7 ms·

Famine? Only one crop failed. Ireland was a net exporter of food to the UK.. There’s another word for this, not a famine…

UltraSane 2y ago
Mass Murder
lovich 2y ago
I see why others flagged you although I wouldn’t. For anyone else who doesn’t know, Ireland was exporting grain and meat during the famine at the orders of the British. They explicitly let the Irish die if someone else could order the food because Free Trade was perfect and if it wiped out a bunch of undesirables to boot, even better[1] As you had groups with a wildly different wealth as the Ottaman Sultan and the Choctaws on the Trail of Tears scrounging for anything to spare to feed the starving Irish, their British overlords were shipping away food to anyone who could pay them a penny more. If it wasn’t an engineered genocide then it’s close as you can get to one imo [1] https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-food-as-thousands-starved/ https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-fo...
- emmelaich 2y ago
  Private charity from England and others did send a lot of money to Ireland during the famine(s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Relief_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Relief_Association
  - lovich 2y ago
    There may have been individuals within the British citizenry who independently did the best moral actions they could in the circumstances, but there's documented evidence that the political body at large and their leadership at best did not care an iota for an any and all deaths in the Irish due to the consequences of their leadership, or at worst actively hoped and planned for the deaths to remove an inconvenient people.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    [flagged]
- dmix 2y ago
  There was no real market competition within Ireland. All the farms were owned by an elite mostly British class living in England which was a direct hold over from Feudalism. Regular Irish could only pay rent to this group to farm themselves. Import/exports were controlled by the British shipping and enforced by the military when locals resisted, all in direct coordination with the small amount of landowners. Particularly difficult situation on an island. It was extractive colonialism without a strong equal rule of law or self representation. Calling it laissez faire was just a cover to benefit the British.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > All the farms were owned by an elite mostly British class living in England which was a direct hold over from Feudalism. I think that’s a misconception-yes, there were a significant number of absentee landowners from England, but they were never the majority - the majority of wealthy Irish landowners lived in Ireland. Only around a third of large Irish landowners lived outside of Ireland. One issue was that the land-owning upper classes were near exclusively Protestant, while the vast majority of the poor were Catholics-which is not to say no Protestants died in the famine, many did-but, while at the time Ireland was 80% Catholic 20% Protestant, famine deaths were 90% Catholic only 10% Protestant-so a Catholic was 2.25 times more likely to perish in the famine than a Protestant. Even though by the time of the famine, most of the formal legal discrimination against Catholics had been repealed, the consequences of it were still very evident. Although there were many poor Protestants, the average poor Protestant was still better off (and hence more likely to survive) than the average poor Catholic, having benefited from generations of anti-Catholic/pro-Protestant discrimination. Protestants also benefited from the greater wealth of Protestant charities - even though many Protestant charities were willing to help Catholics too, most Catholics were fearful to accept their help, viewing it as an inducement to conversion
    - rorytbyrne 2y ago
      The “Protestant Ascendency” are not Irish, even if they technically lived and were born on the island.
- stuartd 2y ago
  Archive link - https://web.archive.org/web/20250114101154/https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-food-as-thousands-starved/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250114101154/https://ireland-c...
vondur 2y ago
You are correct, food was exported outside of Ireland during this time period. This time was called the Hungry 40's and crop failures were happening all over Europe. It lead to the Revolutions of 1848. Food was only available at prices that the poor could no longer afford.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  > Food was only available at prices that the poor could no longer afford. > It lead to the Revolutions of 1848. Too bad politicians today don't read the history books they want to burn, they might save their own skins.
  - vondur 2y ago
    Unfortunately the Revolutions of 1848 were violently suppressed. The forces of order were able to exploit the differences between the political reformers and the social reformers.
    - m4rtink 2y ago
      It still resulted in significant reforms in the end, even in Austria-Hungary, removing a lot of religion based persecution there for example.
  - reverend_gonzo 2y ago
    Pretty sure donors line their pockets a lot more than the voting poor.
- throwawaymanbot 2y ago
  Sounds like you are trying to explain away over a million deaths as if it was happening everywhere in Europe and not primarily the British fault. Fact: in 1847, nearly 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to British ports while hundreds of thousands of Irish people died of starvation and related diseases. There was PLENTY of food in Ireland. FACT: The government refused to intervene in the market to prevent food exports, even as the Irish population faced severe food shortages. Why? While crop failures were happening across Europe, the impact in Ireland was particularly devastating because of the population's heavy reliance on potatoes. The suggestion that food was only unaffordable for the poor overlooks the fact that the potato blight left many people without any access to their primary food source. WHY was it the only source of food in an abundant growing environment?? Fact: Wages paid on “work programs” for those (un)lucky enough to get on them were too low to purchase food at inflated "famine" prices, leading to widespread starvation. The export of food from Ireland during this period was a significant factor in the suffering of the Irish people, and it is important to acknowledge the role of British economic policies and the prioritization of profits over humanitarian needs which seems to be a struggle for you.
vkou 2y ago
The word for it is a man-made famine, much like the Holodomor was a man-made famine.

UltraSane 2y ago

Mass Murder

lovich 2y ago

I see why others flagged you although I wouldn’t. For anyone else who doesn’t know, Ireland was exporting grain and meat during the famine at the orders of the British. They explicitly let the Irish die if someone else could order the food because Free Trade was perfect and if it wiped out a bunch of undesirables to boot, even better[1] As you had groups with a wildly different wealth as the Ottaman Sultan and the Choctaws on the Trail of Tears scrounging for anything to spare to feed the starving Irish, their British overlords were shipping away food to anyone who could pay them a penny more. If it wasn’t an engineered genocide then it’s close as you can get to one imo [1] https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-food-as-thousands-starved/ https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-fo...

emmelaich 2y ago
Private charity from England and others did send a lot of money to Ireland during the famine(s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Relief_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Relief_Association
- lovich 2y ago
  There may have been individuals within the British citizenry who independently did the best moral actions they could in the circumstances, but there's documented evidence that the political body at large and their leadership at best did not care an iota for an any and all deaths in the Irish due to the consequences of their leadership, or at worst actively hoped and planned for the deaths to remove an inconvenient people.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  [flagged]
dmix 2y ago
There was no real market competition within Ireland. All the farms were owned by an elite mostly British class living in England which was a direct hold over from Feudalism. Regular Irish could only pay rent to this group to farm themselves. Import/exports were controlled by the British shipping and enforced by the military when locals resisted, all in direct coordination with the small amount of landowners. Particularly difficult situation on an island. It was extractive colonialism without a strong equal rule of law or self representation. Calling it laissez faire was just a cover to benefit the British.
- skissane 2y ago
  > All the farms were owned by an elite mostly British class living in England which was a direct hold over from Feudalism. I think that’s a misconception-yes, there were a significant number of absentee landowners from England, but they were never the majority - the majority of wealthy Irish landowners lived in Ireland. Only around a third of large Irish landowners lived outside of Ireland. One issue was that the land-owning upper classes were near exclusively Protestant, while the vast majority of the poor were Catholics-which is not to say no Protestants died in the famine, many did-but, while at the time Ireland was 80% Catholic 20% Protestant, famine deaths were 90% Catholic only 10% Protestant-so a Catholic was 2.25 times more likely to perish in the famine than a Protestant. Even though by the time of the famine, most of the formal legal discrimination against Catholics had been repealed, the consequences of it were still very evident. Although there were many poor Protestants, the average poor Protestant was still better off (and hence more likely to survive) than the average poor Catholic, having benefited from generations of anti-Catholic/pro-Protestant discrimination. Protestants also benefited from the greater wealth of Protestant charities - even though many Protestant charities were willing to help Catholics too, most Catholics were fearful to accept their help, viewing it as an inducement to conversion
  - rorytbyrne 2y ago
    The “Protestant Ascendency” are not Irish, even if they technically lived and were born on the island.
stuartd 2y ago
Archive link - https://web.archive.org/web/20250114101154/https://ireland-calling.com/irish-famine-ireland-exported-food-as-thousands-starved/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250114101154/https://ireland-c...

vondur 2y ago

You are correct, food was exported outside of Ireland during this time period. This time was called the Hungry 40's and crop failures were happening all over Europe. It lead to the Revolutions of 1848. Food was only available at prices that the poor could no longer afford.

ok_dad 2y ago
> Food was only available at prices that the poor could no longer afford. > It lead to the Revolutions of 1848. Too bad politicians today don't read the history books they want to burn, they might save their own skins.
- vondur 2y ago
  Unfortunately the Revolutions of 1848 were violently suppressed. The forces of order were able to exploit the differences between the political reformers and the social reformers.
  - m4rtink 2y ago
    It still resulted in significant reforms in the end, even in Austria-Hungary, removing a lot of religion based persecution there for example.
- reverend_gonzo 2y ago
  Pretty sure donors line their pockets a lot more than the voting poor.
throwawaymanbot 2y ago
Sounds like you are trying to explain away over a million deaths as if it was happening everywhere in Europe and not primarily the British fault. Fact: in 1847, nearly 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to British ports while hundreds of thousands of Irish people died of starvation and related diseases. There was PLENTY of food in Ireland. FACT: The government refused to intervene in the market to prevent food exports, even as the Irish population faced severe food shortages. Why? While crop failures were happening across Europe, the impact in Ireland was particularly devastating because of the population's heavy reliance on potatoes. The suggestion that food was only unaffordable for the poor overlooks the fact that the potato blight left many people without any access to their primary food source. WHY was it the only source of food in an abundant growing environment?? Fact: Wages paid on “work programs” for those (un)lucky enough to get on them were too low to purchase food at inflated "famine" prices, leading to widespread starvation. The export of food from Ireland during this period was a significant factor in the suffering of the Irish people, and it is important to acknowledge the role of British economic policies and the prioritization of profits over humanitarian needs which seems to be a struggle for you.

vkou 2y ago

The word for it is a man-made famine, much like the Holodomor was a man-made famine.