The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151520   Message #3538710
Posted By: Jim Carroll
17-Jul-13 - 07:36 PM
Thread Name: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
"hat is an example of racist contempt for the Irish in USA."
You've selected one link and totally ignored the others
You have still not commented on the on the "God's vengeance" statement from the man who was responsible for distributing the Famine relief.
You have totally ignored the fact that anti-Irish racism thrived in Britain right up the the passing of legislation made it illegal - and even then our 'popular entertainment' still had morons like Bernard Manning and Jim Davison.
Whenever you make one of your mindless statements you move on to the next one and refuse to acknowledge that you have painted yourself into a corner.   
"So, Grumpy and Jim, Revisionism is the "dominant" view among historians, and has been for decades."
You have been presented with contemporary statements over and over again - these are not "revisionist" (do you know what the word means?) they are the views that governed the actions of the British establishment that committed genocide in Ireland.
Don't you dare claim that the opposition to your disgustingly racist views are from two of us - once again you are alone in defending human rights atrocities.
Address the facts that have been presented to you.
One more try
Did Trevelyan not claim that the famine came as punishment by god?
Weren't 190,000 abandoned to die on the roadside by English landlords?
Didn't the English nobility use British taxes to move evicted tenants off to Canada?
Were economic interests put above the Irish people
Keep it up Keith - you have once again crapped in your own nest
"In the summer of 1847, in the wake of the almost total second failure of the potato crop, the British government established soup kitchens throughout Ireland. At the peak of this scheme, over three million people, that is, forty per cent of the population, were receiving free rations of food"
Jim Carroll

Glorious 1847!!
" The depots in the West were opened, but the food was at market prices. In England a new charitable organisation named The British Association was founded, and it collected over half a million pounds for the relief of famine in Ireland. The Association bought food and clothing and distributed them through the local relief committees. In January 1847 the British Government decided to set up soup kitchens, and the scheme of relief by employment was to be abandoned. The Irish Poor Law was to be changed, so that distressed persons were to be classed as paupers. Therefore persons not inmates of a workhouse would get no food, but a scheme for outdoor relief would be introduced later in the summer.
Black '47
As we enter Black '47, as the year 1847 was called the paradox of Ireland continued. The people were dying of starvation, whilst shiploads of food were leaving the country under military escort, and merchants were making a small fortune with massive prices. The Soup Kitchen Act was preliminary to the transfer of the distressed to the Poor Law, and it was to be carried out mainly through the Irish Poor Law organisation. Though subscriptions were to be collected whenever possible, and increased by Government donations, the money spent on the soup kitchens was to come out of the rates. To collect rates in Ireland was not merely difficult - in a large number of cases it was practically impossible.
Famine Workhouse Clifden, Galway The workhouses themselves were not in a condition to become centres of relief. In the parts of Ireland which were now most distressed the workhouses, from the day they opened, had been insolvent, dirty and disorganised, and at this moment when the transfer of the destitute to the Poor Law was proposed, several were on the point of closing their doors. Scarriff, in Clare, was about to shut, and at Clifden in Galway the workhouse had actually been closed and the destitute expelled.
The soup kitchens were very welcome, and each person received a bowl of soup and some bread. Trevelyan thought that famine was the will of God, and he hoped that the Catholic priests would explain this to the people. They had no strength left and they believed that is was the will of God that they should die. The soup kitchens were slow to expand, and were not able to cater for the millions of starving people. Private enterprise was functioning at last, and the ample supples promised by Government were actually arriving, but they were useless to the people. Destitution and disorganisation had gone too far: Ireland was ruined, and high prices and lack of money placed the long expected food out of reach of the starving. Meanwhile, at the end of the first week in March the total number employed on the public works stood at 734,000, but the Government began to close them down. This decision produced terror, hundreds of desperate appeals poured in, but all were ignored"
A new terror afflicted the Irish people. After the famine typhus fever or some other disease began to ravage Ireland. The main epidemic in 1847 was of typhus and relapsing fever, but at the same time other diseases afflicted starving Ireland. Dysentery, famine dropsy, diarrhoea and scurvy were horrible diseases which affected many people, resulting in agonising death. The courage of those who came to the help of the people is beyond praise. Doctors, Catholic priests, medical staff officials and many others all contacted fever and died. The work houses, fever hospitals and dispensaries did valuable work. Conditions in workhouses were very bad. Language would fail to give an adequate idea of their state. Fever patients were lying naked on straw, the living and the dead together. There was no medicine, no drink, no medical staff. In workhouses and fever hospitals, the epidemic seems to have reached its height in April, when during a single week thousands of inmates of workhouses were officially reported to have died.
About September 1847 the epidemic began to subside, when the number of people infected began to decrease. In many districts however the epidemic continued even into the following year. The total of those who died during the fever epidemic and of famine diseases will never be known, but probably ten times more died of disease than of starvation. The corpses were buried in fields, hill sides and ditches unknown to anyone.
In lonely districts fever-stricken persons died in their cabins without anyone coming near them, and their bodies were left to rot. In Clifden corpses were burned and in other districts they were buried under the cabin floor. Too many had died for a funeral service to be held

http://indigo.ie/~wildgees/famine.htm