The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151520   Message #3544358
Posted By: Keith A of Hertford
01-Aug-13 - 02:02 PM
Thread Name: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
I have not and would not malign Dr. K.
You did. I provided a biog of her, and very impressive it is.

That 95 piece you hated said the government could not be blamed.
Her book said it could.
It also said that revisionism was the dominant view and had been for 80 years.
I do not believe she has withdrawn that statement of fact.

I take it we are not going to get an explanation for your extraordinary behaviour regarding your accusations

I thought I had.
Just specify what you want.

you have lied and you have walked away from that lie

And you are a bore.
I don't lie.
Produce one or give it up.

I don't suppose you'd care to show us where and why she "changed her mind" so radically

In 95 HI.
". Moreover, both the landlords and the British government have been rehabilitated; the former frequently being shown as hapless victims themselves, and the latter, as being ignorant of the real state of affairs in Ireland, and lacking both the financial and administrative capability to alleviate the situation anyway.
The arguments regarding the role of the British government are not sustainable. 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 daily from the soup kitchens (which, even by the standard of contemporary famines, is a tremendous logistical achievement). To make this possible, a comprehensive and nation-wide machinery was created within Ireland in the space of only a few months. As a consequence of this scheme, mortality began to fall as, for the first and only time during the Famine, the problem of hunger was confronted directly"