Great Famine potato makes a comeback after 170 years

Eviction row puts spotlight on reality of Dublin repossessions: Brendan and Asta Kelly, 71 and 63, were forcibly evicted from the Dublin property on Wednesday in unsavoury circumstances. They are — or were — successful business people, who took out a mortgage worth about €2m with Anglo Irish Bank to buy the property. While the details of the Kelly case are divisive, they were nevertheless man-handled out of their home. This story has highlighted an issue (repossession of homes) that is happening quietly across Ireland daily. In March, a disturbing video was posted on YouTube showing the forced eviction of a woman from a house in Arklow. The woman, who was living in the house with her two children, was in rent arrears of €2,500. Two squad cars and four gardaí were present while she was lifted out of the house and taken away in handcuffs for breach of the peace. * So it's okay today, but not okay in 1840?

(A) The Irish potato famine of the 1840s, perhaps the most appalling event of the Victorian era, killed over a million people and drove as many more to emigrate to America. It may not have been the result of deliberate government policy, yet British short-sightedness and ignorance’ (of famines and how to deal with them) and a stubborn commitment to ‘day-to-day man on the ground solutions’ – largely caused the disaster and prevented any serious efforts to relieve suffering. (B) At the turn of this century 70-80 percent of evictions in Stockholm were caused by rent arrays 75-85 percent in Amsterdam and about 90 percent in New York City. (C) Nineteenth-century Ireland had what Thomas Flanagan has called 'a rich, culture woven from many strands, Gaelic and English, catholic and protestant', which some novelists treated as picturesque. Some romanticized peasant life and depicted the Irish as if they were all natural wits; others depicted them as vindictive and murderous. Travellers' accounts, mainly by English and American tourists, provide an interesting variety of perspectives on Irish life. Some were sympathetic, others patronising, even contemptuous in their emphasis on squalor. Thackeray's Irish Sketch Book (1842) spoke of 'the potato people... sitting by the way side here; one never sees this general repose in England - a sort of ragged lazy contentment'.

Wounded knee, the only things that is wounded about you is your brain, it's wounded by hate. For starters read the Law of Property UK, Ireland or US. Read the section relating to rent arrears, thebn read about food preservation 1830, then read about the development of 1830 road and rail transport, then read about trucks and wagons and road development, and the 1830 moving of goods by horse, trailer and handcarts. Then read about Russia rich in wheat but with no FOOD distribution sysyem so millions died with from universal famine in a wheat rich country. And for good measure obtain the latest mortgage rent eviciton/s figures for 2010, 2011. 2012, in England, Ireland and the USA. Do a comparable graph for the years surrounding the Irish famine. Your talking hate, not common-sense or logic. Then look around your own town TODAY and look at the landlords and banks in that town - do they say to people who've lost their job forget the rent, we understand. As it happens when it comes to farm evictions the USA leads the world. So don't come here with your self-chosen hates and hatreds. For good history read the USA Farm administration 1928 farm photos.

Posters such as stukafaust show a lack of knowledge of the Irish "Famine". The fact is that the potato crop failed in other parts of Europe, yet there was no mass death in those places. That was reserved for Ireland, where the British government's writ ran. Britain had forced thru the Act of Union, hence the British government was fully responsible for what was going on in Ireland. It was British soldiers and British-paid police who escorted the Irish food exports to the ports. People such as this poster and others should do a little reading on the topic. Tim Pat Coogan's recently published book is a good start, though I still would put Woodham Smith's (an English woman) history in first place. After some years in which anti-nationalist "Irish" historians sought to downplay British culpability, the trend in recent years is once again to lay the blame squarely at London's doorstep.

The Potato famine is a favourity argument of Irish Nationalists and Anti-Brits. My research shows that many Irish small tenant farmers already had substantial rent arrears before the famine, some of these tenants had not paid the rent for 4/5 years, the blight offered an excellent excuse 'for beiing unable to pay the rent', notwithstanding this the Government could have made it law that because of the blight farm / small holding / tenant rent eviction Court Orders would not be granted and Bailiffs could not evict any tenant. The problem is getting aid to these people was one of transport, foodstuffs are perishable, rail transport did not exist, trucks and wagons were far into the future, and the Law Of Property Act regarding rent arrears were applicable, The rent arrear law did not take into account 'rent arrears' so a fair solution was needed. The poster below who calls himself Pittsburgh Kid writes nonsense, there was no population explosion, no planned strarvation massacre, and it racist to split people into US-WE-THEM group. We are all one, and if the Captain of the boat is a Catholic, Church of Scotland, Mormon or Protestant matters not to me, and 98% of us.

I don't think that commenting here without reading on the subject is appropriate. The harsh reality of the famine was that it was not a potato famine. There was enough food in this country to feed everyone. Under the tacks system a young family existed on approx an acre of land. Half of that was given to growing grain which paid the rent to mainly foreign landlords. The food that left the country would have fed everyone. However British policy under Charles Trevelyan meant no interference in the market place was allowed so no food aid was on the agenda. The Public Works was set up to provide people with food in return for hard labour. There's plenty of ruins of the workhouses for people to visit. Whilst it was seen as a progressive policy by the British it's no secret that the Germans studied the system and the buildings in the 1930s. Again, please go and do some hard research. Cecil Woodham Smith's book is a good place to start. It was not a potato famine, it was a famine engineered by British landholding laws. If it happened today it would probably be classed as genocide in the International Criminal Court. In the 1840's though the world was a different place. I have up to a thousand people buried on the hill next to me, mainly because they were too proud not to pay the rent and either starved or died of disease because they wouldn't risk eviction. Most of those were descendants of the people who owned the land for maybe a thousand years before it was confiscated by the British Crown and subjected to their policies. It really is not as simple as bad weather and potatoes rotting.

The Irish potato famine was not caused by the English AEP. It was caused by nature. Too much wet weather caused an epidemic of potato blight. What the British government might be accused of is not intervening. However it is questionable whether they could and indeed, at the time, such a level of government intervention would have been unthinkable in any regime. It is hardly appropriate to fling this tragedy into the debate.

The potatoes are responsible for an explosion in Irish Catholic population. The British plan was to push the Irish into the worst land, and let them die out. What few that were left were to be use to harvest the crops. The potatoes, and fertile Irish Woman created a population explosion. In Northern Ireland the Irish Catholic mother have out populated the Protestant mothers, in a few more decades the Catholic will be the majority.

Woundedknee. Please if you are American or otherwise, under no circumstances must you bring this potato into the USA, or even attempt to do so. If your friends do so and get caught they will be arrested and fined a huge amount, and if I was the Judge I'd give them 3 months in jail. The prevention of crop disease is a corner-stone of the American Border Control Service. So please under no circumstances must you request your friends to do this for you. Showing the USA the courtesy of respect for it's laws and protection is a citizens duty and best judgment call at all times.

RobinForester: Ironic that you mention California, since I have a memory that it was California where the blight originated. Certainly the blight was seen in the US and Canada before it manifested itself in Ireland. The reason the blight spread so fast in Ireland was that there was significant monoculture--there were very few people growing other varieties. In any case other varieties would have been susceptible, tho maybe less so. I don't think any commercial potato growers will use it as a main crop, but it's very interesting for guys like me who are pretty handy in the garden. I have some friends visiting from Ireland at the end of the month, and I've asked them to bring me a few Lumpers (appropriately washed etc., no danger of transmitting anything). I have always thought that Ireland could make a tourist item out of Lumper potatoes. As long as it's tastefully done I see nothing wrong with it. I know that for many years I have been looking for Lumper seed potatoes, so I'm excited about this. Generally I would say that Ireland is way ahead of the US as regards the number and variety of types of potato available. My own favorite is the Rooster, and I have successfully grown quite good quantities of these.

One needs to ask is this potato blight free today, or still susceptible to blight and do we need it? Can it be treated if it is, or genetically modified, I know little about it but since it's history suggests great caution is needed should it ever be used again as a crop. A side issue is when the blight struck was all varieties of potatoes blighted or just this one variety? As the Irish Agriculture Board been consulated and their views sought. Je Kelsall asks how was the blight imported, probably on plants, grain or potatoes from USA ir points south, maybe on wheat chaff or straw, thats why California is so strict at whats allowed in with no agricutural crops whatsoever allowed.

How did it become imported from America? That's the question.