SJL is right in that people should be able to have different opinions without insulting each other. Anyway surely there is a middle ground here? Keith may be going too far by claiming 'no-one was to blame' but his assertion that it was not a genocide (surely a genocide would need to be a deliberate act where the intent was to kill as many people as possible) is not unsupported by some Irish historians. Some popular opinion in Ireland and among Irish Americans may feel it was so but that in itself doesn't make it so. Just because one opinion is shouted the loudest it doesn't make it more valid.

In his Modern Ireland 1600-1972 R.F.Foster (who is a highly qualified Irish historian) confirms that the gvt purchased food for distribution, removed tarrifs and organised public works as early as 1845-86 but goes on to explain that they underestimated the sheer scale of what was happening. Their response was based on previous famines which simply were not of the same scale. He defends the gvt not banning the export of grain on the basis that they did not at that time have the power to do so and anwyay by 1847 he claims Ireland was importing 5 times as much as it was exporting. He defends the importation of Indian meal as being well known to the Irish already (despite claims to the contrary) and again it having been resorted to in previous famines. That does not mean he lays no blame at anyone's door. He points out that the clinging to laissez faire economics and the 'obsession' with the idea that people shouldn't get something for nothing severely hindered the relief. Public works were not abandoned in favour of direct relief until 1847. Likewise he lays blame within Ireland itself and not just at Westminster. He points out that in Scotland the landlords in general tried to feed their tenants which did not happen to the same extent in Ireland. Likewsie eventually the gvt recognised that certain areas were in dire need of assistance and from early on meal was sold directly to the people in the south-west and west however many starved through bureaucracy. A special rate-in-aid was to be levied from 1849 in areas less affected to help areas badly affected. This was violently opposed in Eastern Ulster. Foster writes "again and again the variation is striking; and inability to recognize the severity of the visitation was not confined to the Dublin administrative classes"

So it seems there is a range of opinion from Keith's "no one was to blame" to the middle ground of Foster's "gvt mistakes, incompetence and sheer rigid sticking to idealogy exacerbated the problem" through to the more extreme "they did it deliberately".