Cannibalism was likely practiced in Ireland during the Famine, Professor Cormac O Grada of University College Dublin told a New York conference on world hunger at Fordham University on Monday.
O Grada, a leading expert on famine, said there were many rumors about it in Ireland, but one documented report involved a John Connolly in the West of Ireland who came before the court on theft charges.
In the course of the prosecution, it emerged that the family were in such desperate straits that his wife had eaten some of the flesh off the leg of the dead body of her son.
The son’s body was exhumed and it was discovered that his flesh was indeed missing. Connolly was immediately discharged, O Grada noted, as the desperate condition of the Famine victims was taken into account.
Another case of cannibalism was reported in The Times on May 23rd 1849. In Mayo, a starving man was reported to have “extracted the heart and liver...[of] a shipwrecked human body…cast on shore”.
The conferenc,e entitled “The Fight against Hunger: the History and Future of the Irish Role in Humanitarian Assistance,” also heard from Concern CEO Tom Arnold and renowned Third World expert physician Dr Kevin Cahill.
It was organized by the UCD Clinton Institute and The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham.
Brendan Rogers, Director General of Irish Aid for the Irish government, stated that he was optimistic that today, hunger could be ended by expanding on three policy areas.
They were linking relief rehabilitation and development together, strengthening international partnerships and using a combined approach to tragedies and building up local institutions and communities to help manage crises.
“If we work together on those three fronts I firmly believe that within a generation we can eradicate acute malnutrition and we can seriously reduce the extent and impact of natural and man-made disasters,” he said.
Tom Arnold, Concern’s CEO, stated he was careful never to use the word famine when talking about huge hunger and malnutrition problems as he did not want to sensationalize the problem of world hunger in any way.
44 Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.NeilBegley | May 19, 2012, 04:48 PM EDT
Read Thomas Gallagher's "Paddy's Lament". He speaks about at least one documented case of canabalism in it. A mother ate the flesh off her dead baby's legs.
Pittsburghkid | May 19, 2012, 03:11 PM EDT
I'm also sure that people dying of thurst drink their own urine. People facing death are desperate. What else is new?
Cormac | May 18, 2012, 12:15 PM EDT
I gave the talk in Fordham. I am rather appalled at how Niall has taken one aspect of what I said out of context. I talked about cannibalism just to show how unimaginably horrific to most of us famines are--famines in Ireland and elsewhere. The aim was not sensationalize, like the headline in Irish Central does--and, almost predictably, The Irish Sun (a Murdoch tabloid). Anyway, the proceedings of the Fordham conference will be published in due course and those interested can read more for themselves.
redhand32 | May 17, 2012, 09:34 AM EDT
To Bythebay: If you are capable of reading critically, 1) Nowhere in my response does it in any way, -- or by implication, refer to the Conference. It is specifically directed to this article in particular, which if you re-read in order to comprehend it, even uses "Famine" in the large font title which should hit you right in the face. More importantly, my response is directed to much of the literature and self-serving, or ignorant "scholarship" whose propagandists, for obvious reasons, want to cast An Gorta Mor as a natural disaster, not an unnatural one, perpetrated by Victorian ideologues, anti-Irish Catholic Social Darwinist bigots, and Anglo-Irish landed gentry. This unholy conglomerate, as today's Capitalists do with the poor today, literally bred the Irish people as their personal livestock, because by definition, as Irish Catholics, they lacked the where-withal of full human dignity. 2)I regularly contribute financially to local food banks, and organized charities,as well as support organized fundraisers thru organizations to which I belong. I have over 3 decades of direct work experience with the US Food Stamp Program, AND the poor. I use all of this experience to write my Federal and State legislatures on behalf of food security matters. Oh, and I occasionally voluntary at a local food bank. However, my time is limited because most of my volunteer activity is with a Hospice I work with because I suspect it is probably easier to attract dedicated volunteers at a Food Bank than to Hospice care because death and dying is uncomfortable for a lot of folks, including me. Finally, if there is something I missed, or another activity you think I can undertake to "do something more meaningful to stop that [hunger]" I will be only too happy to act on your suggestions.
Bythebay | May 16, 2012, 01:01 PM EDT
redhand32, the conference title was "The Fight Against Hunger: The History and Future of the Irish Role in Humanitarian Assistance". As you can see from the conference title and Tom Arnold's comments (Tom is from Concern Worldwide in Dublin) the word hunger is used not famine.One fifth of our overseas budget in Ireland is for hunger relief. The US has 8.5 million people go hungry every day. Do something to stop that.
redhand32 | May 16, 2012, 11:44 AM EDT
I resent the inaccuracy of an Irish publication using the word "Famine" to describe An Gorta Mor [The Great Hunger]. A Famine is starvation because of some natural disaster, crop failures, etc, --conditions in which their is insufficient food to feed the people. Some erroneously refer to the "Potato Famine." Although the Potato crop failed because of blight, it begs the question why millions of Irish subsisted as livestock dependent on a diet exclusively of potatoes, a little milk, and rarely some other food. During the "Famine" the Great Hunger, ample food was regularly exported to English tables, often under armed guard, as Irish peasants starved, and in this case lost all human dignity thru surviving as cannibals. The same current Capitalist system ensures that the 21st century Lord John Russells of the world allocate scarce food sources, not to the starving, but to the rich and middle classes, as Brazillian kids and others lose their dignity, --perhaps not as cannibals, but, scavengers, like crows, picking city dumps, and robbing other poor as street urchins, only to survive. As the English did beginning in 1845, Capitalism, their Agribusiness and politician coat holders breed the poor as animals. Beware of a Risen People !
sirpeter | May 16, 2012, 08:05 AM EDT
@uppinko.In defense of the Ugandan people and all decent Africans.President Idi Amin did not practice cannibalism.Amin became the subject of rumours and myths, including a widespread belief that he was a cannibal.All unsubstantiated and therefore not fact.These myths by western propaganda are quite common.Example:The Germans were eating Belgian babies during WW1.Iraqi soldiers throwing babies from incubators in Kuwait ect.Dehumanizing a nation or person with black propaganda is necessary in order to make killing and bombing them easier.
IrelandNorth | May 16, 2012, 05:44 AM EDT
ClareDaughter/IníonClár! My sentiments percisely. You bet me to it. Eating English landlords would have constituted a construcitve cannibalism, and been far more nutritious as well, being over fed themselves I imagine. Trouble is, eating someone who is habitually absent takes some doing, though their agents and balieff's could have deputised culinarily. Jonathan Swift, the Dean of the Protestantised Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, wrote a deliberately controversial article about the merits of eating one's young in cases of extreme starvation, seving dual purposes of satiating appetite and controlling population. I believe he imagined them to be mouth watering if delicious saúted in pommengranate and vinegar. Thing about fishing would have been that the British Royal Navy would have shown up and arrested fishermen for the heinous crime of necessity. But let us not forget the political economy of laizzes faire/free-for-all capitalism, economic cannibalism at its best. Don't just cure the symptoms of starvation! Cure the disease that cause it across generations.
sirpeter | May 15, 2012, 08:01 PM EDT
@connemaragirl.Let's say you had 10 days of bad weather and you couldn't launch your little boat to go fishing.How would you feel then?How long do you think you could live on limpets and shell fish and edible seaweed?How long does sea food last without refrigeration? How many calories would people expend in collecting shell fish if he had to walk 5 miles and back again.Shell fish will poison you if you eat to many anyway.One week of sickness and very little food and you will understand why people died.Men and Women fed the kids first too.It's not easy living off wild food when 20,000 of your neighbors are going after the same wild food.Ask your Connemara ancestors.
connemaragirl | May 15, 2012, 07:15 PM EDT
This is the first I've heard of this ,and also Ireland is surrounded by the ocean ,I'm sure there was fish to be had along with shell fish,all sorts of it ,sea weed etc. ,a bunch of BS if you ask me .
sirpeter | May 15, 2012, 06:28 PM EDT
lol@Claredaughter
sirpeter | May 15, 2012, 05:21 PM EDT
Desperate, starving people with no resources very likely did a lot of desperate things in order to survive...they should have eaten the thieving English landlords who were stealing all the livestock and crops........
EphraimKibbey | May 15, 2012, 05:06 PM EDT
From cut marks and breakage patterns on bones found at pueblos in America's south western desert, the native americans there were forced to resort to cannibalism as the climate became dryer. Unable to sustain themselves as their crops failed year after year, they waged war on nearby tribes and began to practice cannibalism in a last attempt to survive. We do not know if they moved on, died out or are still represented in the remaining tribes. It sounds like, IF this happened during the famine, it was very limited in scope. It is horrifying to think of the pressures on people that would bring them to break such an ingrained taboo. If my children were starving, I think I would do anything to save them.
sirpeter | May 15, 2012, 04:33 PM EDT
Eating the dead is not unusual when it comes to starvation.The instinct to survive is very strong.The cases in Ireland were very isolated though.There is no evidence of it been wide spread.Cannibalism that is on-going is something that gets noticed very quickly in tight knit communities in Ireland.I never read of any on-going cases of cannibalism in Ireland during the Irish holocaust.During the Siege of Leningrad everyone knew who was eating human flesh.The poor who ate the dead looked much to healthy.But it would be silly to think it didn't happen at all.
Warprunner | May 15, 2012, 03:19 PM EDT
Niall, you pick and choose your articles. How many major papers have you not published? Choosing not to publish this article is not really censorship. It's more consideration of the the starving Irish and the memories, wouldn't you think? If it was fact, undeniable, that might change things. I would still not want to place a such fact over my ancestors heads, setting them up for ridicule, when genocide was the real issue.
maryosullivan | May 15, 2012, 02:57 PM EDT
"Censor ...because of your sensibilities? " No, but two unprovable stories is hardly enough to refer to a god-fearing people into cannibals
Bythebay | May 15, 2012, 02:51 PM EDT
Niall, no you shouldn't censor your coverage of the conference but I'm well aware cannabalism during the Irish Famine wasn't the major purpose of the conference nor the major subject of the conference. The conference was "The Fight Against Hunger: The History and Future of the Irish Role in Humanitarian Assistance". Tom Arnold of Concern Worldwide in Dublin was there and discussed Ireland's role in helping the hungry in the poorest countries of the world. This article said nothing at all about him or the other speakers and their topics which were related to the conference topic, not cannabalism during the Irish Famine. Your coverage isn't coverage of the conference at all. .
Niall O'Dowd | May 15, 2012, 02:26 PM EDT
sorry guys , this was a major paper delivered at a major conference -- should we censor our coverage because of your sensibilities?
Bythebay | May 15, 2012, 02:18 PM EDT
No good comes of this article whatsoever. Shame on Irish Central for such sensationalism.
Sparklet | May 15, 2012, 02:08 PM EDT
It doesn't bear thinking about. I hope the perpetrators are suffering starvation in hell or purgatory or wherever they are.
OBPiper | May 15, 2012, 01:55 PM EDT
Who thinks that this was merely about scarce resources beyond scarce consciousness in England?!? 'Twas but severe austerity combined with a view of we Irish as monkeys, practiced by the Uncles of the Nazis.
Erinlady | May 15, 2012, 01:45 PM EDT
No one knows what they will resort to in the right circumstances. No one should be condemed for what they have to do to surive. If my dead body will keep someone alive than eat away,I will not have died in vain!!!!!
Esmeralda | May 15, 2012, 01:17 PM EDT
Ah don't be silly Silling! Always wanted to come across a Holocaust denier. A bit of an attention seeker don't you think?Reminds me of teenagers who deny everything, just for the sake of it.
Warprunner | May 15, 2012, 01:06 PM EDT
It is not that it didn't happen. It is not that the act itself should bring no shame to the Irish. It is that Irish Central would even print it! What good comes out of this article? The Genocide was terrible and it's not a far stretch to think that they had to resort to such measures. But why highlight it? Am I be missing something here? I certainly could be the one who is daft here. :(
oldboreen | May 15, 2012, 12:32 PM EDT
Oh and by the way Silling,you and that fatuous ignoramus kdavitt, make a great double act!
kdavitt | May 15, 2012, 12:30 PM EDT
@cillowen - Thank you. I've never gotten a good explanation for the lack of fishing what were abundant waters.
oldboreen | May 15, 2012, 12:21 PM EDT
Come on Silling, you've made some bold claims there. Never mind googling, just provide us with evidence that the Famine and The Holocaust 'never happened at all'. Put up or shut up!!
LacarourSeanB | May 15, 2012, 11:52 AM EDT
Dear God, Silling, You can't be serious...or are you seriously daft? Please tell us that you are not serious here! That's seriously dangerous and patently false talk.
Silling | May 15, 2012, 11:39 AM EDT
KDAVITT made a good point but don't you know that they could only eat fish on Friday's! Anyway, I don't believe the Famine happened at all, just as the Holocaust. Google Holocaust Hoax if you want proof. Both stories are just fairy tales to gain sympathy. We were taught to believe in Santa Claus When he got exposed, it became Jesus and God, For ---- sake Ireland, wake up, no god no famine and Santa Claus was a pedophile. Does anybody know anything about Paddy Crosby and school around the corner?
kdavitt | May 15, 2012, 11:15 AM EDT
Did anyone remember they were surrounded by fish?
kdavitt | May 15, 2012, 11:14 AM EDT
It was a GENOCIDE not a famine. We had lots of food apart from potatoes but the British stole it to feed their industrial cities.
kdavitt | May 15, 2012, 11:11 AM EDT
"LIKELY" IS NOT A FACT.
McNamara31 | May 15, 2012, 11:02 AM EDT
Cannibalism was "likely" practiced stated Professor O Grada .... One would hope that Fordham University would invite a speaker who was not only knowledgeable about the Famine, but also had great empathy for the memories of the victims. All who have studied the Famine know the devastating horror that cloaked the Irish people then and for generations after. There are numerous stories depicting what the Irish went through that have been told with dignity and without their legacy being reduced into tabloid style verbiage.
biggles008 | May 15, 2012, 10:59 AM EDT
I totally agree with Alexiswolf
Esmeralda | May 15, 2012, 10:55 AM EDT
I can't imagine anyone thinking badly of a people if they had to resort to eating flesh from dead corpes due to starvation, which doesn't qualify to intentional cannibalism. It is nothing to be ashamed of and I am sure it isn't a phenomenon that can be attributed to only the Irish Famine. During Stalin, families had to do the same. During periods of mass starvation in China in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Ukraine in the 1930s, the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War and as late as the 1970s in the plane crash in the Andes, the Uruguayan rugby team had to eat flesh from their dead friends. I do think that Ireland should commemorate the Victims of the Irish Famine of the mid 1800 much more than we do know. All people have tragic episodes in their history that we sadly have to commemorate!
CitizenWhy | May 15, 2012, 10:51 AM EDT
Strvation and malnutrition will not be solved due to politics. Corruption of politicians in suffering countries; the takeover of farmland worldwide by Monsanto and others and their use of poisonous insecticides and dodgy GMOs; right wing ideology in the US, an ideology the same as that of the British upper classes in their refusal to do anything for the starving Irish.
hermitTalker | May 15, 2012, 10:51 AM EDT
None of us knows what we would eat if hunger hit us badly and I used tell US citizens what they might do if the stores had no bread- they were shooting each other a few years later when there was a huge shortage of gasoline/petrol. TODAY we can see and judge with our reality. The cost of war in the US, the military-industrial complex that former European commander General Eisenhower later President of the US warned about when he left office. Then the Banker-Gambler bail-out in the USA and Ireland and Greece and Italy. The most vulnerable are being squeezed even as here in Ireland they will not touch the 2008 Croke Park agreement, and are waking up now to the expose' that retired civil servants with hefty pensions are being hired back in their old jobs. Economic murder and cash cannibalism of the most vulnerable all over.
Kathleen10 | May 15, 2012, 10:49 AM EDT
I agree resorting to cannabalism in a time of starvations is not 'practicing' it. I've never wondered IF cannabalism occurred during the Great Hunger--only how widespread it was. It's absolutely naive to think it didn't happen. Honestly, warprunner, it's not shaming the Irish. Any shame here belongs solely to the British government who did so very little to help.
pounder | May 15, 2012, 10:46 AM EDT
You are making me hungry. Yours truly, Hannibal Lecter.
CelticQueenUSA | May 15, 2012, 10:39 AM EDT
There should be NO SHAME in what may have happened. Desperate times do require desperate measures. I don't like to think of eating a human but probably would if I had to. NO SHAME ON THE IRISH! That was such a bad time and none of us have any idea what they were living through, only in our imaginations. Being there must have felt like death and hell all rolled up into one!
Alexiswolf | May 15, 2012, 10:34 AM EDT
Starving people forced to eat the dead is very sad not shameful and is far removed from 'practicing cannabalism'
handsome68 | May 15, 2012, 10:07 AM EDT
In America in the winter of 1846 or 1847, the Donner party of homesteaders to California were caught between the same kind of "rock and a hard place" as were the Irish at more or less the same time. While cannibalism was not the norm, it happened also at that time. Some people tend to forget the zeitgeist (German word translated: "spirit of the times"). With the Donner party, it was that they were trapped by harsh weather conditions. I don't need to tell you about the Irish famine.
leonardo777 | May 15, 2012, 10:03 AM EDT
God said, "If its good enough for the Jews, then its good enough for the Irish"! "And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat." -- Leviticus 26:29
Warprunner | May 15, 2012, 09:46 AM EDT
I am appalled! First, there are no facts showing this, second this "filler" article does more to shame the Irish than anything I have heard, thirdly I thought that this e-mag was to support the Irish not degrade them. You should be ashamed!!! I wonder what the Hibernians think of this! Niall, since you are a founder, have you forgotten why you started this? Was it to put the Irish in such a light?