Was the Great Irish Famine an Act of Genocide?

[TommyO'Brien]

Thanks Tommy O'Brien. That was a wonderful run down on the whole thing. I do not agree with all of it but you shame the rest of us with your efforts.

I have been researching the 19th and 20th century history of my parish over the last few months. The issue of how the famine impacted features strongly. I used Griffith's Valuation to plot land holdings. I was shocked at the extraordinary complexity of the landlord-tenant relationships. The incident of the pump I found in the local newspaper. It covered the RDC meetings. The stats about the disappearance of the local village came from a report given to the House of Lords. It confirmed something my late grandmother had told me - she lived across the road from where the village had been and as a child remembered the remains of derelict houses. They are long gone at this stage. She was also told by her father about the death of his uncle Denis in the famine in Carnaross.

I am currently using the 1901 census to analyse the ability to speak Irish of old people in my mother's and father's parishes. It is clear that Irish remained a spoken language in my mother's family til the 1850s - those who were children then and were elderly in the 1901 census could speak it. In my father's parish no Irish speakers existed. So it had died out before the oldest surviving person there in 1901, a woman born in 1821, was a child as even she had no Irish. The local townland's name had already been anglicised by the 1810s whereas in my mother's area an Irish version of their townland existed in use till the 1860s.

[Toidissatafu]

Where doe's that question arise in relation to this thread? Or are you just struggling to add something to the debate?

The poster was clearly attempting to cover the latter reality with surreality.

[merle haggard]

I don't believe it was a genocide. IMO that term is getting too abused today to describe unquestionably horrible acts and omissions in past human relations. That said, it was the result of a malevolent laissez faire capitalism in a colonial system unfairly benefiting landed gentry and wealthy business interests set up over unjust past acts as well as involving opinions tainted with traditional bigotry and bias towards Irish people and particularly Catholics and poor people within that setup. As a result, it had a catastrophic affect on Ireland for which its population has still never recovered and it probably was the last major catalyst for assuring that the largest portion of Irish people would seek a breach with the UK even when it started liberalising its civil rights and economic approach to the Irish in the decades following the event.

why do you completely ignore the issue of Nassau senior complaining not enough people would die for Ireland to be come more prosperous ?

The massive death toll itself wasnt just genocidal . You cant compress an entire British system of colonialism into 5 years . The system that deliberately reduced an entire nation to utter wretchedness first and then murdered them when their food source became afflicted with blight was what was genocidal.
The British intent was that as many as possible would be exiled or dead. Out of that " act of providence" their intent was to construct a new Ireland.

[merle haggard]

The question arises as to whether the people of this island would have behaved any better if they took over the other island and built a world wide empire by conquest.

no it doesnt . Thats an absolutely daft thing to say . It arises nowhere else except in your support and justification for Britian killing and exiling millions heres. Only a complete idiot would suggest such a thing arises from anywhere.

[merle haggard]

[QUOTE=TommyO'Brien;4917640]

The facts are simple - it wasn't. Politicians in Westminster demonstated all the same characteristics in dealing with it and its causes as modern politicians demonstrated today. They

- ignored warning signs.
- failed to plan for a crisis when it was obvious one was going to happen
- made a balls of dealing with it.

taking our intelligence for a joke again you neglect to point out the ideology the politicians in westminster believed in at the height of their British empire and Industrial revolution , when they viewed themselves as the worlds foremost master race and at the forefront of all things economic , scientific , racial and philosophical . You bleat on about their decisions without once looking at the political ideology that underpinned those decisions and why they made them in the first place.
They believed not only in laiisez faire but in Darwin and Malthus . And his belief that mass starvation was free markets inbuilt cure for unemployment . Very simply if the poorest were wiped out by hunger then the market economy would prosper .
Their decisions werent based on incompetence , they were ideologically based . The mass starvation was seen by their administrators and economists as a heaven sent opportunity to transform the island, an act of providence - A GOOD THING
They were very explicit on that . But you ignore that and insist they just made a series of mistakes , as if somehow their intent was that people should survive the potato blight .
Why on earth would people who saw mass starvation as an act of providence be out to save lives ? Thats a completely ridiculous proposal .
Their decisions were based upon an ideology of anti Irish racism, social darwinianism and Malthusian economics . An utterly murderous ideology . It had nothing to do with incompetence and everything to do with inhumanity .

The prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, was a former Chief Secretary for Ireland, so knew the state of Irish agriculture and immediately began importing Indian maize, as had been done for the 1800-01 and 1816-18 famines. He considered banning food exports, but concluded that was too risky at the time. If he banned exports large numbers of estates would go bankrupt, leading to mass evictions, and the evicted tenants fleeing to major urban centres speading the fever. The big fear initially was that if the fever got into urban centres like Dublin, and rural towns, the result would be disastrous.

theyd banned them before without disaster

Peel unfortunately was replaced by PM by Lord John Russell who had no idea of the problems of Ireland, cancelled the maize and believed that the market was best placed to respond. (The usual 'lets trust the market to solve things' BS.) Sir Randolph Routh wrote "it was essential to the success of commerce that the mercantile interest should not be interfered with."

an ideological decision .

It was a disastrous mistake. The Irish market was utterly incapable of managing the provision of enough foodstuffs as most of the food was available on the east coast, most of the starving was on the west coast, and Ireland's road network was useless for transporting large amounts of food stuffs. (If the famine had occurred as little as 10 years later, the railways would have been able to transport much of what was needed.)

its only a mistake if you take the position Mr Peel didnt actually believe in social darwininaism and Malthusian economics . Unfortunately for the Irish he and his associates actually did , which was why theyd open welcomed the arrival of mass starvation in Ireland. They believed it would "improve" the country . Which led Lord Clarendon to openly complain of a deliberate policy of extermination , and to warn Peel and his cronies the Irish were being "improved off the face of the earth"
They werent making any mistakes , they were deliberately ensuring nature , a cruel beast, ran its course . There were simply too many Irish people in Ireland for their system to function properly .

Queen Victoria, to the fury of the government, launched two public appeals, known as the Queen's Letters, which were read in all churches across the United Kingdom, asking for donations. The first appeal, in March 1847, raised £170,541. A second letter in October 1847 however flopped, with only £30,000 in donations being received. The queen was booed in the streets for seeking to raise money for Irish people. She was already unpopular over her recent criticism of anti-Catholic bigotry in the UK. She was accused of being more concerned with the Catholic Irish than with the Protestant English!

the government were furious because this appeal was impeding the progress of nature .Again you completely neglect their ideological beliefs in this regard. You also neglect to point out she asked the Turkish sultan to greatly reduce his contribution because it was much bigger than hers.
And your also not addressing the fact these appeals came from Britian , and not Ireland . As face saving exercises that were good for damn all . Irish voices were pleading for an end to food exports and the provision of public works schemes that would produce food, not charity.

A key part of the problem was the belief among religious people that illness, poverty, etc was the judgement of God.
The fiercely religious Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Charles Trevelyan, also saw the famine in 'god's judgement' terms, writing

the key part of the problem wasnt just their religious beliefs , it was their economic and scientific beliefs as well . Something you insist on completely ignoring. An insistence which would have us believe these politicians and their decisions were apolitical and devoid of any ideological input.

Donations to Irish appeals came in from around the world. The pope sent 1000 roman crowns. The Ottoman emperor sent £1000. (Reports he wanted to send more are contradicted by his archives.) Queen Victoria gave £2000 to one appeal. To the disgust of many, the US president, Polk, only gave $50. The Quakers distributed £200,000. Overall, about £2m, circa £80m in today's money, was raised in private donations.

actually these were British appeals on Irelands behalf .

The crisis was made all the worse by the fact that while the blight took longer to reach Ireland because it was an island, it also took longer to get rid of it. Most Irish famines lasted for a season. The disaster of the great famine was that it lasted for four seasons, so people who survived one or two seasons often could not survive the third or fourth. Starvation was a mass killer. So was disease. My great-grand-father's uncle, Denis, died of starvation in 1847, the same year by great-grandfather was born!

you make it sound like the only thing that grew in Ireland was a potato . That wasnt the case . There was a reason why Irish people depended upon the potato. And why its failure was seen by theuir rulers as a heaven sent opportunity to "improve" them .

In the aftermath of the famine, the Encumbered Estates Act was passed, finally allowing bankrupt estates to be sold. Had such an Act existed years before the famine, proper reform of the chaotic landholding system might have taken place, allowing greater tenant rights, greater options in foodstuffs and allowing estates to keep grain at home.

The British banned food exports years earlier , they didnt need any such act .

The British were incompetent as hell in how the handled the famine. UK politicians like politicians today were negligent in their failure to face up to a potential crisis years earlier. Religious idiots did then what some of them do now and try to define a catastrophe as the will of god - a judgement on 'sin'. Some landlords greedily exported grain because they thought they could get a better price elsewhere. Some were so heavily in debt they felt they had no choice but to sell it or they would go bankrupt - especially when the banking crisis occurred in 1847. Many middle class Irish, most notoriously in Cork, refused to help their starving compatriots. But incompetence, stupidity, and fuking things up does not make something genocide. No serious historians take the genocide theory seriously. The evidence contradicts the theory.

except decades earlier when faced with potato blight the British banned food exports , knowing that this would save lives . When they refused to ban food exports in the 1840s and 50s they werent at all incompetent . They knew damn well a human catastrophe would then occur . And when it did they complained not enough would die for it to do any good .

Finally - an indication of how the famine affected my parish. In 1841, records mentioned a settlement of 200 houses, By 1851, a report submitted to the House of Lords on that year's census said the settlement now was down to 20 houses. We will never know what happened to the residents: did they die, migrate to somewhere else, or emigrate? But we do know of my great-great-grand-uncle, Denis O'Brien. We died on the side of the road in 1847, one of the million plus Irish people who died in the great famine.

yet again its all about you . Its 99.99999% sure your parish either starved to death or went into exile as thei rulers intended they do . When a system does that accross an entire country its an act of genoocide , not incompetence.

[paddyrebel]

there was a potato blight all across europe at that time. scotland and northern england had it bad too. unfortunately it was our main crop. the brits could have done more to help but i dont think it was genocide. that words used too easily.

[Ifor Bach]

taking our intelligence for a joke again

In your particular case, the juxtaposition of 'our' and 'intelligence' is not a 'joke', but rather an 'oxymoron'.

[parentheses]

you make it sound like the only thing that grew in Ireland was a potato . That wasnt the case . There was a reason why Irish people depended upon the potato. And why its failure was seen by theuir rulers as a heaven sent opportunity to "improve" them .

Christine Kinealy in "A Death Dealing Famine" makes the point that even in 1847 there was 11 acres of grain grown for every 1 acre of potatos. Admittedly potato cultivation was down that year because people had eaten most of the seed the previous winter and because of blight losses. The grain was for export. Of course the result was that 1847 was the worst year of famine.

Sir Randolph Routh, a British official, had pointed out to Trevelyan in late 1846 that there was plenty of grain in the country and that exporting it was " a most serious evil". Trevelyan absolutely told him that grain exports would not be banned

except decades earlier when faced with potato blight the British banned food exports , knowing that this would save lives . When they refused to ban food exports in the 1840s and 50s they werent at all incompetent . They knew damn well a human catastrophe would then occur . And when it did they complained not enough would die for it to do any good .

In the 1780s the Irish parliament banned grain exports and introduced food aid. The famine at that time was successfully dealt with.

[parentheses]

there was a potato blight all across europe at that time. scotland and northern england had it bad too. unfortunately it was our main crop. the brits could have done more to help but i dont think it was genocide. that words used too easily.

You say potatoes were our main crop. That is not true in terms of acreage. Grain was the main crop grown in Ireland. It was grown for export.

And coincidentally, in 1846 Irish grain was exported to Scotland and Liverpool, which may have helped them avoid starvation.

Quoting from page 225 of "The Great Famine, Studies in Irish History, 1845-52"

The country is abundantly supplied with wheat and oats, the prices are most encouraging for sale, but nevertheless for payment of rent they are exported to Liverpool and Scotland,

[Estragon]

there was a potato blight all across europe at that time. scotland and northern england had it bad too. unfortunately it was our main crop. the brits could have done more to help but i dont think it was genocide. that words used too easily.

This sounds a lot like believing whatever the last person told you. Have you read much about the matter lately?