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We’ve stopped calling it the famine here and now it’s “the great hunger”.
Ireland was producing more than enough to feed itself but the British landlords were forcing the export of non-potatoes and leaving us to die.
The queen at the time politically shamed the Turks into reducing their aid to us because it was higher than hers.
What’s up, Turkey? We haven’t forgotten your generosity.
Massive, massive shout out to our Choctaw brothers and sisters in America who gave what they didn’t have after the trail of tears.
For those not familiar, we have never, ever forgotten that one.
Sculpture in Cork called “kindred spirits”:
Wait the Brits? Not the English? Ireland is part of the British Isles, doesn’t that make them Brits too?
Don’t start your car tomorrow
(I jest of course).
Ireland is not part of the British Isles
Ireland is absolutely part of the British Isles, just not part of Great Britain. I would say that it’s generally only considered correct to call someone from Great Britain British, rather than the Isles as a whole though. However, in common parlance I would say that people from Scotland and Wales use Scottish and Welsh more than British, with people from England using English and British interchangeably, and people from Northern Ireland (that are unionist anyway) using the term British over Irish. That’s all to say, you’d probably get a smack upside the head for calling someone Irish British, and rightfully so.
I’m Irish from the North and regardless of wikipedia, Ireland is not part of the British Isles. That is according to Ireland and the EU.
So you’re from Northern Ireland? Are you talking about Ireland the landmass or the Republic of Ireland? Regardless, that’s just not factually correct. Ireland, Great Britain and all the surrounding smaller islands make up the British Isles. Here’s a video explainer: https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-difference-between-the-united-kingdom-great-britain-england
A large contributor to Irish suffering were the British corn laws, a tariff that kept the price of barley, wheat, and oats artificially high. So when potato crops failed, the poor Irish couldn’t afford substitutes. Ironically, American maze was exempt from the corn laws, so much of that was imported to Ireland.
Tariffs: never any externalities or unintended consequences; you will certainly not regret imposing tariffs.
Not to mention that the Irish people had to sell all of their produce for very little money to their English landlords, who would then graciously offer to sell it back for a lot more than any Irish farmer could afford.
And just in case you ask “why not cut out the middleman and survive penniless on your own produce?”, remember how I said that the English were also their landlords?
Turns out that landlords were even MORE happy to throw poor people out for being unable to pay than they are nowadays and being homeless in mid 1800s Ireland wasn’t very survivable.
It is vitally important to understand that throughout the “potato famine” Ireland was a major exporter of food to the rest of the UK.
Irish farmers were growing all kinds of crops. Grains, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, etc, etc. All of these were sold to pay for the oppressive rents that they were forced to pay to English landlords who had stolen all of their land.
The potatoes the Irish grew were for subsistence, because all of the rest of their crops went to market. Even when the potato crops failed, there was more than enough food for everyone in Ireland, if the English would simply suspend rent collection for a short while, until the crop failures had passed.
Many motions to do so were put before parliament. All of them were rejected.
The Irish famine was not caused by a disease. It was caused by the intentional cruelty of the English.
The British didn’t cause the famine, they “just” made it worse.
And really it’s not even “the british” that are to blame. It was the rich land owners that continued to export the food grown in Ireland in order to make profit and the conservative (well, whig, but they are the spiritual predecessor to the modern conservatives and where politically conservative at the time) government that stopped and aid and refused to ban exporting food out of Ireland as they believed the famine was divine providence.
