairly regularly elsewhere.

1. That large numbers of extra British troops were garrisoned in the country during the famine, and used to guard food storehouses and food export convoys. And there is also the hint/subtext that they may have gathered up or requisitioned food from the countryside.

2. That fisherman were prevented from fishing the sea by British coastguard or naval vessels.

3. That there was a net export of food from Ireland during the famine years.

I would not be surprised if 3. was true, but happened because of the economic system and market forces. But are there any actual facts and figures for any of these?

Another few stories that appear now and again;
1. That yellow "indian meal" was imported but the people could not eat it because they did not know how to cook it.
2. That the people did not fish the sea because their currachs were unsuitable, their nets were locked up in the pawnbrokers shop, they could not even afford to buy a fishhook to stand on the rocks fishing etc...

These strike me as infantile arguments, even though they have been taught at times in Irish schools.

CDfm wrote: »

I often wonder what obligations the owners of serfs had for the welfare of their serfs or slaveowners in the US had for the welfare of their slaves as the Irish seemed to have no rights at all.

I think this is a good point. Numerous foreign visitors to Ireland commented on the extremely wretched living conditions of the very poor in Ireland. The landless farm labouring class seem to have been worse off here than in any other European country, even before the famine. Probably worse off than the people in the countries that are nowadays "the third world".
If they had been slaves or serfs, the landlords would have had more of a responsibility to ensure they had enough to eat. But being "free" and living in a capitalist society with no social welfare, those 2 million were simply surplus to an uncaring system's requirements, and nobody's responsibility.

On the question of why they just died, instead of going fishing or hunting.
I suppose it is just the boiled frog syndrome. Allegedly, a frog in a pot of cold water, and brought slowly to the boil, will make no attempt to escape.
A frog thrown into hot water will make vigorous attempts to get out.

recedite · 01-01-2016 7:11pm

Another aspect of this that might be interesting to research is the effect absentee landlords and crown taxes had on the net flow of money into and out of Ireland.

So if money is constantly being collected up in the form of rents and taxes, but is then spent outside the country, it means that there is not enough money circulating within the country to buy goods. Hence the locally produced goods (food) must be exported to bring back a balance of payments.

A modern day equivalent of this is the €80 billion debt we "took on" from ECB/IMF. As this money gets repaid over the coming years, we will see exports from Ireland growing, but the wealth of the people will not grow in parallel. In other words, the local economy must outperform its own needs just to survive.
In this sense, modern day interest payments to foreign creditors are similar to famine era rent payments to absentee landlords. Obviously nobody starves today, but the principle is similar. The end result is a net export of wealth to another country.
In each case the "service" being paid for is an illusion. Back then, we were being charged for the use of the land we lived on. Nowadays, we are being charged for the use of the currency that we use.
Boiled frogs indeed.

laoch na mona · 01-01-2016 10:03pm

one of my lectures told us he agreed with Mitchell's assessment that "God sent the blight but the English sent the famine". There was no need for a single crop failure to cause so many deaths but the government of the day made decisions to not intervene which caused the famine.

It must also be remembered that middle to large Irish tenants did little to help the cottiers who suffered the most, in fact many larger tenants were happy to get a chance to rent a few more acres

Was the Irish famine a famine or genocide

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