The Irish Famine - causes, consequences, government blunders

[@LizRoe-ky4hr]

Time we had Irish History Week.The horrific famine & all the centuries of colonialism & up to the present day political situation in Northern Ireland should be exposed & studied in English schools.

[@pbohearn]

Not to mention the intrusion and dominance and abuse of the Roman Catholic Church. They were the other powerful group that inflicted a lot of damage on the Irish people.

[@ijm1963]

Perhaps we can take a look at the sectarian cleansing of Protestants in the south.

[@seanmcmanamon2670]

I wrote my Master's thesis on a local study of the famine in county Mayo and I can say this is a great video. It covers the main topics in a classroom-appropriate length of time. During my research, I found in the NYC Public Library, a list of witness statements that were unknown in Ireland. I transcribed and typed it up and it was published!

[@howiwondrwhatur]

I would be interested to read that having read The Great Hunger. Is it available anywhere? Your publication?

[@briankorbelik2873]

An an half Irish American, my Nana's people were from County Mayo. The first to emigrate to States was in the 1840's.

[@kathleenlorentz4592]

My great great grandfather arrived from Ireland to the US in 1849; he worked as a drayman until his death at 70. The IRISH literally built America's cities, canals and railroads and enriched our country immensely.

[@henrysevern]

The world can thank the Irish for building many things. Railways, tunnels, bridges and canals in the past offered dug out by hard back breaking work with pick and shovels. Their descendants in England, America, Canada and Australia to this day still work in construction only now many of them they actually run the construction companies involved.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

""The IRISH literally built America's cities, canals and railroads and enriched our country immensely."" If the Irish are so good at building things why didn't they migrate to South America and help build that area of the world?

[@LizRoe-ky4hr]

Gallow Glass I grew up in Ireland I was an A student all the way through school & one of my best subjects was actually History & Gaelic.Now you are missing my point we the Irish have through our culture the arts & it’s people have huge influence & have changed the world, popular culture has that power to do that & that makes Ireland a superpower, without the need for the war or exploitation of other nations.De Valera hmmm even as a small child was always puzzled why he was leader for soooo long & adults veneration of him.So no matter the reasons Ireland has no colonial conscience to cleanse.I often remind individuals here in the Uk who are abusive to me because I’m white!! I say to them I’m not White I’m Irish get educated then get back to me!!

[@quentinquentin6752]

Very well put together. As an english person this just makes me so ashamed and i am left speechless. British rule which seemed to have an utter cruelty, barbarity, callousness and disdain for the Irish did not cause the blight but it was the cause of the death. If there is a place called hell then surely the hate-filled murderers Russell and Trevalyn are permanent residents!!!!

[@daisypeters3216]

I've just said how I can deeply admire this brave people, the bravest people that I have known., they fought against the famine and the british cruelty. I wish all the brightest blessings to them. And I thank God for allowed me to visit Ireland a few months ago and the very friendly irish people for having welcame me..Certainly Ireland will be in my heart and my mind forever., I wasn't born there, but Ireland is my heart country! All my love to you IRELAND. 😘💖🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪👍☘☘☘

[@tommy3919]

Come back soon love

[@daisypeters3216]

@@tommy3919 😙❤🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪👍☘☘☘Always!

[@user-zv3jk6fs8i]

Thx

[@OSTARAEB4]

@Mo a Indeed. "Your people"? Everybody thinks of "their people". BTW, the 'FAMINE" of 1845-52 was one of many famines Ireland endured not to mention having their religion, native language, food resources, housing, the entire country stolen during colonial conquest by the British. Perhaps you should realize Ireland is involved in many humanitarian activities in various African countries and on the high seas. The Irish didn't go about colonizing people but they'll get blamed for it because their white. The Irish are some of the most charitable people in the world due to what they endured during the hunger. Are you aware the Irish sent COVID relief to the Choctaws in America as the Choctaws gathered money for the Irish during the Great Famine of 45-1852. Once again, Ireland endured numerous famines throughout her history.

[@OSTARAEB4]

@Mo a Who are you kidding? The Irish donated money to the Choctaws in America for Covid relief as they never forgot the tribe scrounging up to help Ireland during “The Famine”. The Irish are involved in humanitarian aid rescuing refugees at sea and are some of the most charitable people because of enduring the famine which was one of many Ireland suffered. What are Asian, Muslim and other African nations doing to address famine and what about the silence of the Rwandan genocide between the Hutus and Tutsi tribes during the 1990’s? However, it’s Vogue to blame all whites for global problems. Right? As for the United States, name one country that donates more during typhoons, tsunamis and floods and earthquakes?!

[@patob4868]

Sick of this crap about famine, loads of food in Ireland boat loads shipped out every week by the English landlords under armed gaurd, lots of history shows people being shot by soldiers when they tried to get at these shipments, genocide not famine

[@hawaiiflowers7066]

Agreed

[@deborahnagle403]

My grandparents came to the states I believe in the early 1900's, not sure if sooner. No one really tells me anything. I can assure you, the same plan to starve us out now is coming globally.

[@seanhartnett79]

It was genocide

[@ijm1963]

Reality is Irish farmer, Irish merchant , Irish ports. By the way if it was genocide I wouldn’t be here saying this.

[@A1441]

Fascinating story. I learned about the Irish Famine in great detail only a while ago from a different video and decided to dig deeper. This sad story is a series of unfortunate events that scarred an entire country.

[@biulaimh3097]

The genocide of 1845 to 1848 in Ireland compares with the 2004 genocide in Rwanda in one aspect and that is in both countries, the dogs were feeding on the corpses of the dead. The genocide in Ireland also compares with the 1904 to 1907 genocide in South West Africa in that both involved the use of arms to prevent people accessing what they needed to live, ie food in the case of Ireland and water in the case of South West Africa. Of course the scale of the killing in Ireland was much larger than the 30,000 who died in South West Africa. Also, in the case of Ireland, it was not merely the act of preventing people from accessing food but also taking what little they had and indeed access to the means of production. There was no reason (other than genocide) for a family of 18 to have to subsist on a half acre plot.

[@keeleym11]

It’s so sad really the poor people none of us would know how these people felt

[@Hgfhgfhgf-rt6lk]

This video is much better than the Ted-ed video on this topic. Very informative and fair because t it mentioned there are debates still ongoing today about aspects of the famine.

[@freshmanna4678]

Truly appreciated this concise explanation of a highly complex topic. Thank you!

[@IrelandCallingDaily]

Glad it was helpful!

[@muadhib001]

The world is chaos today mostly because of England

[@jonathanwhite5688]

True the British government has a lot to answer for

[@wajihaaa]

Thank you, for this short but well explained and illustrated video! :)

[@IrelandCallingDaily]

Glad it was helpful!

[@groeisterk]

Brits did the same to us South Africans. 34 000 women and chlidren died in concentration camps in Anglo-boer war.

[@huntercrow5289]

Not to detract from the tragedy but that lady's "hair" (I'm assuming that's what that's supposed to be?) at 6:10 really gave me the willies.

[@ustaoyuncumix]

Is there any particular reason why you didn't give any information about the Ottoman's persistently trying to donate food (by 3-5 ship full of food) and money (£5000) to Ireland despite the opposition of the British government? It would have been more informative if you had mentioned that the reason for the moon star in the official symbol of the city of Drogheda comes from this event. Even that, thanks for the video. Greetings to Ireland from Turkey🇮🇪🇹🇷

[@biulaimh3097]

You could try the Turkish archives. Our institutions were run by the brits at that time so proper records could not be kept.

[@vw540]

RIP to all the Irish famine victims especially those from my own county Mayo which was affected worse than most. 🇮🇪🇮🇪❤️❤️

[@dnickaroo3574]

Australia refused to conscript soldiers during WW1 to aid Britain - Two Referendums on Conscription failed. Large numbers of ships took food from Ireland to England; the Irish were forced to build “starvation roads” to nowhere, until they died. About One Million Irish starved to death during the Irish Genocide; about another two million migrated overseas.

[@Neil-yg5gm]

But thousands of aussies volunteered to help Britain in WW1.

[@michaeldoise8672]

Excellent video. This will allow my students to get better insight into the causes of Irish emigration.

[@619WWEFAN]

Many of us joke about Ireland and potatoes, without having even a slight understanding about the history of what happened. But after watching this video? I was 1000% wrong. This was so hard to watch emotionally 😔 To use food as a weapon to kill people? That’s just disgusting. Let’s pray / hope nothing like this will ever happen again 😔

[@livenlearn1]

The politics of the time was much more complicated and volatile than is presented here. The indifference of the Brits then is similar to that of the European nations towards the Romanians presently. We are more touched by the past than the present. What a world!

[@johnhanly5971]

Well that's the thing, there wasn't any political persuasion from us at the time. We were starved to death deliberately.

[@jroth7915]

Chestnuts, clams, cockels, muscles, and seaweed are all protein bearing foods. Could you explain the law that arrested Irish people from all fishing and gathering of the shellfish like clams?

[@ibclay1433]

Typical government overreach.

[@biulaimh3097]

The British government also taxed daylight. If you look at some old buildings in Ireland, often you can see where they bricked up the windows in order to avoid paying the tax. The wealthy could generally afford to keep their windows by upping the rent on any peasant who put a window in their hovel.

[@geraldbutler5484]

@@biulaimh3097 The indirect descendants of those evil British government bastards are in power in Westminster today.

[@TheTrueOnyxRose]

@@biulaimh3097: How the eff do you tax daylight? That’s supposed to be free energy…especially on your own ancestral lands. 🤯 🤬

[@biulaimh3097]

@@TheTrueOnyxRose It was a tax on the number of windows in your house. Not sure if they took window size into account, I don`t think they did.

[@ijm1963]

This is a reasonable description of events. Certainly my Irish ancestors started coming over to England in 1846. I have them recorded as living in a glass factory in one census, the final break not coming in 1922. Part of Issue was the lack of industry in Ireland, but the policies of the Whigs (today’s Liberal party) were enough to tip the crop failures into famine

[@markconnolly3291]

The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.

[@johngallagher909]

Very informative

[@notnero5280]

What music did you use?

[@mrsuperger5429]

Sadly, famines were not uncommon back then. Nearby Scotland also had its own famine.

[@timcrone9531]

Thanks this helped

[@ChloeEditsThingss]

Who else has the Artefact book for school

[@carolinebyrne4995]

BUT IF THEY HAD BEEN SOMETHING IN IT FOR THEMSELVES LIKE OIL OR GOLD OR ANYTHING ELSE VERY VALUABLE THEY WOULD HAVE KILLED EACH OTHER IN THE RUSH TO HELP

[@kirillassasin]

1 million died by famine 1 million immigrated And 3 million just vanished by Thanos?

[@seanhartnett79]

I am a descendent of the famine.

[@seanhartnett79]

@MsMissy imagine how insensitive you are. Would you tell that to a Holocaust victim, or a child of parents who escaped Rwanda. Yes the Potato famine killed less.

[@berner]

"Oh great begora, I'm so hungry. If only we had lakes and even the ocean surrounding our island, maybe even ones full of fish in them to eat".

[@davidkeenan5642]

The winter of 1845/46 was one of the worst on record. The fish were there, but they couldn't be caught. Some resorted to eating seaweed, and many died as a result.

[@briankorbelik2873]

I've read where the average diet among these poor tenant farmers were 9 potatoes per day.

[@maxf_rt7309]

bien guez 🔥🔥

[@user-zg4pw2nu8i]

This proves that the Old English Empire was evil and foolish, which is why they are not here today. May European civilization, and this country too, remember these chain of events to prevent another famine happening again. 🌍

[@ludvigbroen4786]

jeg hader det her jeg vil ik have om det i skolen

[@big_business_bears7267]

Same

[@carolinebyrne4995]

why did NOT THE IRISH settled in other countries ie the U.S.A asturaila Canada rase strong arms to outs England for once and for ALL out of ireland

[@tommythompson7941]

Imagine little ole me suggesting that we take back from the british what they took from me ma

[@jeremybeau8334]

Gentrification by the english even back then.

[@jonasbar6147]

Hallo Sebastian

[@sebastianvolkert7419]

😉

[@SharonM-q8t]

why not two chickens or two Pigs or two cows? breed them why?

[@MrLorenzovanmatterho]

Of course the true story is; (see below)

[@MrLorenzovanmatterho]

The Potato Famine was a plot by the English of genocide against the Irish poor so they could steal their land. Irish Nationalist; “The potato famine was a premeditated act of genocide on the part of the British government in order to exterminate Irish Nationalists” Irish Unionist; “What do you base that on?” Irish Nationalist; “Well it’s what we’ve always believed” IU; “But that’s because you’re anti-British bigots who always want to believe the worst about Britain. What evidence do you have of this wild conspiracy theory?” IN; “Evidence? We don’t need any evidence, we believe what’s in our hearts!” IU; “What’s in your hearts is racial hatred and hypocrisy. Irish Nationalist historians have for over a century combed through every bit of evidence they could find to substantiate this idea and found exactly zero” IN; “But what about the food ships from Turkey which the British refused to unload at Drogheda?” IU; “Yeah, that’s a folktale, first regaled by an Irish Free State representative to the Turkish government but without any foundation. The crescent and star insignia on Drogheda’s crest dates all the way from the time of King John, possibly linked to the crusades and also appears on the crest for the English city of Portsmouth. The story may have its’ origins in the Turkish Sultan offering a contribution for famine relief but being asked to reduce it by the British ambassador so as not to outdo Queen Victoria’s own charity” IN; “AHA!” IU; “Yes it is preposterous but these are the actions of one man. Plus again, these are the Victorians who thought arsenic was good for the skin, you shouldn’t give painkilling drugs to women giving birth because the agony is good for their character, considered cocaine a cure for mental illness (and especially useful in countering opium addiction) and a man could beat his wife as long as the rod he used was the width of his thumb. That taking photographs of naked children was a wholesome hobby but that “trousers” was an obscene and immoral word. As late as the Edwardian era the White Star Line demanded their money back from the grieving families of the musicians who drowned on the Titanic because they’d be paid for the entire journey and only completed half of it”. IN; “Are you actually claiming Britain would have acted the same way if the victims of the famine weren’t Irish and Catholic?” IU; “Of course not, how were we Irish any different from anyone else? Protestants suffered in the famine too. Do you really think the Irish Nationalist Catholic millionaire sipping champagne in the House of Commons/Lords is being oppressed by the English/Welsh/Scots peasant dying of cholera in the gutter?” IN; “But the government would have done more if hadn’t been Ireland?” IU; “How so? This is the Victorian era? The Scots were suffering under the Highland Clearances, the Welsh were sending four year old children to work down the coal mines, whole villages in Cornwall were left ghost towns as the starving inhabitants left in desperate search of food. London was the richest city in the world but half of all children died before their 5th birthday. So many people were dying of poverty related diseases the government had to build a railway to take corpses to graveyards outside of the city as those inside were overflowing. Dr Barnardo was a Dublin doctor who was passing through London on his way to be a missionary in China but was so appalled by the poverty he found there that he stayed and founded his charity instead. Meanwhile the English lower classes were being worked to death in the industrial revolution, the life expectancy in Manchester reduced to 17 when it had been 30 even in Norman times. How was Ireland any different? These are the Victorians, people who universally went to church yet let the poor starve, no matter what religion or nationality they were. Who had just abolished slavery within living memory (although before practically the rest of the world), where you could be hung for consorting with gypsies for a month and given 9 years penal servitude in Australia for stealing a string of onions. Dickens didn’t write about the happy childhood of Oliver Twist or the carefree adventures of little Nell, things were tough for everyone, Ireland was no different” IN; “But other nation’s governments did more to help their populations?” IU; “Where do you get that idea? Modern day Belgium and Saxony lost a third of their populations in the potato famine. A single failed harvest in France killed 16,000 people in Paris alone and triggered the commune uprising. Rather than feed the rebels the government sent in soldiers to shoot them down in the hundreds. Victor Hugo didn’t write about the contented French peasantry, he wrote about Les Miserables” IN; “But if Ireland had its’ own separate government things would have been better!” IU; “Why do you think that? The first act of the Free State government was to slash relief to the poor, maintaining work houses long after the rest of the British Isles had abolished them. Poverty and mass emigration actually increased in the Free State”. IN; “But the Free State government had less money to spend than the British” IU; “So Ireland was better off in the Union?” IN; “Uhhhhhhh……? So why was Ireland so much worse affected than everyone else?” IU; “Because we were on the outskirts of Europe with few natural resources and a climate and soil that would not support our population. Furthermore those who emigrated in other parts of Europe could return to their homeland once the famine was over, we live on an island so we can’t. But then half the population of Britain would emigrate in the 19th century, once again, we were no different from anyone else” IN; “Then why is the legacy of the famine still alive for Ireland but not the rest of Europe?” IU; “Because it’s the one time you can try to claim Ireland would have been better off outside the Union?” IN; “Hmmmmmm...” . IU; “Not to mention of course that the last famine in Ireland was actually in Connemara in 1925”. IN; “WHAT? I’ve never heard of that!”. IU; “Of course not, the Free State government was so embarrassed that people were starving to death in a Home Rule Ireland that they covered it up and actually banned anyone from referring to it as a famine”. IN; “But it was much less devastating that the Great Famine of the 1840s”. IU; “Unarguably but then the weather only wrecked the crops for a couple of years whilst the potato blight lasted a decade. Also farming had improved. We don’t actually know how many people died in it because the whitewash surrounding it was so comprehensive”. IN; “Oh but after googling it I find that the Free State government did this, that and the other to help the famine victims!”. IU; “Which is EXACTLY what the British government did the 1840s!”. IN; “Hmmmmm….?”.

[@mrkevinxxyes1791]

Did it affect Protestants living in Ireland?

[@mariajane542]

Well not as much because most of the Protestants living in south part of Ireland where wealthy land owners. The others lived mainly in the north and they did not suffer, as life.

[@SharonM-q8t]

Yes