Should Britian Express Regret for her Crimes in Ireland

[pogo]

For those who still defy their own leaders apology I ask you this: would the situation in Ireland have been allowed to happen in Scotland or Wales?

Something similar did happen in Scotland, at the same time.

So the answer to your question is 'Yes'.

[Kev408]

Petty and childish responses have always been the responses of liars who cannot acknowledge their own wrongdoing. The craving of Unionists to maintain superiority whilst continuing rejecting anything that might lead to their own private anathema - equality - has led to them being unwanted by everyone especially the British that Unionists adore. Its kinda sad.

Try acknowledging even some thruths and you might have a shred of credibilty Pogo but laughing at the savagery of Cromwells soldiers to all Irish Catholics (including babies) is disgusting. You are an excellent asset for those who peacefully or violently espouse a 32 county Ireland. Keep up the good work.

[pogo]

Petty and childish responses have always been the responses of liars who cannot acknowledge their own wrongdoing.

Who's lying and where :

Do you suspect me of wrongdoing :

If so, what exactly have I done wrong :

[Kev408]

Petty and childish responses have always been the responses of liars who cannot acknowledge their own wrongdoing.

Who's lying and where :

Do you suspect me of wrongdoing :

If so, what exactly have I done wrong :

Paranoia now!! Who'd have thought it from a bitter Unionist. I know better than to get into any form of debate with a person who is the epitome of the negative side of Unionism (there is a positive side which is rarely seen on P.ie). Its utterly fruitless. Nonetheless, you keep obfuscating and then laughing at atrocities committed against Catholics (such as Cromwells) and you'll be doing a great disservice to Unionism and a great service for Republicanism.

Keep it up, a Phogo.

[pogo]

Petty and childish responses have always been the responses of liars who cannot acknowledge their own wrongdoing.

Who's lying and where :

Do you suspect me of wrongdoing :

If so, what exactly have I done wrong :

Paranoia now!! Who'd have thought it from a bitter Unionist.

I understand.

The 'liar and wrongdoer' providing the 'petty and childish responses' refers to someone other than myself.

Who :

[Jimmy Sands]

Another point is to whom is this apology to be given? Surely not to us, as we are by definition the descendents not of those who starved but of their neighbours who watched them die.

[jimbob86]

One of the core principle of Irish Republicanism is the advancement of socialism in this nation of ours!

National Socialism in other words.

My point exactly. And a reprenentation consisting of 10% of the electorate does not seem like a firm mandate for the radical policies your party seems intent on pushing. It seems more like a fringe mandate considering most other parties would NEVER go into government with sinn fein because the vast majority of the electorate see them as a band of thugs pushing populist policies.

And just because they don't push homophobic anti-immigrant agendas at party gatherings doesnt mean they don't exist at the grass roots level. I have relatives and acquaintances who are involved in Sinn Fein and they are not interested in it's supposed socialist agenda, they simply hate the British, and they are definately not open minded when it comes to gays and immigrants.

P.s i Don't need to go study the intricacies your parties policies to know they are doomed to failure.

[PAUL MEYER]

[quote=merle haggard][quote="zakalwe"

[quote]
get a grip. the famine was a tragedy, one that our nation remembers and is why we give so generously to alleviate other famines.[/quote]

it was neither a tragedy nor a famine it was a deliberate policy of extermination . There was no shortage of food in Ireland whatsoever, the English simply took it all out of the country at gunpoint and threw millions of people out of their homes at gun point to die of starvation and also destroyed their homes quite deliberately as a matter of policy. And they threatened to throw millions more out of their homes at gunpoint and destroy their homes too if they so much as lifted a finger to feed or shelter those whose homes theyd deliberately destroyed as a matter of official policy . This was deliberate policy and the British governemnt was fully aware of what it effects would be . They were well aware that mass starvation and the plethora of fatal diseases which accompany it would have a cataclysmic effect upon the population . And it unsurprisingly did just that . And whats more they cheered about it in their newspapers .

[i]but to blame the english for the potato famine is crazy. [/i]


nobody is blaming them for potato blight . They are being blamed for taking away all the food in the country at gunpoint and militarily enforcing deliberate homelessness and starvation that wiped out half the countrys population in about 5 years

[i] to blame the english for the lack of trees in ireland is crazy (as is calling trees a "cash crop"). [/i]

A cash crop is something that grows out of the ground that you can harvest for money . England harvested Irelands forests throughout a period were wood was an essential commodity for fuel and building materials and made a lot of money out of it . Its adventurers and mercenaries made their fortunes out of it .

[i] next they'll be to blame for the traffic on the M50 and the price of property.[/i]

im tempted to blame them for your utter stupidity

[i]the irish have been capable and proved willing to carry out horrendous crimes as well. was the murder of jean mccolville not a horrendous crime, and what about gerry mccabe. hell, even the phoenix park murders were horrendous crimes[/i]

its not a popularity contest , Its about crimes against humanity . As regards the Phoenix park killings we can assume the war reparations paid to England by Ireland in 1922 covered that one .[/quote]

Merle, I can only picture you as you write this drivel, steam coming out of your ears, face bright red with righteous indignation, furious fingers melting the keyboard and the spittle -flecked screen looking like a plasterer's overall . You are obviously more than a little deranged and need to get out more, or perhaps buy a cat as you obviously need a diversion. This rabid Anglophobia of yours will led to a heart attack I'm sure. Anyway, saddened as I am by your steady descent into madness I feel I must post this link, even though I suspect it may just push you over the edge:

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irish_Potato_Famine_%281845-1849%29&redirect=no"]http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... edirect=no[/url]

Now I don't thimk Wickipedia is necessarily a completely authoritative source on the subject but then again I'd like to hear what parts of this account you disagree with and why?

(By the way, a piece of advice,I believe a wooden kitchen spoon wrapped in a clean Tea towel and held firmly between the teeth will stop the gnashing, or at least minimize the damage. :wink:

[stringjack]

(By the way, a piece of advice,I believe a wooden kitchen spoon wrapped in a clean Tea towel and held firmly between the teeth will stop the gnashing, or at least minimize the damage. :wink:

(Personally, I like to sprinkle mine with paprika.)

[merle haggard]

Firstly Paul Meyer should actually point out what part of what Ive written he deems to be factually inaccurate . He faiils to do so , and attempts to disguise his inability to do so with pathetic humor and a link to Wikipedia that he clearly didnt even read properly because it even provides the facts figures ,historical and contemporaneous accounts that back up exactly what I said . The prat .
The Wikipedia link he has posted does not contradict what I have written . It merely states that there is division amongst Historians on the issue . Some such as Ruth Dudley Edwards unsurprisingly dont regard the events of 1847 as malevolence by England while others such as Joe Lee refer to it as genocide .

There is a difference between Irish historians and pro British revisionist historians in their interpretation of the historical evidence . However the recorded facts contained within the wikipedia link bear out exactly what I stated and what Paul Meyer attempts to ridicule . the link bears out precisely what I stated , that the food was taken out of the country at the point of a gun

The blight was present all across Europe. However it was only in Ireland that its consequnces were so drastic. While the potato constituted a very important component of the Irish diet it was not the only source of nutrition available in the Irish countryside. It is the continued, and even increased, exportation of those alternate foodstuffs during the famine years that supports the thesis the famine was a result of colonial disregard by the British authorities.

The thesis that it was disregard and not a deliberate policy of extermination relies solely upon the assumption that the colonial authorities were unaware that if one takes away the Irish peoples food they will starve to death as well as dying of the diseases which accompany mass starvation , and that to escape the fate of either starving to death or dying from a dreadful disease Irish people would flee the country . If you believe the British Industrialisd Victorian establishment didnt really know a policy of removing peoples food and evicting them from their homes at gunpoint would result in mass death and widespread cleansing of the native Irish from the land then you are quite entitled to view what I have written as hysterical nonsense .

And the evidence to back up what I have stated is here within your link

In Ireland Before and After the Famine, author Cormac O’Grada documents that in 1845, a famine year in Ireland, 3,251,907 quarters (8 bushels = 1 quarter)) of corn were exported from Ireland to Britain. That same year, 257,257 sheep were exported to Britain. In 1846, another famine year, 480,827 swine, and 186,483 oxen were exported to Britain.

Cecil Woodham-Smith, considered the preeminent authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, "...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." According to John Mitchel, quoted by Woodham-Smith, "Ireland was actually producing sufficient food, wool and flax, to feed and clothe not nine but eighteen millions of people," yet a ship sailing into an Irish port during the famine years with a cargo of grain was "sure to meet six ships sailing out with a similar cargo."

One of the most remarkable facts about the famine period is that there was an average monthly export of food from Ireland worth 100,000 Pound Sterling. Almost throughout the five-year famine, Ireland remained a net exporter of food.

Dr. Christine Kinealy, a fellow at the University of Liverpool and the author of two scholarly texts on the Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, says that 9,992 calves were exported from Ireland to England during "Black'47", an increase of thirty-three percent from the previous year. In the twelve months following the second failure of the potato crop, 4,000 horses and ponies were exported. The export of livestock to Britain (with the exception of pigs) increased during the "famine". The export of bacon and ham increased. In total, over three million live animals were exported from Ireland between 1846-50, more than the number of people who emigrated during the famine years.

Dr. Kinealy's most recent work is documented in the spring, 1998 issue of "History Ireland". She states that almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men, women and children died of starvation and related diseases. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland: Ballina, Ballyshannon, Bantry, Dingle, Killala, Kilrush, Limerick, Sligo, Tralee and Westport.


During the first nine months of "Black '47" the export of grain-derived alcohol from Ireland to England included the following: 874,170 gallons of porter, 278,658 gallons of Guinness, and 183,392 gallons of whiskey.

A wide variety of commodities left Ireland during 1847, including peas,beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues,animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue and seed.

The most shocking export figures concern butter. Butter was shipped in firkins, each one holding nine gallons. In the first nine months of 1847, 56,557 firkins were exported from Ireland to Bristol, and 34,852 firkins were shipped to Liverpool. That works out to be 822,681 gallons of butter exported to England from Ireland during nine months of the worst year of "famine".

If the other three months of exports were at all comparable, then we can safely assume that a million gallons of butter left Ireland while 400,000 Irish people starved to death!

Dr. Kinealy's research proves beyond a reasonable doubt that there was sufficient food in Ireland to prevent mass starvation, and that the food was brought through the worst famine-stricken areas on its way to England. British regiments guarded the ports and warehouses in Ireland to guarantee absentee landlords and commodity speculators their "free market" profits.

When Ireland experienced an earlier famine in 1782-83, ports were closed in order to keep home grown food for domestic consumption. Food prices were immediately reduced within Ireland. The merchants lobbied against such efforts, but their protests were over-ridden. Everyone recognized that the interests of the merchants and the distressed people were irreconcilable

The notable difference between the Famine and other humanitarian crises was that it occurred within the imperial homeland, at a time well into the modern prosperity of the Victorian and Industrial age. Even today, such crises tend to be far away from centres of power such that the subjects of empire, almost by definition, are of distant cultures, languages and religious beliefs. Within the imperial culture, the reportage of a crisis among its subjects more often uses dismissive and dehumanizing terms, and treats otherwise urgent matters with little relevancy or interest. With respect to geography, the famine would appear to belie many of the typical circumstances in which colonialist dismissal of native plight often occurred.

Perhaps Paul Meyer believes these accounts were written by spitting lunatics as well . What in these accounts contradicts any of what I stated ?