[Golden Legacy]

This is a topic I have had more substantial interest recently, and I am curious what your take on a this bit of history is. I'd also like to hear the opinions of the British here.

As a general background, the Great Potato Famine that struck Ireland was part of a broader plight that swept Europe. The conditions of Ireland were already fairly dire, most of the fertile land was expropriated by Britain and most of the Irish had to labour on as indentured servants (most would call it slave work), easily 1/3 of the population of Ireland was in poverty. Prime Minister Lord John Russell spoke of the need to resolve the "Irish problem" and the degree to which the famine could provide the solution.

The famine caused Ireland to lose 25% of its population, with 1.1-1.5 million Irish having starved to death. Many times that immigrated, mostly to the United States. Meanwhile, England continued to benefit from Ireland's harvest - the net export of Ireland actually increased in this period at the expense of the inhabitants - and the internal population was cut off and repressed, with thousands of families being forced of their land into mass poverty.

This annihalated the Irish language. The majority of the Irish spoke a language called Gaelic, and after the famine and the ineptitude (or the intent) of the policies of England to let suffer the population, the culture and language of Irish was broken and wiped out, with Gaelic today being a faint fraction of what it used to be and English now the dominant language, Gaelic today having withered away to nearly nothing. To this day, 150 years later, Ireland's population remains half of what it was before the famine.


This is at least the side I had never known before. I want to hear if people know about this, if people disagree and have other views, etc. What is taught in English schools about the Irish famine?

[TheEnglishman]

I can't say I was ever taught about this period of Irish history. The only time I really studied Ireland was during the time of the Irish Treaty in 1921, and that was only due to the fact we were studying Lloyd George's time in office.

[Laharl]

much like the way Religious Studies in this country dont cover the crusades or the Christian persecution of Jews, i dont think this is on the ciriculum at all for high schoolers. its just a way of getting people to get into the mindset of 'Britian is great and can do wrong'

i have read up a bit on the famine and i personally call it a kind of geno-manslaughter by the English, although the provided next to no aid, iirc the Irish were to blame for the famine in the first place by being completely reliant on potato farming.

[Toasty]

I remember being taught about the crusades and the persecution/etc., but I'm in America so.....:D

We also learned about the famine, but it was suggested that it was a disease that killed off the potato crops.

[Mallick]

Golden Legacy, on Feb 13 2009, 07:31 PM, said:

This is a topic I have had more substantial interest recently, and I am curious what your take on a this bit of history is. I'd also like to hear the opinions of the British here.

As a general background, the Great Potato Famine that struck Ireland was part of a broader plight that swept Europe. The conditions of Ireland were already fairly dire, most of the fertile land was expropriated by Britain and most of the Irish had to labour on as indentured servants (most would call it slave work), easily 1/3 of the population of Ireland was in poverty. Prime Minister Lord John Russell spoke of the need to resolve the "Irish problem" and the degree to which the famine could provide the solution.

The famine caused Ireland to lose 25% of its population, with 1.1-1.5 million Irish having starved to death. Many times that immigrated, mostly to the United States. Meanwhile, England continued to benefit from Ireland's harvest - the net export of Ireland actually increased in this period at the expense of the inhabitants - and the internal population was cut off and repressed, with thousands of families being forced of their land into mass poverty.

This annihalated the Irish language. The majority of the Irish spoke a language called Gaelic, and after the famine and the ineptitude (or the intent) of the policies of England to let suffer the population, the culture and language of Irish was broken and wiped out, with Gaelic today being a faint fraction of what it used to be and English now the dominant language, Gaelic today having withered away to nearly nothing. To this day, 150 years later, Ireland's population remains half of what it was before the famine.


This is at least the side I had never known before. I want to hear if people know about this, if people disagree and have other views, etc. What is taught in English schools about the Irish famine?

irish is better off with english than gaelic anyway, gives their citizens an opportunity to move some place better lolol

[Golden Legacy]

Laharl, on Feb 14 2009, 07:42 AM, said:

much like the way Religious Studies in this country dont cover the crusades or the Christian persecution of Jews, i dont think this is on the ciriculum at all for high schoolers. its just a way of getting people to get into the mindset of 'Britian is great and can do wrong'

i have read up a bit on the famine and i personally call it a kind of geno-manslaughter by the English, although the provided next to no aid, iirc the Irish were to blame for the famine in the first place by being completely reliant on potato farming.

The selective topics in the history of a nation play a role in forming the intended image, that the nation was not at fault and is somehow above what historical events dictate, I agree.

And to my knowledge, part of what contributed to the failure of crops in Ireland was the overworking of the fields by indentured workers. And it wasn't just the fact that potato crops failed, it was that Ireland was cut off by England (or neglected as some will say), and an effective siege was imposed. In fact, food was allowed out of Ireland but imports needed to account for starvation were cut off.

Toasty, on Feb 17 2009, 12:52 AM, said:

I remember being taught about the crusades and the persecution/etc., but I'm in America so.....:D

Until the day American textbooks talk about the wars and outright slaughter with Native Americans, I would not consider this anything to brag about.

Quote

We also learned about the famine, but it was suggested that it was a disease that killed off the potato crops.

We're all aware it was a disease that destroyed the Irish crops. The question here is did England stand by while Ireland was ravished, when much of the population was already in poverty beforehand? There are some, as I mentioned, that even go as far to say England wanted the famine to continue to destroy the Irish language/culture so that it could impose its sovereignty over it, i.e. the makings of a genocide.

[TheEnglishman]

Golden Legacy, on Feb 17 2009, 07:51 PM, said:

The selective topics in the history of a nation play a role in forming the intended image, that the nation was not at fault and is somehow above what historical events dictate, I agree.

To be fair we did get taught about things such as the Black and Tans from the Lloyd George period so they will teach things that reflect badly on Britain.

[Golden Legacy]

Oh no, I am certain there are events taught that reflect negatively on the nation. We learn about the 120,000 Japanese Americans that were sent to internment camps under Franklin Roosevelt's reign. In general, I find the events that are taught are fairly sporadic at times. Nothing about the Native Americans (or not enough) that were massacred, very little about the USA's foreign policy for the past 50 years which caused so much destruction and havoc in countless countries around the world, etc.

[TheEnglishman]

In my school I'm part of an extra history group (looked good on my uni application) which discusses themes in history, rather than facts. One of the issues that came up was how far history should be taught up to. The basic arguement was whether it was useful to look at more recent history as it was difficult to get historical sources, so that may be why recent events aren't taught.

[Sea of Time]

No way! I have to do a paper on this exact topic this week!