An Gorta Mór

by pc Tue Jan 25, 2005 22:05

can't find one on the net, more remebered over there then over here? http://www.batteryparkcity.org/ihm.htm

by Barry Tue Jan 25, 2005 22:18

Without wishing to appear pedantic about such a serious issue though, I strongly believe we ourselves should consciously desist from referring to these events as a "famine". It is quite clear there was no shortage of food in the country whatsoever.

This term I believe only helps perpetuate the myth that these events were the result of natural disaster, rather than the result of Government policy and military co-ercion.
I know for many people the use of this word is unintentional in this respect, however I believe it is as misleading as the use of the phrase "war on terror".

Perhaps by simply referring to this holocaust for what it was may in time lead to a better understanding of what happened, and international recognition of a horrendous crime committed against this nation.

Just my own opinion on this, but I seriously believe in the point Im making.

by mac d Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:28

I agree, the exportation of Corn in the 1840s from Ireland was clearly more than was needed by the starving, I prefer the term "an Gort Mhor" to famine because it expresses the "hunger", and in my own understanding of the XIX century I link the bio-disaster of the arrival of blight in western Ireland and its spread throughout northern Europe killing all reliant on potatoes with the destruction of the other staple crop of southern europe in the same period- the vine.
In a brief period of twenty years European agriculture and the European poor fell victims to two forms of mould which wiped out their crops, caused devastation and caused subsequent continent wide immigration to the USA where the lucky to survive then had to fight each other for a slice of apple pie and get conscripted into the American civil war (sometimes thought of as the first "total war" of the age). Certainly none of them could have a bright time of it.

by Finkelstein Thu Jan 27, 2005 00:38

Lovely to see them finally getting the orthography right ....

by English Cockny Wanker Thu Jan 27, 2005 17:37

'Ow cam yew Irish, yeah, didn't take up fishing when you ran out of spuds? Like, your an island, aincha? Wuiv wivvers and lakes and shit.

by Michael Hennigan Thu Jan 27, 2005 18:52

Prior to the tsunami disaster, the previous occasion when a disaster in Indonesia had an impact in Ireland was in 1816 when there was no summer. It snowed in June and famine was widespread in Europe and New England.

In April 1815, Mount Tambora on the northern coast of Sumbawa island, blew up and and sent huge amounts of ash into the upper atmosphere. It was 13,000 feet (4,000 m) high prior to the volcanic explosion and is now 9,354 feet (2,851 m) high.

Back to an Gorta Mor, it's important of course that people understand their history and the impact of power systems on people's lives. However, rather than shouldering a victim's cross, it helps to also understand the systems which resulted in deaths from malnutrition in New York City in 1932 and for example the famine engineered by Stalin in the Ukraine the 1930's which resulted in 5m deaths. Then there are genocides- 1m Armenians killed by the Turks in 1915; the European colonisation of the Americas; Pol Pot and Cambodia's return to an agrarian society and so on.

While I don't wish to minimise any of the above, the Holocaust had a certain uniqueness about it - not because one people decided to wipe out a racial group ( that's what happened in Rwanda in 1994) but because a whole Continent was as one in hating and marginalising the Jews. It was that hatred that spread from the Urals to the Atlantic and gave power to the extremists who had a scapegoat in particular in Germany in the aftermath of the collapse of the currency in the early 1920's.

The following is a review of a book on the Eurasia Project, which analyses how economic hardship influenced the family and individual behaviour of Europeans and Asians from 1700-1900:

Life under Pressure
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1000269.shtml

by Finkelstein Fri Jan 28, 2005 23:19

" in particular in Germany in the aftermath of the collapse of the currency in the early 1920's"

So the ould currency just collapsed under its own weight I suppose .....

by mise Sat Jan 29, 2005 20:49

What I find strange is that the Population Figures of Ireland pre-Event are well known and documented.
Somewhere in the region of 12million.

In the 150 years since the Event the Irish popuation has not significantly increased. We are hovering around 4 million.

Compare that with Britain say where there has been 2 to 3 fold increase in its population in the same number of years and they used contraceptives. There was also a lot of immigration but that only accounts for a small fraction of population growth.

I am left with the conclusion that "someone" calculated the population growth over the next few years and shit themselves. 12,000,000 would become 24,000,000 in no time.

It was necessary to "prune" population levels down to a point where the annual death rate was equal to or greater
than the the birth-rate . The effect : no exponential growth in the population for over 150 years.

by mr. bean counter Sat Jan 29, 2005 21:47

Not sure if I can find the right answer though ......

The Brits were probably quite keen to "prune the population" as you so tastefully put it .....
Ever since the time of the French revolution the British ruling class have followed a more or less "Malthusian" line of thought, i.e. based on the writings of Malthus who took the view (around 1790 or so) that poverty and famine (in general - not specifically in relation to Ireland) were
natural (or divinely ordained) outcomes of population growth outstripping food supply.
Malthus started form the premise that population tends to increase exponentially whereas "subsistence" i.e. food supply tends to increase more linearly.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html

For Malthus and his ilk, the French Revolution was mainly a result of France's growth in population leading to social upheaval. In the context of Ireland, if you put 1798 and rapid population growth together you can easily understand why the Brit ruling class might have been keen to have some "natural" or "divinely ordained" population pruning on the neighbouring isle ... it would have made perfect sense from *their* viewpoint ...... Brit officialdom has always tended to try and sell the Irish "famine" in more or less Malthusian terms, i.e. a natural catastrophe on an overpopulated island .... This is very convenient becuase you don't have to deal with awkward questions about all the food being shipped out of the country ......

Moving on to the question as to why the population remained so low afterwards, that is probably due to a number of factors. Don't forget that until the late 1980's or early 1990's (i.e. pre-Celtic Tiger) Ireland had a significant net emigration, i.e. surplus population was effectively removed through this channel.
Also the influence of the RC Church and clerical celibacy was probably a further damper on population growth in some social strata at least up until the 1960's. In other words, the relatively high level of religious vocations would have removed significant numbers from the breeding pool. Those who remained in the breeding pool may have been hard at it but many of their children would have taken the boat to the UK or the US, or an aeroplane for the better-off after Aer Lingus was set up.

Probably isn't a complete answer to all the points you raise but there you have my tuppence worth anyway.

by mise aris Sat Jan 29, 2005 22:37

I did factor in those probalities of irish emigration etc but you have to remember that nearly every family in Ireland was huge - they needed lots of hands to work the fields. It wasnt uncommon to have 6 or 12 kids. And if those 6 or 12 kids were to have another 6 or 12 kids......sure was a whole lot of emigration.

by eeekkkkk Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:32

Scary site - read it all - it is worth the time

by Michael Hennigan Sun Jan 30, 2005 14:23

In the 1841 census, the population of the 26 county area was estimated to be 6.5 million.

Not everyone may have been counted of course.

The police (RIC) were the enumerators in later all-Ireland censuses. I don't know what the situation was in 1841.

I got copies of my own family's census returns for 1901 and 1911. It's interesting that the older people in the households were the only ones who were categorised as being able to speak Irish.

by eeekkkk Sun Jan 30, 2005 14:27

that they beat the language out of their own kids in a hurry

do you know what a tally stick is michael?

I produced one at a teacher training day once up in the wicklow mountains with a stick a shoelace and a penknife

I was treated like a pariah for bringing up the subject

we still have a tally stick - it's called mountjoy

by Duine Tue Feb 01, 2005 17:39

Cad is fiú díbh bheith ag cur tubaiste is tubaiste i bhfarradh is a chéile?
Is iomaí rud a tharla sa stair ach nílimid ag maireachtáil ann anois.
An t-am i láthair is tabhachtaí, mar anois tá neart againn ar an sochaí a bheas againn amach anseo.
Cuirimís dúshraith láidir faoi sochaí chóir agus fágaimis an t-am atá caite inár ndiaidh.
Ar aghaidh linn!!

by murphys Fri Feb 25, 2005 14:51

I mentioned the http://irishholocaust.org in a post earlier and look what hits the headlines today. The further perpetuation of the myth that 1,000,000 Irish people starved because of the POTATO.