Christmas:

Do you believe that the British Government carried out a deliberate policy of genocide in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1851?

No vast tracts of cut'n'pastes just a simple YES or NO.

Example of your cut'n'paste contributions:

Jim Carroll - Date: 30 Mar 14 - 11:20 AM

Contains not one single word written by you Christmas - If I wish to discuss the subject with Christine Kinealy then I will write to her - she will at least be capable of discussing what she wrote in context - not just snippets cherry-picked for effect. So much for your:

"(D)on't you dare suggest I have hidden behind cut-'n-pasted you distorting shit."

Examples of your mealy-mouthed waffle in response to a fairly direct and simple question:

1: "I believe the policy adopted by the British Government gave rise to the outcome - one million plus deaths and mass emigration for generations to come."

Ah so not deliberate then? Why not just say so?

2: "Whether the British Government had thought through their policies of non-action to their logical conclusion remains a moot point - the fact that those policies wrought the holocaust that it did does not - that's what Britain did (or didn't do - that's what happened)"

Well did they or didn't they? To state that they did nothing is ludicrous, it is a deliberate lie that can be clearly shown as such as the relief given is a matter of record.

3: "There is a logic behind the claim that what Britain did was deliberate - it suited Britain to have s subservient colony as a neighbour, but even if it was not a deliberate act of Genocide, it was an act of Genocide through malicious inaction - take your pick."

Ah so now it was deliberate, then it may not be? Are you totally incapable of making your mind up on anything?

As for this one - I will repeat the complete sentence:

"Ireland had up until 1801 been self-governing, the fact that it was corrupt and inefficient through a mixture of indolence and ignorance was no fault of mainland Britain, or it's Government."

Well up until 1801 Ireland did have it's own Parliament didn't it? It passed laws, set taxation, raised revenue didn't it? So who then could be held accountable for the state of the country, it's lack of investment, it's corruption, it's way of doing business, it's lack of engagement in any attempt at improvement? Certainly NOT the British Government - on mainland Great Britain all investment, improvement and innovation was PRIVATELY funded.

"There we go - Trevelyan writ large" - Are you surprised? Here we have a senior Civil Servant repeating what every commission that had looked into the state of affairs in Ireland had previously stated - Doubt that Christmas then read the findings of the Devon Commission 1845.

On the charge of racism this man John Mitchel famous for his 1861 work "The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)" that gave rise to the often quoted phrase - "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." Is the same John Mitchel who in 1857 founded the "Southern Citizen" to promote - "the value and virtue of slavery, both for negroes and white men", advocate the reopening of the African slave trade and encourage the spread of slavery into the American West." Yet this is a man that you say commands your respect - more evidence of your hypocrisy and double standards.

By the way, can you explain why with Ireland blight free in 1847 the death toll was so great? Something to do with the Irish eating all the potatoes, including those distributed as seed potatoes? That the British Government's fault as well?