The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150911   Message #3617178
Posted By: Teribus
10-Apr-14 - 06:12 AM
Thread Name: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
Subject: RE: BS: Irish Potato Blight- Cause found
"Did Britain export enough food out of Ireland to feed the population several times over, as the#at nice Mrs Smith say they did?
If they did, would you care to justify it?"


Point 1: I can say with absolute certainty that Britain exported NO food out of Ireland.

Irish landowners and Irish farmers did export food out of Ireland between 1845 and 1851 in ever decreasing amounts, while at the same time the British Government along with quite a few British Charities did export an ever increasing amount of food TO Ireland during that same period. (You have actually been given the figures taken from Cormac Ó Gárda's Book)

Point 2: Justification for the export of any food from Ireland during the period 1845 to 1851? Now that is both simple and obvious Christmas - Those producing the food had to survive and Ireland needed the cash.

Point 3: Please don't get too hung up on this being a "Famine" - Lack of food was not what was killing people - disease was. (Figures already supplied - worst year of the "Famine" Black'47 ~250,000 people died in Ireland that year - of that number only 6,000 starved - normal yearly death toll in Ireland was something in the order of 134,000 - taken from Joel Mokyr's studies on the subject)

Ready for your next question Christmas

By the bye "what should have been done differently that actually COULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

I have listed the steps taken to provide assistance to relieve the effects of the Blight, and you seem to completely ignore the rather obvious fact that had there been a deliberate policy of genocide in place then no steps would have been taken at all.