I'll be happy to continue doing this while you are happy to continue making a fool of yourself by denying what's there for all so see
Jim Carroll
The Great Irish Famine was a turning point in the development of modern Ireland. In the space of six years, Ireland lost 25 per cent of her population through death and disease. This statistic alone marked the Irish Famine as one of the greatest human tragedies in modern European history.
Yet it is not only the number of people who died which makes the Famine such a tragedy. It is also the way in which they lost their lives. Death from famine or famine-related diseases is slow, painful and obscene.
Moreover, much of this death from the Famine need not have taken place. The Irish Famine was not just caused by food shortages, it was also due to political and economic choices. As a consequence, ideology triumphed over humanity.
In the face of food shortages, relief provided by the government was inadequate. Imports of food were too small to meet the scale of the problem. At the same time, large amounts of food continued to be exported from Ireland. In 1847 – 'Black '47' – 4,000 ships left Ireland, each carrying large cargoes of food to Britain.
This year marked the 150th anniversary of 'Black '47' – the single year when disease, suffering and mortality were at their highest. But the Famine did not end in 1847. In 1849, the level of mortality was almost as great as it had been in 1847.
Today – even though famine still exists in the world – it is hard to imagine the suffering, the sense of loss and the trauma of Irish people during those years. The recollections of a survivor of the Famine years convey some of this loss:
In A Death-Dealing Famine she "focuses on the key factors which nurtured both policy formulations and the unfolding of events in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. These include political ideologies, such as the influential doctrine of political economy; providentialist ideas which ordained that the potato blight was a 'judgement of God'; and an opportunistic interpretation of the crisis that viewed the Famine and the consequent social dislocation as an opportunity to reconstruct Irish society. Kinealy also examines the roles of the Irish landlords and merchants, political factions in Westminster and the pivotal role played by civil servants within the British government."
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