Sciencegeek:

1: "my case has been that on one in the early part of the 1800's had the knowledge to properly deal with the blight"

And where was this knowledge centred? Where was it accessible and to whom? After all there was no Ministry of Agriculture in the British Government of the day, no Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. So who was it in a position of power to direct things that would have seized on the humble swede as the means to come galloping to the rescue – Rhetorical question sciencegeek there was nothing in place, there was nobody in place to make such a thing happen – There was no BIG GOVERNMENT anywhere in those days – people were brought up to be self-reliant, it was considered a virtue, charity was based on a parochial system of Parishes and was not seen as the job of Government.

2: "I also indicated that some of the well meant relief efforts failed because of ignorance."

Ah so not the deliberate machinations of an evil government hell bent on genocide then? Not the line that Carroll is trying to peddle.

3: "BUT... I see no reason to make excuses for some of the actions taken by those in power at the time that reflect a combination of callus indifference to the suffering of others coupled with a prevailing prejudice against the Irish in general and Catholics in particular."

The famine as viewed through 21st century eyes, mind you having said that, there is a possible modern day parallel – Afghanistan.
Today we have the "war weary West" willing to leave Afghanistan never to return utterly disgusted by the apparent lack shown by the Afghans of showing any willingness to help themselves. We will leave in full belief and expectation of many that the second the international community departs Afghanistan will descend into yet another decade or more of violence and barbarism – how about that for matching a reflection of "callous indifference" to the suffering of others (With the known precedent that when exactly the same thing was done in 1989, 6 million people suffered for it, repeated this time on the same scale it will more like 12 million). Prevailing prejudice against Muslims in particular? Are there any reasons that you could possibly identify for the average man in the street to harbour those prejudices?

Callous indifference must not be confused with the inability to cope or deal with a problem that has run away from you. Those in power can only do what can physically be done – that is true in disasters that occur in modern times with all our technological advantages.

Judging by the contributions raised by the British public during the famine and by the unprecedented financial assistance given by the British Government at the time, I can see no real evidence of there being prejudice against the Irish as a nation. Prejudice against and mistrust of Roman Catholics throughout mainland Britain was unfortunately very real and deeply seated in the history of mainland Britain, as it was in quite a few other countries the USA being one of them – it was the real politik of the era.

In your outburst against the rich and successful in the USA, I notice you do not describe it as an attempted genocide against the poor, or any other ethnic group by your Government, yet you feel free to throw accusations at a foreign government dealing with an unprecedented crisis about 170 years ago!!

4: "Forty years earlier, Britain managed to move troops and supplies in Europe during their wars with France & its allies... a daunting task... but they pulled it off. Where there's a will, there's a way... as the old saying goes."

Oh sciencegeek, thank you, thank you, thank you, for drawing this (Napoleonic Wars) into the discussion. You have hit upon my specialist subject, which supports everything I have said to do with the transport and logistical problems faced.

"An Army marches on its stomach" was attributed to Napoleon who also instructed his Marshals that their armies must feed off the land – that latter bit was why they tended to lose (Even on French soil) when up against Wellington.

Wellington had learned command of troops and more significantly the art of campaigning in India. And what he learned there was that you have to carry everything with you, that you must never strip the food from the local inhabitants and that you must pay for anything that you do take, most important of all, he discovered the importance of the Ox-cart. There are many memoirs written by both soldiers and officers who fought and campaigned in the Peninsula with Wellington. The one thing that runs common through them all was that when talking about the predominating sound of the campaigns in Portugal and Spain, they all say the same thing – The squeak of axles and the creak of Ox-carts.

I asked you once before about what would be required to transport a fully loaded wagon a distance of 30 miles and bring it back. In a country bereft of food the effort is staggering. Wellington in fighting the French fully appreciated the difficulties.

A battery of six guns required between 160 to 200 horses and over forty wagons to keep it in the field. Armies of the period could only remain assembled for about three days at the utmost other-wise they starved, their rate of advance depending upon the time of year, the ground over which they were advancing, the quality of the maps available and the existence or absence of roads was roughly 12 to 18 miles per day. OK then sciencegeek how does the mountainous and boggy wilds of western Ireland match up to the vast flat plains of Castille? Camped for just over one month outside the Lines of Torres Vedras built by Wellington to defend Lisbon, the French Commander Massena, the most capable of Napoleon's Generals, never even attempted to attack them, yet he lost over 25,000 men to hunger and disease in the countryside laid bare by the Portuguese. Now multiply that by 12 and you have more dead Frenchmen than you had dead Irish men , women and children in "Black '47" by quite a margin.

Now then sciencegeek in those forty years things had not really advanced that much, especially in Ireland so where were the British Government and those in charge of aid distribution going to get the thousands of horses and the hundreds of wagons needed. Where were they going to get the thousands of tons of grain to feed those horses? Where were they going to get the required number of blacksmiths, farriers and wheelwrights? All that before you have even got so much as one meal to one family in need – Piece of cake really isn't it?