Was the Great Irish Famine an Act of Genocide?

[Riadach]

Aye, the poor of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham etc lived like Lords.

They were still capable of looking down on the emigrant Irish. You should read some of Engels accounts of the state of the impoverished emigrant Irish in English slums.

[Schuhart]

Does anyone without bias, seriously believe that any one of the pathetic little englanders or Irish revisionist excuser of evil on here >> would even attempt to argue against such a letter for even a second >> if that letter related to another regime in another land.

How can anyone using terms like "pathetic little englanders" and "Irish revisionist excuser of evil" expect their use of the term "anyone without bias" to be taken seriously?

You know, there's actually quite a reasonable discussion of the famine going on in this thread, if you'd eyes to see it.

[Liverpoolblue]

Liverpool couldn't cope with so many paupers. Liverpool did their bit go to St. Patrick's church and look at the memorial to the priests who died tending the sick. Most of them appear to be English too. Please also note that it says, "Along with the ten RC Priest's and the Unitarian minister, ten doctors who were employed by the poor law guardians also died, and probably 20-30 nurses as well as poor law officials and policeman, all English.":-

http://www.liverpoolmonuments.co.uk/pat01.html


Lb

[Liverpoolblue]

Why would England be caring for the Irish in the workhouses and fever sheds of Liverpool when there was a master plan to kill as many Irish as possible?

Lb

[Plebian]

Why would England be caring for the Irish in the workhouses and fever sheds of Liverpool when there was a master plan to kill as many Irish as possible?

Lb

Not so much a masterplan, as a mish mash of circumstances. Religious duty to deal with the misfortunate in a humane way, combined with a belief by the ruling class that it was divine providence and good economics to deal with the Irish overpopulation problem by letting nature take it's course. There were different levels of untermensch in society, the Irish peasants were a problem for those who owned the land that they lived on. It wasn't a case of liquidating them by murdering them, but rather one of letting them die off and emigrate to enable the lands to produce a greater profit for the owners.

Here's a good book that's free to read on google books about conditions and attitudes in the country at the time.

Ireland's welcome to the stranger: or An excursion through Ireland, in 1844 ... - Asenath Nicholson - Google Books

[wherethelady]

so british genocide is bad and SF/IRA genocide is good- have i got that one right?

Jesus werent the brits crafty feckers, creating and speading potato blight like that and no one saw them do it, crafty i say!! I have a solution all republican should go on hunger strike to get back at the brits, that will show them!!!

[Ifor Bach]

Why would England be caring for the Irish in the workhouses and fever sheds of Liverpool when there was a master plan to kill as many Irish as possible?

Not so much a masterplan, as a mish mash of circumstances.

Exactly.

The title of the thread is, "Was the Great Irish Famine an Act of Genocide?".

There is no case to answer.

[parentheses]

Not so much a masterplan, as a mish mash of circumstances. Religious duty to deal with the misfortunate in a humane way, combined with a belief by the ruling class that it was divine providence and good economics to deal with the Irish overpopulation problem by letting nature take it's course. There were different levels of untermensch in society, the Irish peasants were a problem for those who owned the land that they lived on. It wasn't a case of liquidating them by murdering them, but rather one of letting them die off and emigrate to enable the lands to produce a greater profit for the owners.

And maybe the necessity to keep Britain fed at a time there was shortages of food in Britain. During WW II Germany kept itself fed but there was famine in some occupied countries

[Plebian]

Exactly.

The title of the thread is, "Was the Great Irish Famine an Act of Genocide?".

There is no case to answer.

It was the culmination of a policy of Cultural Genocide towards the Irish Catholic Gaels, the policy of retarding the prospects of an Irish Catholic Gaelic ascendancy developing in Ireland that could threaten the English crown through an alliance with Catholic forces in Europe. The bringing in of a law that forced the subdivision of tenancies led to the continued deterioration of the wellbeing of Irish Catholic Gaels, the country was to be kept rural and subservient. This all led to the conditions of utter poverty that the peasant masses found themselves in at the time of the famine. Combined with a political class ( think Thatcherism on steroids ) in London that in the main thought of these people as just a problem that they would like to go away, it's no surprise they didn't really care and that many of them welcomed the divine providence that would eliminate that problem. In the modern context, I'd think we'd call that Genocide if it happened in today's world.

[SeamusNapoleon]

It was the culmination of a policy of Cultural Genocide towards the Irish Catholic Gaels, the policy of retarding the prospects of an Irish Catholic Gaelic ascendancy developing in Ireland that could threaten the English crown through an alliance with Catholic forces in Europe. The bringing in of a law that forced the subdivision of tenancies led to the continued deterioration of the wellbeing of Irish Catholic Gaels, the country was to be kept rural and subservient. This all led to the conditions of utter poverty that the peasant masses found themselves in at the time of the famine. Combined with a political class ( think Thatcherism on steroids ) in London that in the main thought of these people as just a problem that they would like to go away, it's no surprise they didn't really care and that many of them welcomed the divine providence that would eliminate that problem. In the modern context, I'd think we'd call that Genocide if it happened in today's world.

I think this is an important issue - the context of such terminology.

News sources such as the BBC, Guardian and Telegraph are all using the term 'massacre' in relation to Homs this past week or so - dozens killed according to Reuters. Nor would I seek to contest the use of that word. But to have an idea of what the term meant in a more historic sense, you'd want to look at the Sack of Jerusalem in 1099, the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 or the Rape of Nanking in 1937.

Semantics can be applied very effectively to stifle legitimate outrage over murderous policies.