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Irish potato famine - Irish were really this hated??

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,817 ✭✭✭Raconteuse


    RobertKK wrote: »
    Is this why when there was a series about Queen Victoria on the BBC I think it was, there were many people in the UK who said 'we never learned about the Irish famine in school' and they didn't know of this disaster.
    Ah ffs... is Flanagan planning a commemoration for the landed gentry, lest we forget the poor folk had to look at the dying?

    Yes, the holocaust. The greatest tragedy to befall Nazi Germany. You'd feel for the poor Nazis all the same.
    This is an appropriate thread on which to recommend: Don't feed TRoL!


  • Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    The famine was the making of the CC in Ireland.

    I doubt that very much. The actual number of Catholics in Ireland was halved between 1841 and 1921 - the Church of Rome became much weaker in Ireland during that period.


  • Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    archer22 wrote: »
    You can check out the writings of John Mitchel for that...he was the one who created the myth that the the Irish famine was a "Genocide".

    And most "professional historians" that I have heard and read on the subject DO NOT consider the famine to have been a Genocide.

    Who mentioned the word the Genocide?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ Adalyn Faint Vegan


    Fritzbox wrote: »
    Who mentioned the word the Genocide?

    Put genocide in to the search and search for this thread. You'll see it used several times.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23 Johnnydoe89


    Famine my hole.. Genocide more fits the bill. The only disease we had in this country was the ****ing brits


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ Adalyn Faint Vegan


    Famine my hole.. Genocide more fits the bill. The only disease we had in this country was the ****ing brits

    Famine is a cause. Genocide is an action. And neither is a disease.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Just popped back to see progress!

    Yes; and that was the plan in helping starve the irish peasants.

    This was the masterplan from Rome. It is all stated clearly in Vatican documnts we accessed. The Irish Cardinal, Paul Cullen, was the leader sent here.

    Irish families are big; Rome selected Ireland as literally the breeding ground of large numbers of priests, brothers and nuns, who would then be sent round the world to convert the masses to Rome

    Young men and women were conscripted into Orders and Seminaries. People of my age still remember the priest and nuns visiting every house each week, asking " Which of your children are you going to give to God?" and poorer families with a lot of children knew that a person going into the church would be fed, clothed, cared for and buried.

    I met an old Franciscan Sister who was one of a family of 7 children. All and each became a nun or a priest. And it was not unusual for there to be 2 or 3 such in any one family.

    So many men were left with no wives as the church sequestered literally thousands of marriageable women of child bearing age.

    Hence the fact of the population being much the same until very recently

    And yes, they took over almost all the schools, hospitals, industrial schools with an almost frightening efficiency and thoroughness with a huge work force.

    if you control the education and health care of a nation?

    All part of the master plan. You ar e100% correct

    They were so leary of anyone involving with the other churches that eg when the Quakers went to a starving village with huge pots of soup, the priest forbade them to eat it or even feed their children on pain of excommunication

    You are totally correct! And all planned and carried out by starving the population literally to death.

    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Boredstiff666


    Why didnt the catholic church save the starving? Isnt that what they are supposed to do.....help the needy?


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 30,833 Mod ✭✭✭✭Insect Overlord


    Why didnt the catholic church save the starving? Isnt that what they are supposed to do.....help the needy?

    Yerra, sure didn't they save their blessed souls for all of eternity instead?


  • Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    Why didnt the catholic church save the starving? Isnt that what they are supposed to do.....help the needy?

    Why should they - Irish Catholics didn't own much of their own country at that time.

    But ultimately they did help the needy - it would hardly have been enough though.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Acutally the real disease was the Catholic Church and its designs on Ireland . They were far more clever than the brits and far more dangerous as they took over education and health care and made the people scared of hellfire.

    There was a parallel in Canada, when all 3 churches conspired together to rob the Inuits and First nation people of their land Google "Canadian Holocaust Kevin Annett"
    He was a minister who outed the abuse and got thrown out . Upwards of 1/4 million children were killed. That too was genocide,

    In Ireland it was genocide of the poorest sector of the population, very carefully defined.


    Famine my hole.. Genocide more fits the bill. The only disease we had in this country was the ****ing brits


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,204 ✭✭✭partyguinness


    Why didnt the catholic church save the starving? Isnt that what they are supposed to do.....help the needy?


    The CC as an institution is only interested in one thing only and that is consolidating and exercising power and control in the name of God.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Neither statement has any foundation in truth! When eg Quakers came to the starving villages with soup, priests forbade the people to eat it on pain of excommunication

    They did not help any needy,

    Fritzbox wrote: »
    Why should they - Irish Catholics didn't own much of their own country at that time.

    But ultimately they did help the needy - it would hardly have been enough though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 488 ✭✭Fritzbox


    Graces7 wrote: »
    Neither statement has any foundation in truth! When eg Quakers came to the starving villages with soup, priests forbade the people to eat it on pain of excommunication

    I doubt if that is very true Grace. Have you a source for that?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,498 ✭✭✭Hoboo


    Graces7 wrote: »
    They were far more clever than the brits and far more dangerous as they took over education and health care

    Took over? From who? Surely provided/founded would be more accurate?


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    That is not true. They took over the provision of almost all education and hospitals and all but ruled ireland and made up the largest ratio of the population.



    Fritzbox wrote: »
    I doubt that very much. The actual number of Catholics in Ireland was halved between 1841 and 1921 - the Church of Rome became much weaker in Ireland during that period.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    I meant took over the provision of! Sorry; been a long day. There were eg hedge schools etc.

    They did a mighty work with great efficiency. As some are saying now that in spite of the abuse, when the nuns ran the hospitals they were clean and well run

    Hoboo wrote: »
    Took over? From who? Surely provided/founded would be more accurate?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Boredstiff666


    Fritzbox wrote: »
    Why should they - Irish Catholics didn't own much of their own country at that time.

    But ultimately they did help the needy - it would hardly have been enough though.

    The wealthiest church in the world by far stocked to the hilt with stolen Aztec gold and weekly subs from poor folk who cant afford it.

    They could have fed the starving of Ireland with prime rib steak every day if they wanted.

    No priest starved to death in the Famine.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Fritzbox wrote: »
    I doubt if that is very true Grace. Have you a source for that?

    Sadly true and recorded in many sources;

    They were adamant that no one would be taken by any other church

    There was a phrase they used as an accusation, " Taking the soup". google that as I just did and there are abundant sources. It was appalling.

    The Quakers were just as adamant to feed people so they were worthy opponents! And on occasion the Church took advantage of that to avoid spending on the poor..

    On some occasions, well recorded, the Quakers were forced to throw the food away as the priest forbade the folk to eat it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Boredstiff666


    The CC as an institution is only interested in one thing only and that is consolidating and exercising power and control in the name of God.

    Two things actually. ........and you cant blame the English for that either.:eek::eek:


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ Adalyn Faint Vegan


    Fritzbox wrote: »
    I doubt if that is very true Grace. Have you a source for that?

    Somebody was obviously taking the aid provided by the Quakers, as just under 8,000 tons of food were distributed along with almost 300 soup boilers and nearly 80 tons of seed. Thousand of people were given employment by the Quakers in agriculture, fisheries and industry and many more were taught how to grow crops which had previously been unfamiliar to them.

    Visit Letterfrack to see the schools they set up for the local children.

    Historian Fr. Anthony Gaughan tells of how the Presentation Sisters, at their convent in Listowel, fed the starving people of North Kerry during the 1840s thanks to 'famine-pots', supplies and advice from the Quaker community.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭Boredstiff666


    Graces7 wrote: »
    Sadly true and recorded in many sources;

    They were adamant that no one would be taken by any other church

    There was a phrase they used as an accusation, " Taking the soup". google that as I just did and there are abundant sources. It was appalling.

    The Quakers were just as adamant to feed people so they were worthy opponents! And on occasion the Church took advantage of that to avoid spending on the poor..

    On some occasions, well recorded, the Quakers were forced to throw the food away as the priest forbade the folk to eat it.

    Its on Wiki....souperism.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ Adalyn Faint Vegan


    Its on Wiki....souperism.

    And to be perfectly clear it did NOT refer to the Quakers
    and the Quakers, whose soup kitchens were concerned solely with charitable work, were never associated with the practice (which causes them to be held in high regard in Ireland even today, with many Irish remembering the Quakers with the remark "They fed us in the famine.

    It was a Church of Ireland and Bible Societies practice to offer relief in exchange for conversion. A despicable practice really.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Its on Wiki....souperism.

    Yep!

    Meant to say this sooner.

    When I first came to Ireland, I was commissioned to write a book on the church ie RC in Ireland at the start of the new millennium. Work I am very well qualified academically to do .

    I was living in a lovely Catholic parish; very welcoming,, And I had contacts for the work in many places, local, national etc, and we have access to the Vatican library of course.

    I lived near one of the famine graveyards and spent hours there and started going further back in the history of it all

    Work was going well and then the child abuse scandal broke. No one had had any idea and my nearest neighbours has a sister who was a Mercy nun.

    The shockwaves. We all thought the Goldenbridge episode was all there was.. then the floodgates opened and have stayed open since.

    Next month the final govt report on the Mother and Baby homes will be out and it will shock all over again.

    and I started connecting back to the famine. Hoping to find some glimmer of light. Some ….well, reason.

    Again I had contacts, others who were as concerned as I was. I visited many places in connection, spoke with many fine Catholics living their faith, many too who had left the church, long talks with nuns eg Poor Clares who had never been involved/

    In the end, all the hard things are true and as shocking as has been discussed here. the deliberate eradication, endorsed by Rome, of an entire section of Irish society. The establishing of almost all education etc here. And the double standards that emerged after the abuse scandals broke. In any town the children with families had an excellent education, strict but good, while outside the town as in Goldenbridge, an orphanage where abuse of orphaned children was happening.
    That was the pattern. to incarcerate those who did not conform. Unmarried mothers, orphans …
    I visited graveyards, row upon row of little ones, eg a small town in Connemara near Kylemore Abbey called Letterfrack where the Christian Brothers had an Industrial school, ie boys detention centre, in an old Quaker schoolhouse... Nearly 100 small graves, 6 years upwards, boys sent there for committing crimes. Deep in a forest, hidden but now adopted by the townfolk

    I abandoned the book. It was all too dark, but first I explored to see if it was all as black as it seemed, and it was.

    And we can only progress if we look at the darkness and see it for what it is

    and the famine years and the aftermath are the darkest of times. Totally avoidable. No need for any deaths for lack of basic food. Politically motivated and carried out. As was the taking over of large parts of Irish society and the abuse that ensued.

    Through darkness into light? Only if we admit to the darkness with no bitterness and with shame and regret


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,355 ✭✭✭bo0li5eumx12kp


    Graces7 wrote: »
    Yep!

    Meant to say this sooner.

    When I first came to Ireland, I was commissioned to write a book on the church ie RC in Ireland at the start of the new millennium. Work I am very well qualified academically to do .

    I was living in a lovely Catholic parish; very welcoming,, And I had contacts for the work in many places, local, national etc, and we have access to the Vatican library of course.

    I lived near one of the famine graveyards and spent hours there and started going further back in the history of it all

    Work was going well and then the child abuse scandal broke. No one had had any idea and my nearest neighbours has a sister who was a Mercy nun.

    The shockwaves. We all thought the Goldenbridge episode was all there was.. then the floodgates opened and have stayed open since.

    Next month the final govt report on the Mother and Baby homes will be out and it will shock all over again.

    and I started connecting back to the famine. Hoping to find some glimmer of light. Some ….well, reason.

    Again I had contacts, others who were as concerned as I was. I visited many places in connection, spoke with many fine Catholics living their faith, many too who had left the church, long talks with nuns eg Poor Clares who had never been involved/

    In the end, all the hard things are true and as shocking as has been discussed here. the deliberate eradication, endorsed by Rome, of an entire section of Irish society. The establishing of almost all education etc here. And the double standards that emerged after the abuse scandals broke. In any town the children with families had an excellent education, strict but good, while outside the town as in Goldenbridge, an orphanage where abuse of orphaned children was happening.
    That was the pattern. to incarcerate those who did not conform. Unmarried mothers, orphans …
    I visited graveyards, row upon row of little ones, eg a small town in Connemara near Kylemore Abbey called Letterfrack where the Christian Brothers had an Industrial school, ie boys detention centre, in an old Quaker schoolhouse... Nearly 100 small graves, 6 years upwards, boys sent there for committing crimes. Deep in a forest, hidden but now adopted by the townfolk

    I abandoned the book. It was all too dark, but first I explored to see if it was all as black as it seemed, and it was.

    And we can only progress if we look at the darkness and see it for what it is

    and the famine years and the aftermath are the darkest of times. Totally avoidable. No need for any deaths for lack of basic food. Politically motivated and carried out. As was the taking over of large parts of Irish society and the abuse that ensued.

    Through darkness into light? Only if we admit to the darkness with no bitterness and with shame and regret

    1st - what is your academic background, and your current employment/day job?
    Are you at liberty to say?

    2nd - in a nutshell, you contention as to the genuine instigators of the Irish famine; British elitists, or religious orders? A little of both?

    Truth is stranger than fiction, and you paint a picture of horrific depravity.
    Makes me wanna go all norwegian-death-metal on some churches, but then of course that might compromise my long term aim to have them collectively converted into a series of youth hostels and large scale bordellos.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,355 ✭✭✭bo0li5eumx12kp


    Browsing some citations, certainly in terms of hindering relief efforts - it seems this motherless f$$k is the individual of the moment;

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet

    Trevelyan's most enduring mark on history may be the "quasi" genocidal anti-Irish racial sentiment he expressed during his term in the critical position of administrating relief for the millions of Irish peasants suffering under the potato blight as Assistant Secretary to HM Treasury (1840–1859) under the Whig administration of Lord Russell.[2]

    He also wrote highly disparaging remarks about the Irish in a letter to an Irish peer[4], stating that that "the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson".

    Many members of the British upper and middle classes believed that the famine was a divine judgment—an act of Providence. A leading exponent of the providentialist perspective was Trevelyan, who was chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years. In his book The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan later described the famine as "a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence", one which laid bare "the deep and inveterate root of social evil". The famine, he declared, was "the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected... God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part ..." This mentality of Trevelyan's was influential in persuading the government to do nothing to restrain mass evictions.


    It is important to note that the large crops of oats and grain were not affected, and if those crops had been distributed to the Irish people rather than exported, mass starvation could have been avoided


    Trevelyan wrote to Lord Monteagle of Brandon, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the famine was an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population", and was "the judgement of God". Further he wrote that "The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people



    https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/281

    Further, I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island, that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call that famine a “dispensation of Providence;” and ascribe it entirely to the blight of the potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud – second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine

    So basically - food exports continuing under protection of Royal guard was sanctioned directly from London, with the intent to starve the hands that produced it.

    Whig policy was directed at getting the peasants off the land, and if it took mass death to achieve that objective, so be it’


    I have no references for Irish priests pulling these stunts.

    All fingers firmly point to London as to the implementation of these policies with the outcome being, intentional starvation of the Irish peasant class.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Irish blame the English all the time..

    Look up Paul Cardinal Cullen. I cannot give you access to Vatican Library documents but trust in this that it was the Catholic Church who gained most from the multi agency engendered famine and they all supported each other when they had things to gain.

    But the Church was the main source; look at they way they took over education and health care and controlled through fear.

    Of course the Brits waded in as well.. but it was " religion" within the country that held most sway


    QUOTE=Paulina Fat Manganese;112340332]Browsing some citations, certainly in terms of hindering relief efforts - it seems this motherless f$$k is the individual of the moment;

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet

    Trevelyan's most enduring mark on history may be the "quasi" genocidal anti-Irish racial sentiment he expressed during his term in the critical position of administrating relief for the millions of Irish peasants suffering under the potato blight as Assistant Secretary to HM Treasury (1840–1859) under the Whig administration of Lord Russell.[2]

    He also wrote highly disparaging remarks about the Irish in a letter to an Irish peer[4], stating that that "the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson".

    Many members of the British upper and middle classes believed that the famine was a divine judgment—an act of Providence. A leading exponent of the providentialist perspective was Trevelyan, who was chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years. In his book The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan later described the famine as "a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence", one which laid bare "the deep and inveterate root of social evil". The famine, he declared, was "the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected... God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part ..." This mentality of Trevelyan's was influential in persuading the government to do nothing to restrain mass evictions.


    It is important to note that the large crops of oats and grain were not affected, and if those crops had been distributed to the Irish people rather than exported, mass starvation could have been avoided


    Trevelyan wrote to Lord Monteagle of Brandon, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the famine was an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population", and was "the judgement of God". Further he wrote that "The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people



    https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/281

    Further, I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island, that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call that famine a “dispensation of Providence;” and ascribe it entirely to the blight of the potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud – second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine

    So basically - food exports continuing under protection of Royal guard was sanctioned directly from London, with the intent to starve the hands that produced it.

    Whig policy was directed at getting the peasants off the land, and if it took mass death to achieve that objective, so be it’


    I have no references for Irish priests pulling these stunts.

    All fingers firmly point to London as to the implementation of these policies with the outcome being, intentional starvation of the Irish peasant class.[/QUOTE]


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,634 ✭✭✭✭Graces7


    Look at motivation? Who had the most to gain given their area of reference? Directly?

    Look at who took intimate control over the daily lives of Irish people? Education, health care, punishment?

    Look at the endemic child abuse and the mother and baby homes etc.

    Sure they piggybacked on the political and military power. But their guilt is the greater. And their influence all the greater.
    1st - what is your academic background, and your current employment/day job?
    Are you at liberty to say?

    2nd - in a nutshell, you contention as to the genuine instigators of the Irish famine; British elitists, or religious orders? A little of both?

    Truth is stranger than fiction, and you paint a picture of horrific depravity.
    Makes me wanna go all norwegian-death-metal on some churches, but then of course that might compromise my long term aim to have them collectively converted into a series of youth hostels and large scale bordellos.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,355 ✭✭✭bo0li5eumx12kp


    Maybe a summation of my viewpoint on the famine at this time would be, "a calculated and insidiously implemented ethnic cleansing".


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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Graces7 wrote: »
    Irish blame the English all the time..

    aah, that's not strictly true.

    An old man in Rome was responsible for the Magdalene Laundries and the cover up of child abuse and "German Bond Holders" were responsible for bankrupting the country.


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