I find it "interesting" that my "Introducing rutabagas would have worked better in the early years of the blight... imho." got transmuted into importing rutabagas for food...   

Since it was recorded as being present in the royal gardens in England as early as 1669 and was described in France in 1700, it was an unexplored option for an alternative crop. It may lack the higher caloric value of potatoes, but is high in nutrition and easy to cultivate. And for your information, introducing a crop is done by providing seed or root stock/cuttings so that it can be cultivated in the area of interest.   

So your snarky response was to a statement fabricated in you own mind.... "Ah yes of course we should have imported rutabaga (swedes) for the starving Irish to feed on, now apart from the fact that they did not become common in mainland Britain until the 1900s I think might explain why this crop was not seized upon as a solution (It would have been 50 years too late) also you keep saying they could have used this or they could have used that but you keep dodging the point of how you actually get these items to where they were needed - hopefully at some juncture in this discussion you will get round to addressing this rather significant stumbling block."

The REAL stumbling block is having people so wedded to defending their own positions that they blind themselves to alternatives. Can anyone acknowledge that this is not a black and white issue? That honest mistakes were made along with callus indifference on the part of others? This need to make ogres or saints and simplistic answers, when the reality is far more complex.

Here on Mudcat we spar & trade snarky comments, along with some downright obnoxious remarks... better than using suicide bombers to make your point, but equally unproductive.

Here in the US, there are those regard the less fortunate as parasites ... our treatment of the native population was nothing to be proud of... but there are still those who think it was "noble".

Human nature is a combination of traits that can be very positive or very negative and it was human beings and their actions/inactions during the potato blight that is being "debated/argued over" in this thread.