"The Famine" was a natural disaster it was not the fault of the British - it is lazy and convenient for anyone to blame them for it."
The Famine was described by Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was responsible for distributing relief as "God's punishment on the indolent Irish" - he advised the Government to sell relief food to the starving Irish at market prices so as not to interfere with the market economy (laissez faire) and suggested that The Famine could be used to solve 'The Irish Question' - the Russell Government complied and closed down the relief system that the former Peel Government set up.
There was four times the amount of food necessary to feed the Irish people, what wasn't shipped abroad for sale was locked in warehouses under armed guard.
The 'assistance' that Britain gave to Ireland was enforced emigration - the effect on the population according to the 1851 census was to cut the population from 8,175,124 in 1845 to 6,552,385 in 1851 - which is why it is still referred to as "The Irish Holocaust".
"What "Land-Takings"? Between 1870 and 1903"
The land that had been acquired by absentee landlords evicting starving farmers during the Famine - the practice was known as 'cabin tumbling' because of the practice of destroying the homes of those evicted with battering rams so they could not return.
The Bailiffs, backed by the police, would turn the starving families out onto the roads, where many thousands died of fever and starvation, the lucky one made it to the Coffin Ships heading for America.
In the period when Lord Russell was Prime Minister, the workhouses had been closed, so those evicted were often forced to live in hedges or even dig holes in the earth to survive, as the voluntary relief set up mainly by the Quakers was woefully inadequate.
Other religious groups assisted, but in areas like this the Protestant Groups would only feed and educate the children if their parents agreed to change their religion - these are still known as "The Soupers"
When the British Government finally agreed, under protest, to return the bigger estates to the Irish people, they did so in such a manner as to provoke the Land Wars - those farmers who already had substantial amounts of land were given priority, leaving the poorer ones to struggle.
The protests took the form of rustling the big landlord's cattle, driving them through the towns and letting then letting them loose on open land (The Burren was the favourite around here)
The protests officially lasted till 1911, but in fact continued in some Counties up to and beyond independence in 1922, well within the lifetimes of several of the people we have heard talking about their family's experiences.
All these facts and many more have been put up with the relevant linked documentation over and over again on the threads dedicated to the famine on which Teribus and Keith have attempted to rewrite Irish history - they are fully aware of the facts and yet continue their crusade.
Joe
Happy to concede that your priest is Irish, which makes Keith's backers a philosophy student and a journalist-cum-novelist - a change from real historians who sell their books in real bookshops, I suppose.
Jim Carroll