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About LinkBacksI was curious as to how you say it was concerted? Is there some basis for it or did you just make it up?So if there was no memo, it didn't happen ?
I was curious as to how you say it was concerted? Is there some basis for it or did you just make it up?So if there was no memo, it didn't happen ?
"Our revenge will be the slaughter of their children."
Of course not, because if it was you'd probably have to do something abut it?Originally Posted by badinage
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A Famine is defined "a severe shortage of food which results in violent hunger, starvation and death".
There was no severe shortage of food in Ireland therefore, there was no famine.
What now? It happened a hundred and fifty years ago.\Of course not, because if it was you'd probably have to do something abut it?
Anyway, there's no point arguing with you edifice - you just resort to posting one line or even one word meaningless replies.
"Priceless!" etc
It is for those making the accusations to provide the proof.
No-one denies that hundreds of thousands died.
The question is whether this was part of a deliberate, concerted plan on the part of the British government, (genocide).
As you have provided no proof that such a plan existed there is nothing that can be disproven.
Food was exported from Ireland at the time of the famine. But not on the instructions of the British government, unless you can prove otherwise.
"Concerted by whom? Was there a memo?"
I don't believe we will ever find a memo from London or Dublin Castle from 1798 saying something like "all Crown forces to rape and pillage at will".
But it is not disputed that rape was part of the Terror that swept the SouthEast from May to July in 1798, and I believe rape wa a feature of the repression in Antrim and Down also. Kevin Whelan mentions the matter in one of his books on 1798, and even the Wikipedia article below speaks of gang rape. So it's not really open to debate as to whether it occurred. AS I have siad, the irony (but a common one in the case of England) is that such atrocity and carnage were being inflicted right at the same time that a lot of English people were getting exercised about slavery. It's the same irony that John Mitchel noted in the US a couple of generatiions later, when he pointed out that it was the most anti-Catholic and anti-Irish segments of the population that were most bitter against the Confederacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebe ... Government
The only reason there are any records of the Wannasee conference is because Germany was defeated 4 years later and the records uncovered by an invading army before they could be destroyed . Secondly as you well know the vast bulk of the historical record , correspondence and papers from that period were destroyed when the Customs House went up in 1921 . The records existed , we are simply unable to read them . To claim that because no memo exists today when the memos were all reduced to ash isnt remotely proof that policy never existed . The only proof left is the result of these deliberate policies . We can only examine the actions which were taken , actions which occured deliberately and methodically . For troops and police to engage in this activity repeatedly and ruthlessly throughout the country means it was a matter of policy . Orders had to be issued . The effects of that policy , mass starvation , disease epidemics and death on a massive scale were perfectly forseeable . In fact they were seen as they happened on a daily basis for a 5 year period .
The British were guilty of more than simple "indifference" . The policy of evicting people from their homes and destroying those homes at gunpoint , ensuring certain death ,coupled with their laws that stated anyone offering shelter to the evicted would suffer the same fate - certain death - were more than indifference . That was a policy whose effects were forseeable to even the dimmest official , a policy that was enforced and rigorously so . That was a policy to clear the land and the land was successfully cleared as a result of those rigorously enforced policies . Policies that required tens of 1000s of armed troops and RIC militia to enforce throughout the entire country . Without such a large armed force these policies simply could not have been persued ,therefore they were deliberate . The records also make clear that while the authorities claimed there was a great amount of difficulty in finding funds for humanitarian relief apparently the funds to provide the boat fares for people trying to flee the country were more easily found . Again this points to a desire to clear the land . To clear the land required tens of 1000s of troops and police . Tens of 1000s of troops and police were used and the land was cleared . That is not simple indifference .
Balls . They took the proper steps to avert a similar disaster in the 1780s despite loud objections from the merchant class . You seem to be advocating that Britain became less advanced and more barbaric as it moved into the industrial Victorian era .There is on the other hand ample evidence of the British Governments thinking and decision-making throughout the period in question and through it we can understand (though not necessarily agree with) the thought processes of the Ministers responsible and Trevelyan in particular. Cold hearted bureaucrats?, possibly. Men of their time and class?, certainly. Planners and practitioners of genocide? Hardly. The past is another country Merle, they do things differently there.
you presume wrong , I was educated in a 95% protestant true blue British state school . However on a daily basis I passed ( and still do) the site of a mass grave of that period . The townland were I grew up was a thriving township and home to around 3000 in 1847 , something I only became aware of recently . Even today with the building boom there wouldnt be 100 inhabitants . My great grandmothers parents survived that period . What was most notable about that entire period of our history has been the extreme reluctance of those who survived it to even discuss it . The island fell silent and when it did begin to speak again it spoke in a different language .A final point if I may. You have referred on number of occasions to "revisionist historians" and not in a particularly appreciative manner I must say. We can all safely assume that you dissapprove. Would I be correct in saying then that your definition of a revisionist historian would be a serious and authoritative figure in the field of Irish/British history, probably a published author and widely respected by his/her peers who, after a period of protracted, open-minded and serious study of a particular period or event in Irish/British history, comes to a conclusion which does not concur with that reached in the somewhat one-sided school history books of De Valeras Ireland, these presumably being the source of most, if not all, of your prejudices?
The historians you are referring to are thoroughly discredited . Even Ruth Dudley bizarrely asked people not to buy her previous books recently at a reception in the Irish embassy in London such is the ridicule theyve evoked. Peter Hart cannot even provide sources for his material and is dodging other Historians like Henry Kissinger on a world cruise . Ruth Dudlet Edwards and her ilk are by no means open minded . Get a grip .
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No-one is suggesting otherwise. I was curious as to how you say it was concerted. Did they practise do you think?So it's not really open to debate as to whether it occurred.
"Our revenge will be the slaughter of their children."
The reason no records exist is that there was no deliberate policy of genocide.
If such a policy had been initiated by the British government, documents would exist in some form in the seat of the British government, London.
It would simply be impossible to plan genocide without leaving any documentary evidence whatsoever, Merle.
Let's be honest, Merle. You're a bit of a fantasist aren't you.
Here is a quote from "The Great Hunger" by Cecil Woodham-Smith
"How do you govern it?" demanded Macaulay in the house of commons on February 19 1844. "Not by love but by fear .. not by the confidence of the people in the laws and their attachment to the constitution but by means of armed entrenched camps"
The native Irish people were viewed and treated like wild beasts by their oppressors. So when potato blight struck Ireland and people started to die, what would the British government do?
Stop all export of food from Ireland? Open ports to free trade? Lift the dutis on flour and Oatmeal?
Bearing in mind, potato blight arrived in England before it spread to Ireland. The Potato was also the main diet of the working class English family. How come it didn't have the devastating effects like it did in Ireland?
Whatever ones opinions are, Famine or Genocide -personally i think it was genocide- this is a very impotant period in our countries history and the victims must be remembered. I think its more important than 1916 but why do the Irish governemnt refuse to have a national remembrance day for the victims of Britains Holocaust in Ireland? maybe they fear the outcome .... :wink:
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