It is a pity Jim, that you seem to constantly allow yourself to be goaded into intemperate language by Keith. This man obviously has a practised line in defending the indefensible using this as his tactic. His apparent calmness is his greatest weapon. You should rely for yours on the incontestable facts of those terrible times, God knows they have been written about in great volume ever since.
If anyone still considers, in this day and age, that the Government of Ireland, of the day, did not have major culpability in the deaths of a million people, they must indeed have very poor qualities of analysis.
Professional Historians, of course, will not be able to make a living if they write only in total agreement with that which their predecessors have written, this is the basis of much "revisionism" (ie Publish or die !)Their theories on historical facts are of no more value than those of anybody else who has researched. We have no need to be in awe of them.