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The Famine Plot - Tim Pat Coogan "Famine was genocide"
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Quote from Liam Kennedy's QUB web page "In his darker moments he contests the notion of the MOPE syndrome: that in the comparative historical stakes the Irish were the most oppressed people ever":)0
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MakeEmLaugh wrote: »I do know of some American organisations who make that association, including one called Friends of Irish Freedom, the Chicago-born chairman of which appeared on public access television a few years back spouting the following unsubstantiated nonsense:
"Five-and-a-quarter million people died, and that's a great number of Irish who died in five-and-a-half years than were Jews murdered by the Nazis some ninety years later, according to Jewish historians, those who have credible backgrounds, who claim it was 5.1 million. That's the highest of two figures that is generally accepted."Is there a source for that and how long ago did this allegedly happen.
18 minutes 52 seconds into this video, uploaded by the aptly-named ConspiracyScope.
The video's description includes the following tastelessly reductionist statement
"As no Jewish person would ever refer to the "Jewish Oxygen Famine of 1939 - 1945", so no Irish person ought ever refer to the Irish Holocaust as a famine."0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »18 minutes 52 seconds into this video, uploaded by the aptly-named ConspiracyScope.
The video's description includes the following tastelessly reductionist statement
"As no Jewish person would ever refer to the "Jewish Oxygen Famine of 1939 - 1945", so no Irish person ought ever refer to the Irish Holocaust as a famine."
We know there are nutters on the internet,
with respect I don't see your point if there is no link to Coogan trying to equivocate in this manner.0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »18 minutes 52 seconds into this video, uploaded by the aptly-named ConspiracyScope.
The video's description includes the following tastelessly reductionist statement
"As no Jewish person would ever refer to the "Jewish Oxygen Famine of 1939 - 1945", so no Irish person ought ever refer to the Irish Holocaust as a famine."
Youtube should not be taken seriously, it is a haven for all types of malcontents and those with a hidden or vexatious agenda,I refrained from watching it when I saw tributes to the Shankill Butchers.0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »I haven't read The Famine Plot, so I do not know if Coogan makes the association in his book.
This is one of two threads about TPC that you have posted in yet you admit to not having read his book about the famine. In addition you started a dumb thread about Kevin Myers that IMO really has no place in this forum.
I have no problem with you having an issue with republicans but if you want to be taken seriously you need to have more to back up your opinion than random shyte off youtube. If you want to prove TPC is a bad historian then you need to come up with something better than some other historian who has a different opinion.However, I do know of some American organisations who make that association, including one called Friends of Irish Freedom, the Chicago-born chairman of which appeared on public access television a few years back spouting the following unsubstantiated nonsense:
Guilt by association is not proof of guilt0 -
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This is one of two threads about TPC that you have posted in yet you admit to not having read his book about the famine. In addition you started a dumb thread about Kevin Myers that IMO really has no place in this forum.
I have no problem with you having an issue with republicans but if you want to be taken seriously you need to have more to back up your opinion than random shyte off youtube. If you want to prove TPC is a bad historian then you need to come up with something better than some other historian who has a different opinion.
Did you bother listening to the debate between Prof. Liam Kennedy and Tim Pat Coogan that I posted in this thread? If you need proof that Coogan is far from a great historian you need look no further than that.
Coogan is sarcastic and frequently interrupts Kennedy in an effort to prove his point that the Famine was an act genocide carried out by England. Kennedy cites examples from Coogan's book where Coogan has either deliberately misrepresented or misinterpreted a source.
There are also posts in this very thread which point out how selective Coogan has been with the facts, particularly the following by pedroeibar1:pedroeibar1 wrote: »Whether or not TPC is a writer or an historian is not very material to the debate. In his Famine book TPC is holding himself out to be the latter, so as such he is duty bound to present facts. If he disagrees with historic fact he should provide documentary evidence in support of his case. Listening to him promoting his book on radio, he did not do any of this and made several erroneous claims, one being that during the Famine Lord Lansdowne's Kenmare Estate forcefully ‘expatriated tenants to Canada in coffin ships, with inadequate clothing and in poor health, and that the local PP spoke against the practice.’ This is incorrect and totally unrepresentative of what happened. If TPC bothered to read ‘The Lansdowne Estate in Kerry’ by Gerard Lyne he would learn the ignorance of his remarks.
His claims are wrong, because Kenmare emigrants went to Canada AFTER the Famine, starting in 1851, with a 1851/2 total of 1300 landing at Quebec . (see below). The first phase of emigration from the Kenmare Estate was when a small number of emigrants went to the USA in 1843/44, followed by some more in 1845 (many of whom went to grasp the opportunity of a paid passage with cash for seed capital) and the third, the biggest phase went in 1849, when the Famine was over. Many of the last wave were well-to-do, seeking a better life, and had sold their cattle & furniture to have extra cash for when they landed.
Although TPC did not name the Kenmare PP he most likely referred to Archdeacon John O’Sullivan, PP of Kenmare from 1839 to 1874. TPC also is very wrong on his comments about O’Sullivan. Historians (local and academic) generally agree O’Sullivan was content to sacrifice the rights of his flock to the advantage of the Catholic Church. Also, he was very close to Lord Lansdowne during the Famine, intervened on behalf of several parishioners to help them obtain passage and did not disagree with Lansdowne unless it was about religion and what he, O’Sullivan, saw as the ‘rights’ of the Catholic Church. Lansdowne was a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, gave O’S £100 to improve his own house and was a generous patron of local schools. O’Sullivan was a Loyalist, and for example, used his lordly connections to obtain a Stipendary Magistrate role for his brother on the island of Granada. (The Nun of Kenmare, Sr. Cusack, the noted contemporary historian, pointedly said of O’Sullivan ‘he dearly loves a lord.’)
Much later, O’Sullivan ‘turned’ on Lansdowne’s Agent, Trench (reasons not relevant here) and made some outlandish claims while providing no evidence to support the claim that close on 2,000 Kenmare emigrants died on arrival in the New World. There is a hard statistical fact that mortality among emigrants (during the voyage & immediately after landing) in the 1850’s averaged about 1% (Donnelly, ‘Excess mortality and Emigration’, in New Hist., V, 356.) Elsewhere, (Buchanan, ‘Report on emigration to Canada during 1851’) the mortality of Irish emigrants going to Quebec in 1851 was 187 out of a total of 26,521 or a mere 0.7%. That alone shows TPC to be talking through his nether regions and more than sloppy on checking his comments.
From a cold economic perspective many Irish Estates (including Kenmare’s Lansdowne Estate) were very badly managed in the years up to the Famine, uneconomic and totally unviable for both landlord and tenant. Trench, the Lansdowne agent was no angel, but he was a businessman, understood commercial reality and initially gained his unpopularity by stopping the practice of sub-division of small uneconomic holdings. What had been happening was totally unsustainable viewed from any perspective, (other than an unhistorical and bigoted nationalistic one.)
The radio interview with TPC confirmed my opinion of him as having an agenda, loose with facts and no historian. On the basis of the language and errors used in his interview I believe I would be entitled to be more unkind.
I won’t bother to buy the book, even when it is remaindered.
By the way, if you have a problem with the Kevin Myers thread, bring it up with a moderator.0 -
I haven't read Coogan's book. But the Irish Times carries a review of it today by Peter Gray, an academic historian who has written about the Great Famine.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2013/0119/1224329030440.html
Gray criticizes Coogan for depending too much on John Mitchel's work. Mitchel was writing not as a disinterested historian but as an Irish revolutionary keen to damn the British government.
Gray says that Coogan's book contains 'a disturbing number of factual errors'and 'unsubstantiated' claims, such as that the shortage of food was due more to export than the potato blight.
Instead of Coogan's book, Gray recommends reading James S. Donnelly Jnr's The Great Irish Potato Famine.0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »For a far more academic treatise on the Famine you should watch this 'Big Ideas' lecture given by Prof. Liam Kennedy on 03 February 2005 at the University of Toronto. Kennedy contrasts the Irish Famine with the Jewish Holocaust.
Alternatively, you could download the lecture as a podcast here.
One of Kennedy's closing remarks perfectly encapsulates the self-pitying, victimhood mentality of Coogan et al:
"Is it the case that the urge to associate the Great Famine and the Jewish Holocaust springs from a spirit ethnic competitiveness on the part of some, perhaps a minority, of Irish-Americans?
'Those Jews have the Holocaust, but by God we've got the Great Famine as a veritable myth of origin and as an ethnic marker!'"jonniebgood1 wrote: »I would take issue with any premise that uses one tragedy (the holocaust) to denegrate the suffering in another tragedy (the Irish famine).
Just to clarify one point in relation to the quoted post, has Coogan associated the famine with the Holocaust as implied in the post???
Well, he did repeat, in the previously linked debate between himself and Prof. Liam Kennedy, the quote from AJP Taylor that "All Ireland was a Belsen". Having skimmed the book recently, Coogan uses this quote in its introduction.
Would you accept that this makes an association between the Irish Famine and the Jewish Holocaust?0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »Well, he did repeat, in the previously linked debate between himself and Prof. Liam Kennedy, the quote from AJP Taylor that "All Ireland was a Belsen". Having skimmed the book recently, Coogan uses this quote in its introduction.
Would you accept that this makes an association between the Irish Famine and the Jewish Holocaust?
It is an association, not however in the context implied in your quote. This is necessarily cognitive of the many implications possible in such a reference. Can you give the context in which it is used, perhaps it is in the same manner as the quote you gave?One of Kennedy's closing remarks perfectly encapsulates the self-pitying, victimhood mentality of Coogan et al:
"Is it the case that the urge to associate the Great Famine and the Jewish Holocaust springs from a spirit ethnic competitiveness on the part of some, perhaps a minority, of Irish-Americans?
'Those Jews have the Holocaust, but by God we've got the Great Famine as a veritable myth of origin and as an ethnic marker!'"0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »One of Kennedy's closing remarks perfectly encapsulates the self-pitying, victimhood mentality of Coogan et al:
"Is it the case that the urge to associate the Great Famine and the Jewish Holocaust springs from a spirit ethnic competitiveness on the part of some, perhaps a minority, of Irish-Americans?
'Those Jews have the Holocaust, but by God we've got the Great Famine as a veritable myth of origin and as an ethnic marker!'"jonniebgood1 wrote: »I would take issue with any premise that uses one tragedy (the holocaust) to denegrate the suffering in another tragedy (the Irish famine).
Just to clarify one point in relation to the quoted post, has Coogan associated the famine with the Holocaust as implied in the post???MakeEmLaugh wrote: »Well, he did repeat, in the previously linked debate between himself and Prof. Liam Kennedy, the quote from AJP Taylor that "All Ireland was a Belsen". Having skimmed the book recently, Coogan uses this quote in its introduction.
Would you accept that this makes an association between the Irish Famine and the Jewish Holocaust?jonniebgood1 wrote: »It is an association, not however in the context implied in your quote. This is necessarily cognitive of the many implications possible in such a reference. Can you give the context in which it is used, perhaps it is in the same manner as the quote you gave?
Fair enough. The entire paragraph, taken from the introduction to Coogan's The Famine Plot, is as follows:The scale of the horror of the Famine was such that the English historian A. J. P. Taylor compared the state of the country to that of the infamous German concentration camp Belsen. He declared "all Ireland was a Belsen." Most Irish historians would argue that Taylor exaggerated, but the honest anger of a fair-minded Englishman who incidentally was reviewing the work of an equally fair-minded Englishwoman, The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith, when he made the comparison is preferable to the type of "colonial cringe" with which too many Irish historians have approached the topic.0 -
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MakeEmLaugh wrote: »Fair enough. The entire paragraph, taken from the introduction to Coogan's The Famine Plot, is as follows:
Again Coogan is being a little specious in his comment selection – the full quote and context from AJP T (in his review of C W-S’s book which was published in the New Statesman) is : - When British forces entered the so-called ‘convalescent camp’ at Belsen in 1945, they found a scene of indescribable horror; the wasted bodies of 50,000 human beings who had died from starvation and disease. Kramer, ‘the beast of Belsen’, and his assistants were hanged for this atrocious crime. Only a century before, all Ireland was a Belsen. Nearly two million Irish people died of starvation and fever within five years; another million fled, carrying disease to Liverpool and the New World.The scale of the horror of the Famine was such that the English historian A. J. P. Taylor compared the state of the country to that of the infamous German concentration camp Belsen. He declared "all Ireland was a Belsen." Most Irish historians would argue that Taylor exaggerated, but the honest anger of a fair-minded Englishman who incidentally was reviewing the work of an equally fair-minded Englishwoman, The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith, when he made the comparison is preferable to the type of "colonial cringe" with which too many Irish historians have approached the topic.
AJP continues on the lines of the hopelessness of English management of Irish affairs. I would suggest that 'Belsen' is a figurative comparison, not an attempt to make a case for genocide.
TPC also shows his colours when he gratuitously says
Does that unsubstantiated glib side-swipe add anything of value to the argument (other than to show his bias and the chip on his shoulder)?.....the comparison is preferable to the type of "colonial cringe" with which too many Irish historians have approached the topic.
FWIW Taylor also makes several errors in that review - while Cecil WS's book is a worthy tome, I'm not sure there is consensus that she was fair-minded and without an agenda. Too many earlier historians were influenced / taken in by Mitchel's nationalistic propaganda (the merits/demerits of which I'm ignoring). Currently, actual evidence (e..g. research by Irish & US academics of stature, using US/Canadian records from Churches, savings banks, archives, etc.) is showing new light and because it does not conform to anti-Brit nationalism it is rubbished by those whose agendas it does not suit.
Additionally, the population figures AJP quotes are incorrect, as is his attribution of the blight to 'America' (it originated in Mexico) and stating that no landlords died – FWIW I have a kinsman (a landlord, albeit a minor one), who died of famine fever contracted while doing his (unpaid) job as a PLG. Thankfully his only brother survived, so I'm here today!
Nothing posted to date would prompt me to buy TPC’s book, I’m leaving it to the gullible yanks.0 -
pedroeibar1 wrote: »Too many earlier historians were influenced / taken in by Mitchel's nationalistic propaganda (the merits/demerits of which I'm ignoring).
Clearly, "ignoring" them is the last thing you're doing with this loaded comment. Delusion, much?pedroeibar1 wrote: »Nothing posted to date would prompt me to buy TPC’s book, I’m leaving it to the gullible yanks.
Given that you have claimed on this forum, "It is a historical fact that the Irish language went into decline in the 16th century" (here) - and went very quiet when requested to defend that nonsense - I'd be more concerned about gullible British/West Brits on this forum.
Never mind, attacking "gullible Yanks" seems to be perfectly OK here, but attacking any form of British ignorance of Ireland or inhumanity towards the Irish people is not tolerated at all - and will most likely result in, for instance, a thread entitled "British Atrocities in Ireland" being renamed "Atrocities in Ireland", while a thread Positive legacy of British rule is allowed to continue without renaming. We. Must. Not. Offend. The. British. Ever.
"History" forum, mar dhea.0 -
MakeEmLaugh wrote: »For a far more academic treatise on the Famine you should watch this 'Big Ideas' lecture given by Prof. Liam Kennedy on 03 February 2005 at the University of Toronto. Kennedy contrasts the Irish Famine with the Jewish Holocaust.
Alternatively, you could download the lecture as a podcast here.
One of Kennedy's closing remarks perfectly encapsulates the self-pitying, victimhood mentality of Coogan et al:
"Is it the case that the urge to associate the Great Famine and the Jewish Holocaust springs from a spirit ethnic competitiveness on the part of some, perhaps a minority, of Irish-Americans?
'Those Jews have the Holocaust, but by God we've got the Great Famine as a veritable myth of origin and as an ethnic marker!'"
Quoting Liam Kennedy positively and expecting to be taken seriously betrays a profound lack of awareness of his work, particularly the historical ignorance of his denial that Ireland has been a colony of Britain.
The fact that Kennedy, originally from Tipperary, is now speaking with an English accent in a manner that would be the envy of John Taylor (listen to your above clip), should indicate Kennedy's issues with the Irish. Why he's on Foras na Gaeilge board is beyond me as his position in Queen's University is largely due to their need for a token Taig back when the sectarian régime was under international pressure.0 -
Clearly Seanachai you are looking for a row and have greater issues to resolve. Anything I say would not help you, and back then, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=76165454&postcount=89 as now, I simply won't bother.0
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Quoting Liam Kennedy positively and expecting to be taken seriously betrays a profound lack of awareness of his work, particularly the historical ignorance of his denial that Ireland has been a colony of Britain.
If you are to accuse me of being profoundly unaware of Kennedy's work, why not cite the work of his which you have read? Have you read, for instance, his contribution to The Irish Review for their Winter 1992/1993 edition, entitled 'Modern Ireland: Post-Colonial Society or Post-Colonial Pretensions?'. I highly recommend it if you have not. Even if you do not agree with Kennedy's point (and you sound as though you are ready to disagree before you even know what his point is), he produces a wealth of facts to support his argument.
It's relatively short (5,500 words). I can email you a .PDF copy if you so wish.The fact that Kennedy, originally from Tipperary, is now speaking with an English accent in a manner that would be the envy of John Taylor (listen to your above clip), should indicate Kennedy's issues with the Irish. Why he's on Foras na Gaeilge board is beyond me as his position in Queen's University is largely due to their need for a token Taig back when the sectarian régime was under international pressure.
Do you know the age at which he left Tipperary? I'm not being snide, I honestly don't know. Perhaps he moved when he was quite young, which explains his way of speaking. Either way, it's an ad hominem argument to bring up a historian's accent.0 -
pedroeibar1 wrote: »AJP continues on the lines of the hopelessness of English management of Irish affairs. I would suggest that 'Belsen' is a figurative comparison, not an attempt to make a case for genocide.
I would suggest that the comparrision with Belson is quite apt, Belson was not a death camp, there were no gas chambers there, the thousands of inmates that died there died of starvation and disease.
As for the charge of genocide, it is a complicated question, you dont need gas chambers to commit genocide, the Armenian Genocide was largly a case of criminal state negliance and mismanagment rather than delibriate mass murder. While I don't believe that the British state set out in 1845 to commit gencide, by 1850 they were guilty of a horrendous crime, weather you want to lable it as genocide or not is of only minor relevance in my opinion.0 -
An Coilean wrote: »I would suggest that the comparrision with Belson is quite apt, Belson was not a death camp, there were no gas chambers there, the thousands of inmates that died there died of starvation and disease.
As for the charge of genocide, it is a complicated question, you dont need gas chambers to commit genocide, the Armenian Genocide was largly a case of criminal state negliance and mismanagment rather than delibriate mass murder. While I don't believe that the British state set out in 1845 to commit gencide, by 1850 they were guilty of a horrendous crime, weather you want to lable it as genocide or not is of only minor relevance in my opinion.
Words have meaning. Language is precise and its deliberate misuse is the ploy of those with an agenda. The key issue on this thread is the manner in which Coogan made spurious assertions and made no attempt to back them up with factual reference, and as shown in many posts above, clearly was wrong in many of them. In that book he is pandering to the uneducated political beliefs of a segment of the reading population. As I said in an earlier post above, that is prostituting history.
The inefficiencies of the State services were, during the Irish Famine, appalling. That is recognized by everyone. However, to assert that it was genocide is wrong and clearly flies in the face of all comment by notable historians. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people of a specific race/creed/group. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." That did not happen in Ireland.
Belsen is not an accurate comparison, it was a work camp: the high death rate there was due to a combination of overwork and overcrowding fuelled by extreme malnutrition. That vast majority of people interned in Belsen were there because of their Jewish faith. When everyone else is of the same group, being worked and starved to death in horrific conditions is genocide.
The Armenian people were subjected to the expropriation of their assets, deportation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation. On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government arrested more than 200 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople. Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. All were sent to prison in the interior of Anatolia, where most were summarily executed. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I. It is estimated that one and a half million of those perished between 1915 and 1923. Well over a million from Armenia and Anatolia were deported to Syria in 1915. The vast majority of those was just sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright. Many others died from the epidemics that ravaged the concentration camps. Their treatment was genocide, even if Turkey today refuses to admit it.
Words are important – a group of people can be described as a crowd, a gang or a mob; the choice of word changes the meaning entirely.0 -
pedroeibar1 wrote: »The inefficiencies of the State services were, during the Irish Famine, appalling. That is recognized by everyone. However, to assert that it was genocide is wrong and clearly flies in the face of all comment by notable historians. Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people of a specific race/creed/group. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." That did not happen in Ireland.
I am not going to comment specifically on the book, as I have not read it, however in relation to the topic at the heart of the book, The argument could be made that while the British did not set about to create a famine in Ireland, once it happened it was seen by some in power and by more in the media as an opportunity to destroy the Irish people at least in part and that the British state by its actions and inactions was responcible for the suffering and death of a large part of the Irish population, weather you want to view that as full genocide or use a lesser lable is really acedemic and serves only to distract from the crime that was committed.0 -
An Coilean wrote: »......... while the British did not set about to create a famine in Ireland, once it happened it was seen by some in power and by more in the media as an opportunity to destroy the Irish people at least in part
What are your sources for this?An Coilean wrote: »...weather you want to view that as full genocide or use a lesser lable is really acedemic and serves only to distract from the crime that was committed.
The word is 'academic', it is 'whether', and mismanaging a series of events is not necessarily a crime.0 -
Wrong.pedroeibar1 wrote: »Genocide is the systematic killing of all the people of a specific race/creed/group.
I'm not sure how you got it so wrong when you then followed it up with the UN definition which clearly shows your mistake.The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
What didn't happen? 'All the people' weren't killed? That's true, but that's not relevant to this discussion.That did not happen in Ireland.0 -
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Wrong.
I'm not sure how you got it so wrong when you then followed it up with the UN definition which clearly shows your mistake.
What didn't happen? 'All the people' weren't killed? That's true, but that's not relevant to this discussion.
Selective quoting/highlighting underlines your agenda. (A read of some of your other blather shows your bias and disconnection from fact, such as :Coles wrote:‘The number of people who don't value the Irish Language is minute. You guys are the minority.’
from here
Open your mind. Unblinker your vision.
Genocide definitions:
The policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group (Collins English Dictionary)
The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group (Merriam-Webster)
That is what happened to the Armenians and the Jews in WW2. There was no deliberate or systematic killing of the Irish in the mid 1800's. As I’ve said in earlier posts, too many people were dependent on the potato, there was mismanagement, whatever, but it takes a twisted biased logic to arrive at calling it ‘genocide’ – incidentally, a word that did not exist at that time.
Last night this http://www.irishfaminetribunal.com/ would have been very worthwhile attending – Hardiman, although no expert on the Famine, would cut through Coogan’s blustering ‘evidence’ like a hot knife through butter, I’d love to have been there!0 -
[QUOTE=pedroeibar1;84264667
Genocide definitions:
The policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group (Collins English Dictionary)
The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group (Merriam-Webster)
That is what happened to the Armenians and the Jews in WW2. There was no deliberate or systematic killing of the Irish in the mid 1800's. As I’ve said in earlier posts, too many people were dependent on the potato, there was mismanagement, whatever, but it takes a twisted biased logic to arrive at calling it ‘genocide’ – incidentally, a word that did not exist at that time.
[/QUOTE]
I agree, but unfortunately phrases like genocide and ethnic cleansing are been bandied about and applied to past events by various people/groups with an agenda.
This is another definition of Genocide attributed to Lemkin who coined the original term.
"Raphael Lemkin, in his work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), coined the term "genocide" by combining Greek genos (γένος; race, people) and Latin cīdere (to kill).[4]
Lemkin defined genocide as follows: "Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups." The preamble to the CPPCG states that instances of genocide have taken place throughout history,[3] but it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term and the prosecution of perpetrators of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg trials that the United Nations agreed to the CPPCG which defined the crime of genocide under international law.0 -
There are many documented cases where an omission or failure to act was enough to form the Actus Reus of a crime. To say that this episode in Irish history wasn't genocide is offensive to any civilized society and right minded person. Here are just a few examples;
In a crime of omission failure to act can create an Actus Reus if a duty existed. Types of these are; contractual duty to act, assumed responsibility and creation of a dangerous situation. Contractual duty to act is when the duty exists through the job. An example of this is R v Pitwood (1902) when the defendant failed to lower the barrier at a level crossing when he left for lunch even though it was part of his job. A hay cart driver was killed and the defendant found guilty of manslaughter. Assumed responsibility is when a duty exists through responsibility. In R v Stone and Dobinson (1977) the defendant to in Stone’s anorexic sister but provided her with no care or support and she died. As they took her in the had an assumed responsibility to care for her and failed. They were found guilty of manslaughter. In creation of a dangerous situation duty is created through knowing the situation and doing nothing about it e.g. R v Miller (1983). He created an accidental fire but did not act and call 999 so he was found guilty. If he had called 999 he wouldn’t have been found guilty.0 -
General Monck wrote: »There are many documented cases where an omission or failure to act was enough to form the Actus Reus of a crime. To say that this episode in Irish history wasn't genocide is offensive to any civilized society and right minded person. Here are just a few examples;
In a crime of omission failure to act can create an Actus Reus if a duty existed. Types of these are; contractual duty to act, assumed responsibility and creation of a dangerous situation. Contractual duty to act is when the duty exists through the job. An example of this is R v Pitwood (1902) when the defendant failed to lower the barrier at a level crossing when he left for lunch even though it was part of his job. A hay cart driver was killed and the defendant found guilty of manslaughter. Assumed responsibility is when a duty exists through responsibility. In R v Stone and Dobinson (1977) the defendant to in Stone’s anorexic sister but provided her with no care or support and she died. As they took her in the had an assumed responsibility to care for her and failed. They were found guilty of manslaughter. In creation of a dangerous situation duty is created through knowing the situation and doing nothing about it e.g. R v Miller (1983). He created an accidental fire but did not act and call 999 so he was found guilty. If he had called 999 he wouldn’t have been found guilty.
That's all first year law stuff - the crime of "genocide" didn't exist in the mid 19th C so you're into a whole philosophical debate about whether you can commit a crime when it doesn't exist in law or statute - at the time it didn't even exist as a concept.
Irish law and English common law diverge significantly on the point of recklessness as a form of intent in criminal offences and they treat manslaughter quite differently. Also, as we seem to be talking about the UK here, you'd have to account for Scottish law.
Tragic and terrible as it was, the Famine was not genocide because it doesn't meet the definitional requirements. The population were victims of an underdeveloped understanding of economics and science, and an overdeveloped sense of religion and providence.0 -
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First year stuff? What the hell does that have to do with it? Murder has always been a crime no matter what jurisdiction you live in. The facts and figures speak for themselves. Over 1.5 million people starved to death. It was murder plain and simple.
Ask yourself this; if your child starved to death and you had the means the prevent that from happening, would you be held accountable? I'm certain, that in any jurisdiction, no matter what century you live in, you would certainly be held accountable.0 -
General Monck wrote: »First year stuff? What the hell does that have to do with it? Murder has always been a crime no matter what jurisdiction you live in. The facts and figures speak for themselves. Over 1.5 million people starved to death. It was murder plain and simple.
Ask yourself this; if your child starved to death and you had the means the prevent that from happening, would you be held accountable? I'm certain, that in any jurisdiction, no matter what century you live in, you would certainly be held accountable.
Then that makes an awful lot of people liable, from the government, to the churches to the merchants that horded grain and sold it to the relief agencies at exorbitant cost.0 -
General Monck wrote: »First year stuff? What the hell does that have to do with it? Murder has always been a crime no matter what jurisdiction you live in. The facts and figures speak for themselves. Over 1.5 million people starved to death. It was murder plain and simple.
Ask yourself this; if your child starved to death and you had the means the prevent that from happening, would you be held accountable? I'm certain, that in any jurisdiction, no matter what century you live in, you would certainly be held accountable.
Murder is rarely plain or simple.
First, in English law, murder and manslaughter are classed as 'result' crimes - there has to be a link between the act and the outcome - there is a whole line of cases and argument that covers the question of causation in manslaughter and murder - the outcome (death) has to be intended or reasonably foreseeable.
It's also not sufficient that a defendant's act simply provides a setting within which some other cause operated to bring about someone's death.
Second, there is a presumed guardianship between me and my kids so, yes, if I did let them starve or suffer I would, rightly, be culpable for that kind of neglect.
Beyond that I'm not obliged legally (whatever about morally or ethically) to act to help someone in distress - unlike some continental countries we have no good samaritan law......
.......but let's assume you are right and that poor people who died were, in fact, murdered......who would you indict? No need to provide a specific name, a broad idea would be fine.0 -
Fratton Fred wrote: »Then that makes an awful lot of people liable, from the government, to the churches to the merchants that horded grain and sold it to the relief agencies at exorbitant cost.
It also means we're all committing genocide today.
The famine should be seen in economic terms. Viewing it in nationalistic terms leads to the idiotic belief that somehow the english child working 14 hours a day in a mill in Manchester is somehow the 'oppressor' of the irish landlord.
It was ultimately a consequence of the war waged against the poor by the rich, aided and abetted by the 'free market' philosophy that so many both here and abroad still proudly advocate today - and that still kills people today.0 -
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[Deleted User] wrote: »It also means we're all committing genocide today.
The famine should be seen in economic terms. Viewing it in nationalistic terms leads to the idiotic belief that somehow the english child working 14 hours a day in a mill in Manchester is somehow the 'oppressor' of the irish landlord.
It was ultimately a consequence of the war waged against the poor by the rich, aided and abetted by the 'free market' philosophy that so many both here and abroad still proudly advocate today - and that still kills people today.
That is a very good summation.
The biggest crime is that today, even with all the hindsight we have, people are still starving to death.0
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