| The Great Famine |
|
|
|
|
| Contemporary Reports on the Famine | |
| Contemporary Views of the Famine | vassar.edu |
| Visual Representation: Irish Famine 1845 - 1849 | Queen's University Belfast |
| A Critical Examination of a Selection of Travel Writing Produced During the Great Famine | Cork University |
| The Irish famine as represented in 19th century literature | enotes |
| James Mahoney's Account, 1847 | Eyewitness To History |
| Thomas Carlyle's 'Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849' (on-line book) | Irish History Links |
| A Medical Survey of the Irish Famine of 1846 | Pub med central |
| The British view: Punch cartoons | Irish Historian |
| Blight and Disease | |
| Return of the Potato Blight | whyfiles |
| Potato Blight | wesleyjohnston |
| Researcher Identifies Irish Famine Pathogen | ScienceDaily |
| Relapsing Fever | Online Encyclopedia |
| Fever During the Famine | BBC |
| Typhus | homepage.mac.com |
| Potato famine blight DNA decoded | BBC |
| Monoculture and the Irish Potato Famine: cases of missing genetic variation | Berkerley University |
| Relief Programmes | |
| The Soup Kitchens | suite101 |
| Private Responses to Famine | Cork University |
| American Donations | Cork University |
| Outdoor Relief | Clare Library |
| Central Relief Committee | University of Cork |
| Peel's Relief Programme to July 1846 | wesleyjohnston |
| Workhouses and Poor Law Unions and Bantry Workhouse, County Cork | ~turner |
| Workhouses in Ireland | ~rootsweb |
| Poor Law Unions in Ireland | Wisconsin University |
| A Nation in Distress: the Poor in Ireland | ancestry.com |
| The Board of Works | nationalarchives.ie |
| Mortality in the North Dublin Union During the Great Famine | ideas.repec.org |
| Carrick-on-Shannon Workhouse and the Famine | ~gartlan at iol.ie |
| The Famine Soup Kitchens | Limerick.com |
| Local Effects of the Famine | |
| Famine in Kerry | rootsweb.com |
| Famine in Kilkenny | rootsweb.com |
| The Great Famine in County Mayo | mayo-ireland.ie |
| The Famine in Mayo | maggieblanck.com |
| The Great Hunger Memorial in Clare | Tour Clare |
| The Famine in Skibbereen | BBC |
| Sligo Famine Memorial | Irish History Links |
| Economics, Agriculture and Land-holding | |
| Irish Potato Famine and Trade | american.edu |
| Pre-Famine economics and Poverty | wesleyjohnston |
| Ireland: society and economy, 1815 - 1870 | Cork University |
| Pre-Famine agriculture | wesleyjohnston |
| The Potato | wesleyjohnston |
| Irish Grain Trade 1839 - 1848 | Wisconsin University |
| Speech on the second reading of the bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws | Victorian Web |
| On Land Monopoly in Ireland: Cecil Woodham-Smith | Cooperative Individualism |
| The Genocide Question | ||
| Against the genocide argument | ||
| For the genocide argument | ||
| Neutral arguments | ||
| 1) The Famine Was Not Genocide The famine was an example of misguided economic policy combined with indifference.
|
||
| Why
1,000,000 died 'It is an example of a terrible tragedy, but one that is inevitable only when the profit motive comes before people.' |
The Struggle Site |
|
| Irish
Potato Famine 'That
the Famine "amounted to genocide" by the British against the Irish is a
divisive issue and largely representative of the difference in
perspective and attitudes among the Irish-Americans from Irish
nationals. Few Irish historians accept outright such a definition, as
"genocide" implies a deliberate policy of
extermination. '
|
Ireland Information Guide | |
| Irish
FAQ: The Famine 'Those who look for a simple answer usually settle on one of two targets: the British government of the time or the Irish themselves. The government is accused of genocide and even of instigating an "Irish holocaust". The Irish are accused of marrying too early and having too many children, making a Malthusian catastrophe inevitable.' |
mojairlandia |
|
| An
Act of Providence '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'... a widespread belief... that the
famine
was a divine judgment.'
|
BBC | |
| Who Murdered
the Irish? 'The
men in Whitehall...
were gripped by the most horrible, and perhaps the most universal, of
human maladies: the belief that principles and doctrines are more
important than lives.'
|
sadlyno.com (quoting from A.J.P. Taylor). | |
| The
Irish Famine in History '[The
famine] can not be
explained away by utilizing the concepts of hate, genocide, evil, or
persecution to mask and obscure its complex and ancient cultural
architecture.'
|
cbladey at verizon.net | |
| The
Hunger '[Trevelyan] set about introducing this free market lunacy into the situation in Ireland... He said "..[relief efforts] should be stopped now or you run the risk of paralysing all private enterprise and having this country on you for an indefinite number of years".' |
Socialist Review | |
| The Great Irish Famine and the Holocaust 'In the case of the Great Famine no reputable historian believes that the British state intended the destruction of the Irish people, and the Famine-Holocaust comparisons provide no support either. Yet one million died. Does intentionality matter?... It does matter, for at least three reasons. First, it directly determines the scale of the tragedy.[...] Second, the cruelty, often wanton cruelty which attached to the treatment of Jews has virtually no parallels in the Irish case.[...] Third, intentionality is relevant to the question of responsibility, a question inextricably bound up with the politics of memory.' |
Queen's University Belfast | |
| Was the Famine Genocide? 'No. "Genocide" is defined in the Shorter Oxford as " the (attempted) deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group".British policy was anything but deliberate and systematic. The government did not prevent extra food from being imported (indeed the repeal of the Corn Laws had the opposite effect). The government did not force exports to continue: Irish farmers chose to export their produce.' |
faqs.org | |
| The potato in Ireland and the 'Great Hunger' 'There are those amongst the Irish who consider the Great Hunger to have been an act of genocide...But the spuds were the problem. There they were, the one good crop, rotted in the ground across the whole island.' |
Link to Steve Roy Edwards removed as no longer available |
|
| The
Economist and the Famine 'Although...Wilson was horrified by death and suffering caused by the Irish famine of 1845-49, his principles required him to advocate non-interference. 'The Economist has suggested no plan", wrote... Lord Clarendon... "You in fact say do nothing, which is exceedingly comfortable for a gentleman writing by his fireside in London".' |
Link to Swansea University removed as no longer available. | |
| Blair
blames Britain for famine deaths '"Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy" [Tony Blair]... Historians agree that the British government could not be held solely responsible for the tragedy.' |
Link to Swansea University removed as no longer available. | |
| Economical
with the Irish '...natural wealth creation require[d] that Irish paupers be left alone to naturally die in agony. The Economist's official historian celebrates the fact. It was not an accident or a misunderstanding. It was absolutely central to a world-view that has carried on right to this day. ' |
Link to Athol Books removed as no longer available | |
|
2) The Famine Was Deliberate Genocide The famine was a calculated campaign of genocide. |
||
| How
British Free Trade Starved Millions During the Irish Potato Famine 'British
"free trade" policy--the same policy Thatcher and her imitators still
fanatically insist upon--caused the genocide of 2 million out of 8
million Irish subjects in four years.'
|
The Schiller Institute | |
| Irish Holocaust Denial and the Campaign Against Sinn Fein/IRA 'Irish Holocaust denial, or genocide denial, which refers to itself as
revisionism, has evolved over three decades of propagandising as an
important "cutting edge" ideological weapon in the ideological war
against the IRA after 1969.'
|
Indymedia Ireland | |
| History of the Great Hunger 'Relief efforts... were stymied by the British
government at every level least the devastation should fall short of
the desired expectations -- the more Irish peasantry [i.e., Catholics]
dead the better. British landowners would rather see cattle and sheep
on the land than Irish people.'
|
Fenians NKY | |
| The mass graves of Ireland 'Is Britain's cover-up of its 1845-1850 holocaust in Ireland the most successful Big Lie in all of history?' |
Irish Holocaust | |
| The Irish Famine, or Passive Genocide 'In our time, an
enforced famine such as this would be labeled genocide yet in the 1800s
it was merely an unfortunate tragedy.[...] The British policy of
mass starvation inflicted on Ireland from 1845 to
1850 constituted "genocide" against the Irish People as legally defined
by the United Nations. A quote by John Mitchell (who published The
United Irishman) states that "The Almighty indeed sent the potato
blight, but the English created the Famine."'
|
Text retrieved by Irish History Links | |
| 'Rome
was responsible' 'Rome engineered a Holocaust in Ireland and then proceeded to blame the British Protestants.' |
reformation.org | |
| History
Corner: The Great Irish Famine 'Never in the history of mankind was there a government who acted so cruelly to its people... [It] manipulated the facts to cover up the real truth of what was happening in Ireland the mass murder of its people and the destruction of Ireland.' |
Wolfe Tone Society |
|
| Irish 'Famines' - Acts of God, Colonial Mismanagement or Genocide? 'Was this catastrophe merely because of a potato blight? Are we seriously being asked to believe that, in a country producing wheat, corn, dairy produce, with great herds of cattle, pigs, goats and poultry - enough food to feed three times its 1841 population - that a blight affecting only the potato crop could eliminate 25 per cent of the population in the space of three years?[...] "The Great Hunger" was no isolated incidence but part of a continuing theme through the 18th and 19th Centuries. [...] There can be no argument that genocide, the eradication of the Irish nation, was the official policy of the English conquests from the end of the 16th and through the 17th Century.' |
Irish Democrat | |
| The Irish Famine was Genocide 'From 1845-50, The British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical and racial group known as the Irish People. This British policy caused serious bodily and mental harm to the Irish People within the meaning of Genocide Convention Article II(b). This British policy also deliberately inflicted on the Irish People conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction within the meaning of Article II(c) of the Convention. Therefore, from 1845-50 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland which constituted acts of Genocide against the Irish People within the meaning of Article II(b) and (c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention.' |
Global Research | |
| Irish Holocaust - Push to Educate the Facts (Facebook group) Where there is plenty of food, there can be no famine at all. |
||
| US
'clarifies' Irish History 'Children in schools across America look set to be taught that the Irish potato famine last century was an act of genocide by the British government, comparable to the Holocaust.' |
Link to Swansea University removed as no longer available. | |
| The Lie of
the Potato Famine 'The widely-accepted English account of the Starvation must now, at long last, give way to truth... As Hibernian Brothers, it is our duty to correct the historical record by... teaching the truth of this, one of the most shameful episodes of Western civilization.' |
Link to pioneernet/connolly removed as no longer available | |
| Genocide 'It is difficult to refute the indictment made by one humanitarian English observer in the later stages of the Famine, that amidst "an abundance of cheap food...very many have been done to death by pure tyranny".' |
Link to Nebraska Dept. of
Education removed as no longer available. A copy can be seen here. |
|
| The Irish Holocaust 'It amazes me that there are people today who would have you believe that the potato blight and the ensuing carnage was a "natural" disaster.' |
Link to Nancy Monaghan removed as no longer available. |
|
|
3) Ambiguous Arguments No definite conclusion on the genocide charge. |
||
| The
Great Hunger '... Charles Trevelyan, a civil servant with responsibility for Irish famine relief, believed the famine was divine retribution. The overpopulation of Ireland, he wrote, being altogether beyond the power of man, the cure had been applied by the direct stroke of an all-wise Providence in a manner as unexpected and as unthought of as it is likely to be effectual.' |
hartford-hwp, taken from An Phoblacht | |
| What
Caused the Irish Potato Famine? 'Ireland was swept away by the economic forces that emanated from the most powerful and aggressive state the world had ever known. It suffered not from a fungus... but from conquest, theft, bondage, protectionism, government welfare, public works, and inflation.' |
Ludwig von Mises Institute | |
| Suggestions of genocide 'Debate and discussion on the British government's response to the failure of the potato crop in Ireland and the subsequent large-scale starvation, and whether or not this constituted what would now be called genocide, remains a historically and politically-charged issue.' |
Wikipedia (famine page) | |
| Great Irish famine 'Clearly, during [the famine] the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, and racial group commonly known as the Irish People.. [A counter-argument runs that] genocide includes murderous intent and it must be said that not even the most bigoted and racist commentators of the day sought the extermination of the Irish.' |
Wikipedia (genocide page) |
|
| Irish Famine education and the Holocaust 'straw man' 'I concluded that analogy [with the Holocaust] was a propaganda device called the "straw man". Rather than answer to credible evidence of genocidal acts during the mass starvation, the British would argue that the "Famine" was not a genocide because it was not Holocaust.' |
American Chronicle | |
| Lessons of History: the Great Irish Famine 'In one sense the British were to blame for the disaster. The blame however lies not with Lord John Russell and his colleagues in 1846, but much earlier, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ' |
Link to The Freeman removed as no longer available. | |
| Hunger
for Justice 'The British were certainly not responsible for the fungus that killed the potato crop. But Great Britain, the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world at that time, did allow 1.5 million Irish men, women and children to die of starvation in a country they controlled, while substantial food supplies were shipped out of Ireland to England. ' |
Link to Swansea University removed as no longer available. | |
| The
Irish Famine: Interpretive and Historiographical Issues '...more recent "post-revisionist" scholarship has again lent support to the charge against the British, if not of deliberate genocide, then at the very least of culpable neglect: that the famine was due to centuries of deliberate civil and economic repression of the Irish, designed to strip the population of land and power in their own country.' |
Link to University of
Maryland no longer available. This article can be found quoted here. |
|
| The Significance of the 'Great Hunger' on the development of Ireland 'Irish international aid agencies have stressed the historic parallels between 1840s Ireland and the developing world. They are also committed to internationalising the Great Hunger and confronting ideologies that make such disasters possible.' |
Link to AOH Rhode Ireland removed as no longer available |