Folklore/History: Irish Famine

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,WYSguest
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 07:15 PM

Is it a garpoon because the sound of the harmonica can so exquisitely pierce thru to the heart?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: ollaimh
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 06:41 PM

the fasmine was no natural disaster. the potato blight was a natural disaster that affected most of europe, only the irish starved. in hungary, belguim, france and germany the governments fed their people. the british did not because of their slavish adherence to the evil laissez faire ideals which trumped all humanitarian efforts. one historian i read recently concluded by saying: :"the fact remains that they(the irish) were citizens of the richest and most powerfull state in history and that they lived withing a few hundred miles of the centre of wealth and power, and they were allowed to starve." she couldn't use the g word as brits are generally still racist deniers about most of their humanitarian abuses.

a canadian note is that here the hundreds of thousand of starving refugees arrived in coffin ships wit h little or no facilities. most were dying from disease due to lack of nutrition and the total lack of basic safetly and health services on the coffin ships. the quarintine island were where most ended their lives; there are a quarter of a million burried on grosse isle alone. leaving about a hundred thousand children as orphans. true to form the english in ontario rioted to stop the influx of the diseased hordes. the quebecois on the other hand(who were among the poorest people in north america at the time) took in the orphans. they made a general policy of allowing them to keep their names no matter the names of the adoptive parents. hence in quebec nowadays if you are named mulroney, burns or o'malley people assume you speak french. the quebecois, unlike the english are very compassionate people. many risked their lives to help those on the quarintine islands by illegally ferrying over food and supplies and many quebecois doctors died there trying to cope with the total hunanitarian disaster.

the british empire and it's laissez faire philosophy was one of the great evils of the history of mankind and spawned the greater evil of the present " free enterprise capitalist" empire of america. they want freedom to pillage the world and ignore the cost to others.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 06:28 PM

It's an American site, and not unnaturally focusses its attention on what happened in America, especially in the context of other aspects of racism there. Most of the cartons on the page were in fact from England, and the point of the link was the cartoons.

If you can look at those cartoons and not recognise racist abuse there is no point in carrying on this discussion.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 06:05 PM

McG,

"As we've dared to call the monkeys in the Zoo by Irish names, Erin's sons, in wrath, declare us snobs and flunkies ;
And demand that we withdraw them–nor should we ignore their claims–
For it's really very hard–upon the monkeys"

That is an example of racist contempt for the Irish in USA.
That whole page is overwhelmingly about the US and does not support you contention at all.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 05:53 PM

Joe, if you are still following this, can you tell if Grumpy and JTT are really who they say?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: mg
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:46 PM

I have read several free kindle books written by people involved in the famine one way or the other..legislators, land managers etc. I am not left with the idea that absolutely nothing was done or that people or English specifically were totally heartless. Of course, some were. But things were done..they were inefficient, created more problems than they solved, etc...but logistics were horrible of course in those days. They would buy Indian corn, usually fed to livestock, and have no way of grinding it. They tore up good roads and had starving people build unusable ones. One great tragedy is that funds were set aside for draining lands that could have put huge numbers of people to work actually growing food...these were separate and prior to famine funds. People fought hard and long for these plans to be put in place but they never were used widely I think. Quakers did a magnificent job as far as I read. Other religions sometimes/often put religious conditions into feeding people, such as renounce your faith and we will feed you. Catholics in turn did some bad things to Protestants.

They of course were not all English landlords. Some were Irish, some were Dutch, some French. Without income from the yearly pig from each tenant, they could not pay their taxes, buy food for starving peasants, ship them abroad etc.

There was a huge plan to send huge numbers to Canada..I think it sort of fizzled. They really did thrash around and look for solutions. Some were called to court after the famine to account for their behaviors.

So everything bad that is said is undoubtedly mostly true, but there are other truths out there to complement it.

As to why they just didn't fish..some very rocky places to start with. When shores were accessible, peasants were forbidden to go within certain distances of them so they would not catch fish. Likewise deer, rabbits etc...They ate grass..as they did in our lifetimes in Iran. We also had famines or starvation in Sudan, Ethiopia, Cambodia. It is a very cruel world, made worse by religions that force overpopulation, which is behind famine, war etc....

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:24 PM

Grumpy, here is the conclusion of your piece.

Conclusion
Revisionism has polarised historical debate in Ireland and has stifled the more theoretical and philosophical approach to history which has developed elsewhere. Revisionism has dominated Irish historiography since the 1930s, and more intensely since the 1960s. However, as a new generation of historians emerges and more research is undertaken, it is unlikely that this domination will continue. This is not to say that revisionism in its various guises will disappear.

So, Grumpy and Jim, Revisionism is the "dominant" view among historians, and has been for decades.
How can you possibly object to it being briefly referred to in this thread?
What exactly is my crime?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:04 PM

Grumpy, did you read the piece you linked to?
It contains this.

"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. "

Illustration.
An Irish relief squadron distributing stores from HMS Valorous in the West of Ireland.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:00 PM

If you still think that racist contempt for the Irish was actively propagated in those days after looking through the ones on this page...

"As we've dared to call the monkeys in the Zoo by Irish names, Erin's sons, in wrath, declare us snobs and flunkies ;
And demand that we withdraw them–nor should we ignore their claims–
For it's really very hard–upon the monkeys"

Just good fun...

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:48 PM

Grumpy, you must have confused me with someone else.

I have not linked to Wiki once!
I have not made any case, slender or not!

getting on his high horse and deriding everyone else who disagrees with his malformed opinions.

I have derided no-one, but I have been derided.
I have not posted any opinion, malformed or not.
I have not been on a high horse.

I have provided 3 short extracts from historians with a different view to that provided by the other contributors.
That different view is now widely held by historians of the period.
If you were not aware of that fact, you should be grateful for the education.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:26 PM

"The person called Keith A. "
Peace bro' - you need to remember that the A stands for Arsehole
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,grumpy
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:06 PM

I get right pissed off by eejits with no sense of historicity who fumble their way around Google and Wikipedia links to support their acutely slender cases.

The person called Keith A. should at least have had the decency to have read this piece by Christine Keneally - http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/beyond-revisionism-reassessing-the-great-irish-famine/ before getting on his high horse and deriding everyone else who disagrees with his malformed opinions.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:03 PM

"That cartoon is not evidence that the English viewed the Irish as inferior."
You seem to progress from stupid to more stupid
Enjoy
Jim Carroll

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-punch-lines-that-kept-the-irish-in-their-place-taking-the-mick-1422052.html

http://irishstereotype.blogspot.ie/2010/01/racism-anti-irish-cartoons.html

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 02:03 PM

Correction, I posted 3 short extracts from 3 historians.
The third was from an education site and provided the kids with examples of each kind of historian.
Would you ban that Jim?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 01:50 PM

McG, what I described as shite was, "Scottish farms were struck by blight during some of the years when the Great Hunger was ravaging Ireland (1845-50 roughly), but the policy was quite different; aid was rushed in from London to support the hungry Scots."

Was I right or is that an accurate description of events?

That cartoon is not evidence that the English viewed the Irish as inferior.
Ireland was portrayed as Frankenstein's monster to make a political point about developments there.
You could find Punch cartoons showing Irish people in an unflattering way, but if you are honest you will concede that English people, especially the poor, were also depicted in grotesque caricature.
http://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/images/fullbanner6.jpg


Jim, You have posted pages and pages of stuff.
I have posted two short extracts from two historians who represent a different perspective to your stuff.

I myself am not a historian and am not qualified to say whether the nationalist or revisionist version are more accurate.

You think you are, and condemn me for just reporting it.
You would have those historians silenced?
Their books burned?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 10:54 AM

"We were discussing the famines, not the clearances."
When in a corner - cry "thread drift"
The two are relatede as both show the contempt the Bristish establishment for what they regarded as a lower class of humanity - "chimpanzees" "damned by God" in fact"
"You have posted enough of the "slightly incomplete" stuff."
then address it with proof - or even argument from some your "eminent and well respected historians".
Did Trevelyan not claim that the famine came as punishment by god?
Weren't 190,000 abandoned to die on the roadside by English landlords?
Didn't the English nobility use British taxes to move evicted tenants off to Canada.
If anything has been said here is wrong or untrue, counter it with
argument instead of hiding behing mystery "eminents" you pathetic little man.
All the "stuff" I put up is verified by both contemporary documentation and long term research - how about tackling some of it head on
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 10:29 AM

"That is, as I said, shite." It seemed reasonable to me to class that as a complaint.

I think my cartoon from Punch 1843 and some of the quotes Jim gave are ample grounds for the open exercise of "racist contempt" towards the Irish at that time. How generally this sentiment was held is an open questing, but it leaps out from any perusal of writing at that time.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 09:04 AM

"racist contempt"
Can that be justified Kevin?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 09:03 AM


But in this case it was you complaining of the slightly complete stuff, Keith. Though you used another term for it.

If you mean the "traditional" or "nationalist" history, I did not complain about it.
I just showed that it was not the only view.

Was I wrong to provide a couple of extracts, after all the pages of stuff that Jim has put up?

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 08:51 AM

But in this case it was you complaining of the slightly complete stuff, Keith. Though you used another term for it.

There were parallels between what happened in Scotland, both with the clearances and the potato blight, and it relevant to discuss that. But the same racist contempt for the Irish was not present.

And of course it wasn't present just in Britain - refugees who survived the jorney to America found it there to meet them - here's an American cartoon in the same tone as the one from Punch

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 08:19 AM

"That is, as I said, shite."
No it is not, it is slightly incompletete.

You are talking "slightly incompletete" then!
We were discussing the famines, not the clearances.

"Self-confessed ignoramus"
True I claim no specialist knowledge, but I have read some that are eminent and well respected historians who dispute your old nationalist history.
I posted some extracts.
Why would I not?
You have posted enough of the "slightly incomplete" stuff.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 07:53 AM

"That is, as I said, shite."
No it is not, it is slightly incompletete.
Many of the landowners in Scotland were British landed gentry, members of the House of Lords in many cases - The Duke of Sutherland being one of the worst offenders.
They voted money to be sent to Scotland to provide assisted passage to Canada for the tenants they evicted, thus using British taxes to clear their estates.
English churches and charities did send money to Scotland to provide some relief for the evicted tenants.
The only "troll" here is the self-confessed ignoramus who dominates these threads with his (usually unlinked) bespoke cut-'n-pastes which seem to be the sum total of his knowledge - guess who?
You have yet to respond to Trevelyan's (the feller who was doling out famine aid) statement on the famine being "God's punishment" and I doubt if you will.
Something else for you to ignore - during the Famine, (mainly English) landlords evicted a total of 109,000 families.
Given the size of Irish families (thanks to Christian Church doctrine), that adds up to somewhere between half and one million human beings left to starve and die of typhus and cholera by the English landed classes.
Now there's a bit of English history to be proud of, doncha think!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 04:53 AM

As far as I understand the Scots churches did a lot of money collecting and aid distribution. I think there was less pressure on population because of the earlier clearances. I know they had the same blight and the crofters suffered.
Overpopulation and mono culture is a problem that should be aired more often. I can see nothing good about the projected 10 billion of us. I should also like to see GB at about 40m.
- lower land/ house prices
-more wildlife habitat
-more living space- less conflict of land use.
- less global warming
I'm just not sure the best way to get there.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 04:02 AM

JTT, and I doubt it was the regular JTT, posted about the famine in Scotland.

but the policy was quite different; aid was rushed in from London to support the hungry Scots.

That is, as I said, shite.
No evidence for it and no truth in it.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:28 AM

"Anyone who doubts the reality of the Famine should read contemporary reports. There are plenty of them freely available now online."
"Just Today's Troll. All shite. No evidence. No truth."
Jim Carroll

From Sir Charles Trevelyan A leading exponent of this providentialist perspective, the British civil servant chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years

AN ACT OF PROVIDENCE?
The Irish were portrayed as freeloaders in the British press of the time Recent historians of the famine, while not neglecting the baleful role of the doctrine of laissez-faire, have been inclined to stress the potent parts played by two other ideologies of the time: those of 'providentialism' and 'moralism'. There was a very widespread belief among members of the British upper and middle classes that the famine was a divine judgment-an act of Providence-against the kind of Irish agrarian regime that was believed to have given rise to the famine. The Irish system of agriculture was perceived in Britain to be riddled with inefficiency and abuse. According to British policy-makers at the time, the workings of divine Providence were disclosed in the unfettered operations of the market economy, and therefore it was positively evil to interfere with its proper functioning.
A leading exponent of this providentialist perspective was Sir Charles Trevelyan, the British civil servant chiefly responsible for administering Irish relief policy throughout the famine years. In his book The Irish Crisis, published in 1848, Trevelyan described the famine as 'a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence', one which laid bare 'the deep and inveterate root of social evil'. The famine, he declared, was 'the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected... God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part...' This mentality of Trevelyan's was influential in persuading the government to do nothing to restrain mass evictions - and this had the obvious effect of radically restructuring Irish rural society along the lines of the capitalistic model ardently preferred by British policy-makers.
Finally, we come to 'moralism'-the notion that the fundamental defects from which the Irish suffered were moral rather than financial. Educated Britons of this era saw serious defects in the Irish 'national character'-disorder or violence, filth, laziness, and worst of all, a lack of self-reliance. This amounted to a kind of racial or cultural stereotyping. The Irish had to be taught to stand on their own feet and to unlearn their dependence on government.
'Moralism' was strikingly evident in the various tests of destitution that were associated with the administration of the poor law. Thus labourers on the public works were widely required to perform task labour, with their wages measured by the amount of their work, rather than being paid a fixed daily wage. Similarly, there was the requirement that in order to be eligible for public assistance, those in distress must be willing to enter a workhouse and to submit to its harsh disciplines-such as endless eight-hour days of breaking stones or performing some other equally disagreeable labour. Such work was motivated by the notion that the perceived Irish national characteristic of sloth could be eradicated or at least reduced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml#six

Also
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/race/Racism.html

http://www.eirefirst.com/archive/unit_2.html

Random quotes
...Furious fanaticism; a love of war and disorder; a hatred for order and patient industry; no accumulative habits; restless; treacherous and uncertain: look to Ireland...
As a Saxon, I abhor all dynasties, monarchies and bayonet governments, but this latter seems to be the only one suitable for the Celtic man.
Robert Knox, anatomist, describing his views on the "Celtic character", 1850

"I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country...to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black one would not see it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours.
- Cambridge historian Charles Kingsley, letter to his wife from Ireland, 1860"

"A creature manifestly between the Gorilla and the Negro is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London and Liverpool by adventurous explorers. It comes from Ireland, whence it has contrived to migrate; it belongs in fact to a tribe of Irish savages: the lowest species of Irish Yahoo. When conversing with its kind it talks a sort of gibberish. It is, moreover, a climbing animal, and may sometimes be seen ascending a ladder ladden with a hod of bricks.
Satire entitled "The Missing Link", from the British magazine Punch, 1862"

"This would be a grand land if only every Irishman would kill a Negro, and be hanged for it. I find this sentiment generally approved - sometimes with the qualification that they want Irish and Negroes for servants, not being able to get any other.
- British historian Edward Freeman, writing on his return from America, about 1881"

You would not confide free representative institutions to the Hottentots [savages], for instance.
- Lord Salisbury, who opposed Home Rule for Ireland, 1886

...more like squalid apes than human beings. ...unstable as water. ...only efficient military despotism [can succeed in Ireland] ...the wild Irish understand only force.
- James Anthony Froude, Professor of history, Oxford

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 03:06 AM

McG, that cartoon is not evidence that the English viewed the Irish as inferior.
Ireland was portrayed as Frankenstein's monster to make a political point about developments there.
You could find Punch cartoons showing Irish people in an unflattering way, but if you are honest you will concede that English people, especially the poor, were also depicted in grotesque caricature.
http://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/images/fullbanner6.jpg

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 01:02 AM

Btw, michaelr, I did go to that site and check out your new album. Very nice :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,SJL
Date: 17 Jul 13 - 12:55 AM

What the ruling classes of Britain went on to do elsewhere, they began at home:

Historians J.L. and Barbara Hammond in The Village Labourer 1760–1832 (1911) describe the workers who were driven into factories by the Enclosure Acts:

"The enclosures created a new organization of classes. The peasant with rights and a status, with a share in the fortunes and government of his village, standing in rags, but standing on his feet, makes way for the labourer with no corporate rights to defend, no corporate power to invoke, no property to cherish, no ambition to pursue, bent beneath the fear of his masters, and the weight of a future without hope. No class in the world has so beaten and crouching a history."

The Hammonds are obviously cultural historians. A nationalist historian would be someone who would deny or gloss over this "collateral damage." A cultural historian attempts to illuminate the experience of those who had no voice. British cultural historian, Hugh Cunningham, wrote a book that I read in my studies, "Leisure in the Industrial Revolution." He went into detail in an area that is seldom addressed even by other cultural historians, specifically, how the the changes outlined in the passage above deprived the lower class of their customary leisure activities. In addition to prohibition of their traditional festivities, public spaces, green spaces, swimming holes and foot paths were closed off to them by their betters, leaving them to the pubs.

In historically oppressed countries like Ireland (and Ukraine), cultural history and national consciousness go together as amending the record of the dominant culture to include the experience of one's own is part of cultivating national identity.

In the big picture, however, the question is first and foremost, the "Poor Question." This is the question that arose once a new extreme of poverty was established by the privileged, those who took greed and mean spiritedness to an unprecedented level. There can be no doubt that the Irish and Highlanders received an extra dose of venom in retaliation for their past efforts to rid themselves of their oppressors. The Holodomor is a parallel situation because the areas in both Russia and Ukraine that had traditionally been held by the Cossacks (who fought against the Soviets) were the areas hardest by the "famine." The Soviet government seized all their food for export in order to finance their technological goals. I don't see much difference in what the Soviets did in the name of socialism and what the British government did in the name of their own particular notion of "progress."

The Welfare State has alleviated the suffering of the poor to a significant degree, however, the model of disenfranchisement and resulting dependency constructed back then is still intact. And it bears mentioning that there are many who would gladly return to the days of the poor laws. All you would ever need to do is get out of the way and you would have it all back again.

For more than a century now, whenever the status quo has been threatened, for example in America during the great waves of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century or more recently the Civil Rights movement and counter-culture of the 60's, this is how the oligarchy keeps true democracy from emerging:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25/006.html

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 06:02 PM

There is no question but that the view that the Irish were inferior was common in England at the time. Look at this cartoon from Punch in 1843 for a pretty typical example.

It is common enough in disasters to have some people blaming the victims as responsible for much of their suffering. Consider the case of Katrina, where so much was made of stories of rape gangs and looting, and people trying to flee the city were even met with armed police preventing escape.

In the 1840s there were no TV reports galvanising a do-nothing government into relevant action. No, there wasn't any plan to cull the Irish peasantry. What there was was a view that what was happening was inevitable, and largely their own fault, poor benighted creatures.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:37 PM

JTT
Just Today's Troll.

All shite.
No evidence.
No truth.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:24 PM

No famine is caused only by a natural disaster. All famines are made worse by economics.
The trouble in the Great Hunger was that British policy of 'laissez faire' at the time took the Malthusian view that the Irish were an inferior race that should be allowed to starve so there'd be fewer of us.
Scottish farms were struck by blight during some of the years when the Great Hunger was ravaging Ireland (1845-50 roughly), but the policy was quite different; aid was rushed in from London to support the hungry Scots.
Anyone who doubts the reality of the Famine should read contemporary reports. There are plenty of them freely available now online.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 02:06 PM

unless I am going to go on record about what I did or didn't do with every famine in my lifetime...mg
A strong message and example to us all.
Thanks mg.
Good luck and best wishes with the cd.
keith.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: mg
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 02:00 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7LrYOS-Qk0

Here is Brendon Graham talking about his beautiful famine song..one of the most beautiful..as many are...this is about a mother leaving her red-head daughter in the graveyard.

I wish we had this song on our famine cd...and I am not trying to profit off it but share it..so PM me if you want to buy it..$10 US plus shipping. THere are several mudcat people on it...Seamus, Alice, Tony, Mick, myself...hope I am not forgetting someone...the songs are gorgeous and we are all of Irish descent ...it is in honor of our ancestors..mine came from Dingle and Tralee and possibly Blasket Islands and also probably CLonmanoise...three of the songs are about my own ancestors....we tried to keep the politics out..a little slipped in but it is mostly just hte human tragedy..which is repeated all over the world. I am not going to say one word about the English and what they did or didn't do unless I am going to go on record about what I did or didn't do with every famine in my lifetime...mg

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 01:52 PM

And yet again you refuse to respond to what has been presented to you.
You have documented evidence before you - from Government records, from the author......

Must I tell you again I am no historian?
I read what historians write after they have studied all those sources.

I find there is an old traditional version of famine history, and a version that modern historians have put in its place.
It says little for your scholarship that you were not even aware of that dichotomy, never mind the accepted terms for the 2 sides of the rift.

All I did was to give something of the modern view after the thread had dwelt at length solely on the traditional, nationalist version.

You have recently been an open apologist for every shitty little despotic regime
That is a nasty smear and a lie.
I have been an apologist for no regime.
If I had been, we could still have a reasoned discussion of this.
Do not try to make this about me again.
Do not make it personal.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 01:25 PM

"Jim, I am not the historian, and I did not expect you to agree with them all, but they are eminent and respected."
And yet again you refuse to respond to what has been presented to you.
You have documented evidence before you - from Government records, from the author and television producer who produced one of the most comprehensive series ever shown on British television - Robert Kee, a respected broadsheet newspaper sources reporting a British former Prime Minister's apology to the Irish nation for England's behaviour during the famine.... all unequivocal and fully documented proof of the events. You have even chosen to totally ignore the words of the Prime Minister responsible for the criminally murderous neglect of the famine victims by placing economic interest above saving the lives of starving people.
I can think of no better description for your attitude as Holocaust denial.
As for your past similar behaviour on other issues - far from being a "smear" - your reputation speaks for itself and has been archived.
And once again you are dominating a thread with yourultra-right propaganda.
Respond to the facts presented - in other words - piss or get off the pot.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,George Lambie
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 12:27 PM

Are there any records of comparison with the Belgium potato famine and the experiences on the Continent? If they were dealt with substantially differently and they were of similar severity then that would add weight to the case for deliberate genocide. At the moment I accept the culpability of the British establishment in failing to effectively prevent the horrors of the famine in Ireland but also believe that the situation was more complex than being looked at from a modern perspective - there was still no democracy as we understand it today and no modern accountable political culture which could have mobilised resources - these were eventually to start to come about after the First World War.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 10:38 AM

Jim, I am not the historian, and I did not expect you to agree with them all, but they are eminent and respected.

I did not choose the terms "nationalist" and "revisionist" as applied to historians of the famine.
Google "revisionist nationalist history famine ireland" and see what comes up.

Nothing I gave is unlinked.
The '56 piece was from an up to date source for schools on the differing views of the famine.
The link is provided!

That final nasty little smearing swipe at me is completely unjustified and unwarranted, but you always have to make these things personal.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 10:24 AM

Kevin is right. The "deny" usage is a solecism.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 10:20 AM

"Nationalist" is no smear Jim."
It is in my book - and it is not my position as you well know.
I have did over and over again in relation to Ireland that my position is that while the country is divided the trouble will continue, as proven by the "animilistic" (according to the head of the PSNI) behaviour of the rioters there over the last few days).
You have the evidence of the contemporary government statements from Peel and Trevelyan, you have the evidence from on the ground (all of which is available to you elsewhere (look up Lord Leitrim, the Vadeleur evictions, and everything else you have been given, the London Illustrated London News articles...)
Your unlinked cut-'n-paste is dated 1956 - way out of date as far as famine scholarship goes.
On the 150th anniversary of the famine there were a dozen or so new books published here, most of them confirming the stance that the British Government took - the "nationalist" account as you loadedly and dishonestly put it - they made it quite clear that the British Government were more interested in maintaining the economic status quo that they were in feeding the starving - as does Robert Peel's statement, which you have chosen to ignore.
You have recently been an open apologist for every shitty little despotic regime we have discussed and you have now added Ireland's history to that list - keep up the good work!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 08:38 AM

Thanks Kevin.

I googled, and the first 2 hits gave that.
The third hit was Oxford Dictionary which gave,

verb
[with object]prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; disprove:
(these claims have not been convincingly refuted)

•prove that (someone) is wrong:)
(his voice challenging his audience to rise and refute him)

•deny or contradict (a statement or accusation):
(a spokesman totally refuted the allegation of bias)

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 08:08 AM

Neither the Concise nor the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary admit that second meaning. Nor does Fowler's Modern English Usage.

The problem with using the word when the second meaning is intended is that it risks implying that the first meaning is intended. That is very often the intention, though I am not claiming that that was your intention.

It's analogous to using "accused" as if it meant the same as "convicted" in a court case.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 07:36 AM

Refute.
1. To prove to be false or erroneous; (overthrow by argument or proof:) refute testimony.
2. To deny the accuracy or truth of: (refuted the results of the poll.)

2, is what the historians do.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 07:27 AM

..or to intervene in a way that proves hopelessly inadequate.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 06:56 AM

Don't write "refute" when what you mean is "dispute", Keith.

"Deliberately imposed evil" has never been the point. Failing to intervene to save lives is another matter.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: GUEST,Iain
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 06:51 AM

I would say the lesson for us all is that the elite cannot be trusted to look after the little man when the paradigm gets busted.
The enclosure acts in England, the Highland clearances, the creation of a dependency on the potato in Ireland leading to the ensuing famine after the blight struck: These events all show the ruling classes engineered the circumstances leading to massive migrations. It is not just Ireland that suffered, although the dependence on the potato and the blight made the situation in Ireland far more severe. To argue it was or was not a famine or a catastrophe is to merely argue semantics. The facts are in the public domain and cannot be denied.
The present day erosion of liberty and employment in the west is beginning to show some very uncomfortable parallels with the recent past. To say that the study of history is futile would seem to revel in ignorance of both the past and the future. You might as well stick your head in a bucket of sand, but beware that reality does not kick you up the ******.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 06:17 AM

The revisionist response & interpretation: from the foreword to The Great Famine
R. Dudley Edwards & T. Desmond Williams (eds.), The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-52, 1956
The traditional interpretation of the Great Famine is
fundamental to an understanding of the character of
Irish society in the second half of the 19th century and
later. But if modern research cannot substantiate the
traditional in all its forms, something surely more
sobering emerges which is, perhaps, of greater value
towards an appreciation of the problems that beset all
mankind, both the governors and the governed in every
generation. If man, the prisoner of time, acts in
conformity with the conventions of society into which
he is born, it is difficult to judge him with an
irrevocable harshness. So it is with the men of the
famine era. Human limitations and timidity dominate
the story of the Great Famine, but of great and
deliberately imposed evil in high positions of
responsibility there is little evidence. The really great
evil lay in the totality of that social order which made
such a famine possible and which could tolerate, to the
extent it did, the sufferings and hardship caused by the failure of the potato crop.

http://www.iisresource.org/Documents/KS3_Famine_Interpretations.pdf

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 06:06 AM

"Nationalist" is no smear Jim.

Were you not aware that "revisionist" historians do not accept the view that "nationalist" historians have for so long regarded as objective truth.
Sorry, but that is a fact.
I am not a historian of any kind, and am just a messenger on this, so please don't shoot me.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:57 AM

As I said at the outset - Holocaust Denying - again
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: bubblyrat
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:57 AM

I have read books about this terrible event . I seem to recall being surprised that there could be such utter reliance on just one single foodstuff , in a country entirely surrounded by water ; why didn't they catch and eat more fish ?? But, apparently , as the crisis worsened , all the fishermen sold their boats and nets in order to buy food .Meanwhile , many tenant farmers continued to grow cereal crops in order to raise the money for their rents . Even if there had been sufficient grain available for bread production ,there were too few mills in Ireland to cope with the task of flour grinding ; another consequence of total reliance on the potato .
                     I believe that , in desperation , maize was distributed widely , but unfamiliarity with this alien substance led to tragedy in many instances of people eating it raw and unprocessed ; I believe that many children suffered grievously in this case. I suspect that the Irish ,for whom I have the greatest respect , and therefore no wish to insult them , were ,in many ways , the authors , to some extent ,of their own misfortune . Sorry , but it does seem rather obvious . But , whatever the cause or causes , it was definitely NOT "genocide" ; there were no egg-headed crazed scientists beavering away in secret laboratories in order to cultivate "in vitro" potato blight .Well, probably not ,anyway.

Subject: RE: Folklore/History: Irish Famine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jul 13 - 05:56 AM

"So Jim favours the "nationalist" version of the famine."
No Keith - I live surrounded by the history of the famine, my family were victims forced to flee the famine so it's a subject that interests me greatly, I have read and recorded a great deal of famine history - and most of all - I have posted a great deal of documented information on the subject, mainly from British historians who have based their findings on historically verified British documentation - REFUTE IT AND STOP ATTEMPTING TO SMEAR ME AND IGNORE HISTORICALLY VERIFIED FACTS
Jim Carroll