Talk:Great Famine (Ireland)/Archive 3

An interesting article. I wonder if it might be appropriate to mention the fact that the Potato Famine wasn't restricted to Ireland but also affected the Scottish Highlands causing famine on a comparable scale and leading (among other causes) to the Highland Clearances of people to Nova Scotia. For some reason Scots don't remember the Potato famine with the same intensity as Irishmen. -- Derek Ross 22:26 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)


 * Yeah, great idea. It would add a lot of additional perspective to the page. You might know more about it than I do. If not, I can add in some mention. JTD
 * Please do. I only know what I've read on the Web.  -- Derek Ross

Because there were neaps as well as tatties, perhaps? Or more seriously, because there were already population movements underway from other causes, which both outweighed these problems and had already opened up avenues for moving into other lifestyles - the overheads of disruption were sunk cost from the clearances.
 * That makes sense. The Clearances themselves raise strong feelings among Scots but they were already underway when the Great Famine started. -- Derek Ross

On the Irish issue, all I can contribute from oral tradition is that my mother's lot tended to look down on those that emigrated to the USA as predominantly economic refugees (as we would now say), which is in distinction to how I have heard reports that ethnic-Americans look down on those left behind as not having what it took to emigrate (as opposed to those leaving not being able to cope). Also, modern Greenies who try to make you eat unpeeled potatoes claiming the peel is good for you claim "the poor Irish wouldn't have wasted it". Well, my mother told me how they instead used to peel it very thick, to get enough to start a new potato with (you had to have an eye). PML.

Didn't the Highland expulsions happen in an earlier century?
 * They started on a large scale about 1790 and went on until the 1850s. There were several causes.  One of them was the Great Famine. -- Derek Ross

When I read this I can"t help but get a lump in my throat as I taste an apology for genocide:

Critics have observed how during this time, Irish and Anglo-Irish landowners exported corn (and other crops) which could have saved the lives of many Irish people. However such arguments mis-understand the nature of the famine economy, where many estates were only kept afloat and so were able to avoid mass evictions, provide local famine relief or were able to reduce rents, through the grain exports income. Economic historians have concluded that not to continue the export could have plunged the entire Irish economy into economic meltdown; without the income, estates would have gone bust, leading to mass evictions, the laying off of estate staff, the resultant closure of local shops, businesses and industry all of which were reliant on income from the estates, and the spreading of the economic hardship and devastation throughout all of Ireland, including those parts to that point not heavily hit by the early stages of the famine, notably in east and north of the island. It was the classic 'no win' situation faced by many economies hit by famine.

Is it so important to keep plantations going as exporting concerns when a beaten population is held in check by a standing army? It happened over 150 years ago; but, they were still people. Not units in sim city. 700,000 people. I think this paragraph mis-understands basic humanity. It was a classic no-win situation like the Ukranian export famine under Stalin. Down to the use of "greater good" jusification. That aside it is a pretty good article. Two16 23:28 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

I'll give a practical example. A local landlord where I am from provided soup kitchens, work relief and reducing the local rents to almost nil. He could only do this through the money he earned from exports (which he reduced to the bare minimum required to keep the estate afloat. The rest he milled locally. If exports had been stopped, his estate would have gone bankrupt. So would all the local shops, millers, etc relying on it. Thousands of jobs in the local area would have been lost, including those of local estate workers. And new owners would have come in who, having spent a large sum buying the estate would want an instant return. Where that happened, they used hiked up rents massively, or evicted ALL the previous tenants, to replace them with people who could pay more rents. 30% of the locals were hit by the famine severely (I'm from Leinster, where the effects were less severe, though nearby we do have a 'famine village' - ie, a field where the outlines of the houses in an entire village that died can be seen.) If exports were halted, 70%+ would have been hit severely, making the situation even worse. If estates countrywide collapsed, the effects would have spread the disaster beyond the poorer rural areas right to the heart of urban Ireland and the less heavily famine-hit east coast area. Somewhere in the region of 700,000 to 800,000 died. Had a domino-effect series of bankrupcies of estates taken place, that figure might have doubled, as those who could just about get by would find themselves also evicted and destitute, as would hundreds of thousands of people who would lose their jobs in towns and cities. One historian at a conference described the continued exportation 'not as the best, but the least worst option.'

The solution initially proposed was that special Indian Maize was imported by the government and paid for out of the exchequer, allowing the exports to continue (so avoiding economic collapse). This initial policy was judged adequate by subsequent historians, as it provided food for the starving while avoiding massive economic chaos that risked making things worse. Unfortunately an ideologically driven government under Lord John Russell was elected which abandoned Peel's maize importation policy, replacing it with a completely inadequate set of policies that, to use a modern comparison, could be described as 'workfare'. [User:Jtdirl|JTD]] 23:48 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

I don't need an example to understand. That paragraph explains away the death of 700,000 people as an economic necessity. And you don't see anything wrong. In the absence of responsible government and under foreign rule the food of the land was sent away to feed other people in other places.Do I need to reiterate that this was the same circumstance as the Ukraine under Joeseph Stalin. I don't have an axe to grind about somebody needing to be held accountable. But please don't misunderstand what I am saying and please don't try to tell us that the maintainace of the colonial economy was a suitable defence for the food export. If the population had not been driven off their land and into tenancy, if they were not occupied militarily, if there were not lavish lifestyles for the aristocracy, if there was not a historical policy of cultural genocide, those people need not have died.Those people were not mere fodder units. They were starving to death. Emmaciated. Sahal thin. Perhaps all those people could have lived if the rural poor were not so terribly poor and so terribly disenfranchised.

It was an ideological famine. Just like the Ukraine.Lets not defend the death of thousands with a stupid ideology

And as for the bit about peeled  or not peeled... depends on the season, the recipe,the type of potato and the scarcity of potato. Yes peelings will grow and in some places like P.E.I. Canada it is illegl to throw out potato skins because it interfers with agricultural purity. 64.229.15.189 00:32 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

64.229.... despite the validity of your point, i would encourage you to create a login, and an identity. this helps to facilitate more thoughtful discussions on NPOV issues. see Accountability -Sv

Sorry i get a time out if i stay on the same page too longTwo16 00:43 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

I uberunderstand. -Sv

I think the version I just read (1/10) is vastly improved, really quite good. Good job, Slrubenstein

excellent, man. really good work. vast improvement on that marxist claptrap i saw here once. 159.134.168.33

hehe, I love anonymous rattlings. :] --Sv

-

I don't think the topic of genocide need nessessarily be broached in the   article. Just the facts. I think that a npov article might be able to be written without mentioning it at all. But I could be absolutely wrong about that.

My objection was to this paragraph:

Critics have observed how during this time, Irish and Anglo-Irish landowners exported corn (and other crops) which could have saved the lives of many Irish people. However such arguments mis-understand the nature of the famine economy, where many estates were only kept afloat and so were able to avoid mass evictions, provide local famine relief or were able to reduce rents, through the grain exports income. Economic historians have concluded that not to continue the export could have plunged the entire Irish economy into economic meltdown; without the income, estates would have gone bust, leading to mass evictions, the laying off of estate staff, the resultant closure of local shops, businesses and industry all of which were reliant on income from the estates, and the spreading of the economic hardship and devastation throughout all of Ireland, including those parts to that point not heavily hit by the early stages of the famine, notably in east and north of the island. It was the classic 'no win' situation faced by many economies hit by famine.

Am I misunderstanding the famine economy if I don't particularly think that an island with a food surplus should be exporting food in atime of famine? I don't think that if the estates went bust and exclusive fishing rights returned to the locals that people would have starved. The worst part of that paragraph is "It was the classic 'no win' situation faced by many economies hit by famine." Economies don't face famine: people face famine. I wonder what it looks like. 700,000 people recieved a terminal case of Malthus and Calvanism and it gets reduced to the costs of Empire and estate. Is it simply a matter of understanding a balance sheet better?

I don't think I am responsible for any content in this article. I have raised objections to this paragraph on the talk page. The response on this page has been dismissive and the detrimental in the article.
 * We should probably tread lightly where geocide is concerned and remove the ironic(?) quotation in the subheading
 * those italicise someread as dirision
 * I think that every exclaimation mark in an enclclopedia article should have to work hard to defend itself

I think this might might help us figure out if the shoe fits. And again let me state my belief that it may be possible to write this article with out mentioning the word genocide.

From the wikipedia article Genocide

Definition of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. It contains an internationally-recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:"
 * (a) Killing members of the group;
 * (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
 * (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
 * (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
 * (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

1 paragraph removed Common usage also sometimes equates genocide with state-sponsored mass murder, but genocide as defined above does not imply mass murder (or any murder) nor is every instance of mass-murder necessarily genocide. Neither is the involvement of a government required.

The word genocide is also sometimes used in a much broader sense, as in "slavery was genocide", but this usage is clearly incorrect from a legal standpoint.

International law
2 paragraphs removed Acts of genocide are generally difficult to establish, since intent of destruction has to be proved.

Related concepts
Genocide is nowadays considered a crime against humanity, but the initial definition of that concept established during the Nuremberg trials was restricted to acts committed during wartime or directed against the peace and would therefore not have included all acts of genocide.

As mentioned above, state-sponsored mass murder is sometimes equated with genocide. The more precise term for this is democide.

Cultural genocide refers to the deliberate destruction of a culture, without necessarily fulfilling the criteria of genocide. This term has been criticized as trying to benefit from the emotionally charged nature of "genocide".

I cut what I thought would not affect understanding as it relates here because of length. Feel free to read the whole article. Let me make it perfectly clear that we do not need to use the word geocide only with a strictly International Law definition. We are not a court of International Law. I am not some crazed Boston Dentist: I am a Canadain just passing through. Canada for those of you who don't know, is a country which pursued for many years a policy of genocide as defined under International Law against its First Nations ... at the top of my talk user page I have a request that writers not promote genocide because that form of speech is not free;but, criminal in my land. I have seen none anywhere I have been in the wikipedia and none specifically in these pages about the famine.

Next I'm going to remove those offensive quotes 64.229.11.123 User:Two16  Two16 08:41 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

So what you are saying, Two, is that the universal view from the vast majority of historians, statisticians, researchers, etc that it is wrong to use the word 'genocide' in the context of the famine, is incorrect. Out of interest, I looked up some famine web-pages who assert the genocide claim. One is linked to the far left Republican Sinn Féin (whose other pages on Irish history are so factually wrong it takes your breath away. I could fill these pages with the list of clangers!), which has next to no political support in Ireland. Another is linked to 'Irish Northern Aid' (known as Noraid), and organisation at best unpopular in Ireland. (Its ex-leader was probably the most unpopular person to visit Ireland, whenever he came over, with widespread calls that he be jailed.) I found another on a wesbite linked to something called the 'Brits Out of Ireland' (BOI), whose political agenda was obvious. The point made in the article here is that though a significant minority among Irish Americans adhere to the genocide theory, the overwhelming majority of academics, researchers, writers, people working with the primary documents, and the vast vast majority of the Irish people reject the genocide claim as at best ill-informed. A lot use a lot stronger language about the claim and sometimes about those who promote it. Many suggesting it may be totally genuine, but using emotional, exploitative and agenda-led language in place of objective facts is wrong, wrong for trying to understand the famine, wrong for Ireland, and wrong and damaging to Wiki's reputation. JTD 21:46 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

No not really.But we can start here. If the definition of genocide (in part) from the wikipedia is:

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948 and came into effect in January 1951. It contains an internationally-recognized definition of genocide which was incorporated into the national criminal legislation of many countries, and was also adopted by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:"
 * (a) Killing members of the group;
 * (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
 * (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

don't you think we need to look at the defintions used to achieve that "universal view from the vast majority of historians, statisticians, researchers." If the facts fit the U.N. defintion, a case may be made regardless of what the  "overwhelming majority of academics, researchers, writers, people working with the primary documents" think. If we know the definitions they used, then we will know how much weight to accord their opinion and we can compare them to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Primary document workers can give us facts; but, we must evaluate them. This is enough for now. Lets deal with it bit by bit. Two16 23:48 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

Fair point. Except all the evident archives, and all the major academic research by all the major academics in Ireland (who have direct access to those archives), are agreed on one fact. That what happened in Ireland lacked THE most fundamental necessity, as indeed quoted by you above as a requirement for genocide, the INTENT to destroy. That is the central motivation that must exist, in explaining what happened, for something to be genocide.

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler etc all deliberately had the intent to destroy. It didn't matter what the longterm numbers, or long term effects were, it was the INTENT that made it by definition genocide. That the British government policies destroyed is not in doubt. But no evidence has ever been found of an INTENT to destroy. Sir Charles Wood, who was the notorious Chancellor of the Exchequer who famously refused to spend money, didn't do so with the aim of killing x% of the starving Irish. His fanatically held beliefs in laissez faire, led him to insist that LOCAL problems should be solved through LOCAL actions, paid for by LOCAL taxpayers in the Poor Law Unions. He acted exactly the same in crises in Britain. The only difference was that local MPs in Britain had more political clout within the national political elite to highlight what was happening, not that that made much difference when it came to the pennypinching chancellor. He had to be brought kicking and screaming to the realisation that Ireland's Poor Law Unions simply couldn't deliver the relief necessary; in fact they made it worse, because rates were charged on local landlords based on their tenancy numbers. If they were getting reduced rents and escaling rate bills, they often opted to evict tenants to cut costs on the rates bills, adding to the dependencies, which upped the rates bill, which then often led to more evictions, which added to the dependencies, which. . . the circle went on.

In addition, Ireland was a different island, which meant, to use the old cliché, out of sight, out of mind. The same features in the relations between Hawaii and the US, Corsica and France, Sardinia and Italy. National govts don't fully grasp what is happening if they are far removed from it. So British elites were out of touch with Ireland, and Ireland's agricultural economy was already teetering on the brink before the famine. (So were Irish leaders. O'Connell didn't grasp the seriousness of the famine while in the House of Commons in London. William Smith O'Brien, leader of the 1848 Young Irelander rebellion, was so out of touch he expected his supporters to supply provisions and weapons, ignorant of the fact that all they had in the world was a couple of days supply of Indian maize to keep them alive.) The conspiracy theory sounds interesting but, contrary to what some 'famine geocide' studies courses in the US (one prominent one was slagged off in Ireland with the statement that it should re renamed the 'Bart Simpson School of Historical Accuracy'.) If all the top academics researching the topic, all the top statisticians, all the top economic researchers, all agree that the Irish famine simply does not match up to the criteria for genocide as set out a range of bodies, not least the UN (and as I say, it fails the test you yourself set in terms of 'intent' to destroy), then there is a pretty weak case, to put it mildly, for a supposed genocide. Historians have to judge a historic periods on that period, not apply meanings retrospectively. As Joe Lee observed, the Irish Famine was all too typical of such famines of that period, in areas isolated from government decision-taking, where the governing elite were out of touch, geographically and mentally, with the area hit by famine.

-JTD, continued on Talk:Irish potato famine