Irish History - The Great Irish Famine - Who's To Blame? [58 minute radio documentary]
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- This 58 minute radio documentary is named
The Great Irish Famine - Who's To Blame?
Theme of documentary-
The Great Irish Famine was Ireland's greatest disaster. Potato blight repeatedly devastated crops and led to colossal loss of life and mass emigration to Britain, the USA and Australia. This 58 minute radio documentary investigates the most contentious question underlying all debate concerning the Great Irish Famine (1845 to 1850)- namely, who was to blame? Does responsibility for well over a million deaths, and the widespread emigration of over a million impoverished people from Ireland lie solely with the British government, who administered and ruled Ireland at the time, as well as the ruling Irish Landlord class? Or were other factors at play, which might mitigate government and landlord culpability? What about the Irish middle-class and other groupings, were they anyway responsible (even partially)?
Ultimately this documentary seeks to try answer these vital questions and by so doing, unravel fact from myth, confront stereotypes which have been perpetuated over the last two centuries, and ultimately show that who's to blame for the Great Irish Famine is more complex than past generations of Irish people were led to believe.
* To be downloaded for non-profit purposes only, in adherence with the universal truth- “What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others remains. It is immortal.”
A fair, balanced and fascinating account of the factors that contributed to the Irish famine. It wasn't just the failure of the potato crop but numerous other factors, attitudes and of course politics.
Well narrated and the contributors were excellent too. Thank you!
I am from the west in 1952 born...mom found the will in her brother-in-laws pocket leaving the cottage in Kilmena to her sister-in-law. I turned 2 on the boat to America.
😊
The story of the prison ship inmates (21 mins) at Woolwich donating 17shillings for Irish famine relief is heartbreaking. A year later all these prisoners had died due to the conditions they were forced to work and live in. The British Empire at its peak was a glorious thing?
Surely giving us U2 and Bob Geldoff is revenge enough.
Throw in Jedward and I think we are in balance.
Easy--The English were fully to blame. Tons and tons of food was being produced in Ireland, and shipped elsewhere at great profit, because of English overlords' insatiable greed. It's pretty simple. Let's not complicate it. They took people's land, made them renters, and then raised the rents to the point where people could hardly pay it even in good times. People died of starvation, and also of exposure when their landlords burnt their cottages. More were packed into ships, an estimated half of which were in such bad shape that they never reached land again; it was considered a good way of getting rid of "surplus" population--the native inhabitants of the land. There was plenty of food. There was simply no moral reason behind their actions. The English people might have tried to help, but their government was a completely different story.
The rich will always try to slaughter the poor.
You don't listen do you , you keep blaming others and keep hating
Irish language will come back and the culture will strengthen
No it won't. You are being genocided via multiculturalism.
bizarro world yeah it already is
@Zen hateful
Nah
I couldn’t even finish listening to this documentary it made me angry to think that the Irish were starved because of the fact that the English took the food out of the country and yeah there might have been Sympathisers but at the end of the day we were starved to death for their greed !!! There was also sympathisers when their was African slaves but that didn’t save them from the whip 😡😡😡😡
I'm irish and married and English man we fight about this topic often!
The English took the food? Mandella effect here me thinks, my ancestors at the time were tenant farmers too, as with most of Britain. I can assure you they had no part in taking food from Ireland; many Irish migrated to Britain. There were 105 Irish MP's in parliament!
@The last Doob Oh yes they did! When you blame the English for taking their food, it is simple not true! Ireland had 105 MP's in parliament, what were they doing? the rest were made up from Scotland, Wales and England.
@The last Doob So you agree the English did not take their food?
A refreshingly honest documentary on the subject. Note also that the British poor and even prisoners tried to help. The usual story of the rich v the poor and beaurocracy. ..... seems little changes.
This is really about a conflict of religions. The Roman Catholic Church via Rome . . . was responsible for this disaster. A very careful, and logical evaluation would actually lead to those responsible . . . ! However, the institution behind the genocide has not taken or acceptable responsibility . . . because it never had intent on taking responsibility! The guilty culprit was . . . the Roman Catholic Church! You may disagree! However, the RCC did the dirty work behind the scenes . . . and from England, their helpers were the Jesuits! Also, the Jesuits in Ireland, told the Irish Catholics not to talk to the Protestants. The video revealed that the Protestants in England did do things to help the poor Irish! However, how much could they do . . . in order to help people who were uneducated and ignorant to help themselves? Especially when the poor Irish were instructed to not talk to the Protestants. Another reason for the reason why the RCC was behind the failure in Ireland . . . was a means to get Irish Catholics to emigrate from Ireland (predominately Catholic) to England, as fas away to Australia, NZ and Canada and the USA . . . with the highest percentage going to the USA . . . was to increase the Catholic population in the countries in which the landed! After all, the goal of the Roman Catholic Church has been to destroy Protestantism . . . and in the process . . . the RCC both slanders and libels the Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church is EVIL! It doesn't even care about it's own people!
Class war will go on and on until we end the rich forever.
charles corn head t said it was punishment from god so that would give u an idea of what u were up against they starved my country people shame on u england how could they do this bless my fellow country people how had to dig holes in the ground for a grave maybe because they had not got the strength to make proper graves one could only imagine what they must of went true and my own people gone but never forgotten bless them 🙏🙏🙏🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪
No other nation or its people were treated this brutally by the British in their history! Not even third world colonies had to face what the Irish had to go through! 😤😤
33min it's very interesting that it took 150yrs before part blame was put onto local Irish. Like the slave trade local African traders in humans have still not been exposed enough as an essential part of the slave trade. The White man has massive fault. The British gov innIreland had great fault. But it's wrong to think locals were not involved. The clearances in the Scottish Highlands is similar. The southern Scots were instrumental in the destruction of a way of life in the highlands.
The local Irish were partly to blame?? Really!! That's a load of crock. Those so-called Irish locals were the British Protestant ascendency class. They owned 90% of the land and were British absentee landlords living in Britain most of the time with a Protestant agent just collecting the rent. You could compare them to the Unionists of NI. Like them, there was very little compassion for anything Irish. You had a few good landlords on record that ran their estates well. The fact there were few records shows how badly most were run. Irish Catholics had no power whatsoever.
If I may offer my critique, I noticed a relative lack of systemic assessment of the situation in Ireland at the time of the famine. Instead, there seems to be an overwhelming focus on the culpability of individuals operating within the system as if they themselves are representative of the full scope of British involvement in Ireland. As you said yourself (or the producers of the podcast said, if you are uninvolved in its production), there were many individuals in Britain and elsewhere sympathetic to the plight of Ireland and indeed raised support. However, they were operating within a system fully incapable of treating Ireland or the Irish people with dignity by design.
Unlike, for example, Wales, Scotland, or rural England, Ireland was treated very much as a colony of the United Kingdom rather than an integral part of the country. The planters which extracted wealth from the cultivation of food were largely Protestants of English or Scottish descent and whose entire existence in Ireland was based on the subjugation and suppression of the native Catholic Irish as colonial subjects. Their vast tracts of land were granted to them by the English and later British Crown in a deliberate effort to exert British hegemony over the native Irish by all but eliminating a native landholder class. Their descendants today are still found in large numbers in Ulster and constitute the overwhelming majority of Protestant unionists in the north, with their unwavering loyalty to the British Crown largely being a direct legacy of their origins in Ireland as settlers and conquerors.
Most plots of land in the hands of the native Irish were small and less productive, as the most desirable land had long been acquired by British-descended planters. This is reason why the vast majority of Ireland’s population was almost exclusively reliant on potato cultivation, as it was the only crop capable of sustaining large families under these conditions imposed on them. The planter class growing food on Irish land for profit is how Ireland continued to export food as its populace starved, and the reliance on the potato crop is why Ireland is unique among European nations in that the potato blight that affected much of Europe resulted in widespread starvation and a catastrophic population decline when the results elsewhere were less severe. The catastrophic effects of the famine were a direct result of the conditions imposed on Ireland by the British government.
The British government is indeed solely responsible for the creation of the system of colonial subjugation in Ireland that forced Irish people onto small plots of land in which exclusive potato cultivation was their only means of feeding themselves. They are likewise responsible for blocking aid and continuing food exports amid the famine despite the best efforts and intentions that individuals within Britain may have had.
Here we go again
czcams.com/video/c_j7NJHQOoE/video.html
Hi Peter, glad to receive your robust critique. I always welcome constructive feedback such as yours, since it helps generate discussion and debate on this important topic. Above is link to another radio doc produced by me on Polish Famine hero Paul Edmund De Strzelecki, who saved thousands of Irish people during the 1845-51 Great Irish Famine. I was at the unveiling of a plaque to him on O' Connell Street in Dublin City in 2015. It was a very moving occasion, which was long long overdue - to this unsung hero whose deeds bespeak the best of human nature. By the way, Strzelecki refused any payment for his famine relief work in Ireland. He did it totally free gratis! Hope you enjoy, and keep the feedback coming my way. The more critique the better!
The idea that the British offered no help whatsoever is nonsensical. A lot of the help was bungled, but the attempt was there
This I believe helps explain your comment . . . A very careful, and logical evaluation would actually lead to those responsible . . . ! However, the institution behind the genocide has not taken or acceptable responsibility . . . because it never had intent on taking responsibility! The guilty culprit was . . . the Roman Catholic Church! You may disagree! However, the RCC did the dirty work behind the scenes . . . and from England, their helpers were the Jesuits! Also, the Jesuits in Ireland, told the Irish Catholics not to talk to the Protestants. The video revealed that the Protestants in England did do things to help the poor Irish! However, how much could they do . . . in order to help people who were uneducated and ignorant to help themselves? Especially when the poor Irish were instructed to not talk to the Protestants. Another reason for the reason why the RCC was behind the failure in Ireland . . . was a means to get Irish Catholics to emigrate from Ireland (predominately Catholic) to England, as fas away to Australia, NZ and Canada and the USA . . . with the highest percentage going to the USA . . . was to increase the Catholic population in the countries in which the landed! After all, the goal of the Roman Catholic Church has been to destroy Protestantism . . . and in the process . . . the RCC both slanders and libels the Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church is EVIL! It doesn't even care about it's own people!
So the Church conspired to kill 2 million Catholics in order to contaminate North America with Catholics. Nothing whatsoever to do with British colonialism. Yeah! Right!
Genocide not famine
Genocide? By who? The British? I agree with genocide . . . a very careful, and logical evaluation would actually lead to those responsible . . . ! However, the institution behind the genocide has not taken or acceptable responsibility . . . because it never had intent on taking responsibility! The guilty culprit was . . . the Roman Catholic Church! You may disagree! However, the RCC did the dirty work behind the scenes . . . and from England, their helpers were the Jesuits! Also, the Jesuits in Ireland, told the Irish Catholics not to talk to the Protestants. The video revealed that the Protestants in England did do things to help the poor Irish! However, how much could they do . . . in order to help people who were uneducated and ignorant to help themselves? Especially when the poor Irish were instructed to not talk to the Protestants. Another reason for the reason why the RCC was behind the failure in Ireland . . . was a means to get Irish Catholics to emigrate from Ireland (predominately Catholic) to England, as fas away to Australia, NZ and Canada and the USA . . . with the highest percentage going to the USA . . . was to increase the Catholic population in the countries in which the landed! After all, the goal of the Roman Catholic Church has been to destroy Protestantism . . . and in the process . . . the RCC both slanders and libels the Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church is EVIL! It doesn't even care about it's own people!
@@peruvianauthorities1739 Uneducated yes, and in what other condition would you expect to find the Native population having lived under the penal laws for such a long period of time?
Perhaps you think the Irish disenfranchised themselves from the higher echelons of society in the nation they once ruled over. Food seemed quite plentiful when the O Neil, O Donnell, Mac Cennitig, Mac Murchada, O Connor walked the same fields before the sassnach ever set foot on Banba.
If you claim to govern a country you must take responsibility when over a million die of starvation under your watch.
@@antseanbheanbocht4993 Who can answer, "Native population having lived under the penal laws for such a long period of time?"?
@@peruvianauthorities1739 ??
@@antseanbheanbocht4993 In response to "Perhaps you think the Irish disenfranchised themselves from the higher echelons of society in the nation they once ruled over. Food seemed quite plentiful when the O Neil, O Donnell, Mac Cennitig, Mac Murchada, O Connor walked the same fields before the sassnach ever set foot on Banba."
It was the Roman Catholic Church that disenfranchised the Irish Catholics! Ireland isn't the only example in the history of the world where the Catholic Church caused serious problems for the population under its control. Why was food plentiful with O' Neil etc? And no the poor starving Irish Catholics. Also, the Anglican world isn't without responsibility for the Irish Catholic famine . . . because of Jesuit infiltration into the Protestant world.
You will never get round the emotion ,passion and partisan values surrounding this awful famine.
However if the British had not been in Ireland what would the differences have been.
Would the nature of the economy have been markedly different?
Not sure . What would be different would surely have been the existence of a National government (maybe) or local governments with their eye nearer to the ground and having the motivation to do something about it.
Pretty sure the dogmatic,pedantic ,Laiisez faire policies of the Liberal Government of 1846 on would not have been the decisive factor. If there is a fundamental cause of the blight becoming this horrific chapter in Irelands history then it must be John Russells Liberal government.
Was it a genocide? Not in the sense there was a planned chain of events towards an end.
How that limits guilt or changes anything is not clear to me.
If I plough my car through a crowd of people and kill or maim half of them because I am incompetent , pissed, or believe it`s just survival of the fittest and they were in my way,then my guilt is hardly less than a deliberate act.
Incompetence,dogma, inate superiority and religious cant produced all the effects of a genocide.
If the British had set upon a planned ,deliberate ,"Final solution" to the Irish problem ,I am tempted to think it would not have been any more effective than what actually happened.
I don't know how different, but animals(at least some) and fish (again, at least some), etc, etc could have stayed in Ireland.
Happy St Patricks Day
This comment section leaves a lot to be desired.
This is a very poor podcast on the Irish famine. The question of who is to blame plants the seed that maybe it wasn't all the British fault. When in fact it was. Any help was absolutely useless. They gave nothing for free. In order to enter the workhouse, you had to forfeit any few acres of land you had. To get any real help you had to turn Protestant. Public works burned more calories than it was worth. Any help was a drop in the ocean too little too late.