Surgeons on board famine and convict ships exhibited strong anti-Irish sentiment in their reports it has been revealed.
Medical records from 1,200 ship surgeons from the period 1793 to 1880 have been released and they paint a grim portrait of how Irish convicts and famine passengers were treated.
One surgeon, Andrew Henderson, described the character of the Irish on board a convict ship as a “Complete tissue of inconsistency and stupidity.” He also found that the Irish constantly “brooded over their misfortunes.”
Another ship’s doctor described Irish women as “ignorant and stupid “. “This is too much the case among the lower Irish wrote James Greenlaw in 1844.
Irish women in particular seemed to be singled out.
Irish women on board a convict ship in 1832 were described as “very inferior to English women of the same class.”
”The most difficult thing is to get prevent them form smoking beneath deck and keeping themselves clean,” wrote ship’s doctor E.J. Bromley.
Thomas s Bell, another doctor stated that the “lower class of Irish generally aggravate their complains by despondency.”
However, some doctors were kinder. One said the Irish were “better scholars” than other convicts and more inclined to reading especially religious books.”
The files have just been released by the British National Archives after a two –year cataloguing process.
“These journals bring conditions on these ships to life. said medical research organizer Bruno Pappalardo.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.sirpeter | Oct 05, 2010, 09:28 AM EDT
I was commenting on your stupid post Dublinass and the contempt you have for those people who were forced by starvation to leave a country they loved by English policy in Ireland at the time,It was just a dumb post,something a Dublin Irish West Brit would say. There are plenty of English over here too working buddy,as a matter of fact my milkman is an English guy,I don't expect any English person to be grateful for a country where they work hard nor anyone else either,but that's the trouble with the likes of your type inside the pale.Ye are always looking east towards England and how great they are with your inferiority complex and the contempt you feel for everyone else outside the pale. This is your own inner deep rooted feelings, knowing that to the English you will always be a Paddy to them. No i'm not a Republican,but i respect and understand their goals,as i do the Unionist tradition which must be respected also and protected,both traditions need to compromise with each other in order to have peace up there. And for your information I also like alot of English history and their traditions,I just don't like their foreign policy most of the time.I have Catholic and Protestant blood in me.Irish,English,and Scottish,but i am Irish first and my loyalty is to Ireland.How many wanna-be brits are in our government i wonder? There Dublinass not very good at sounding people out are ya.But you know what..I fu*king know you
Dublinjas | Oct 05, 2010, 12:23 AM EDT
I Don't see the English doing any more harm to this Nation than the present Govt has done. There will be many many people in Ireland very grateful to Great Britain before too too long for jobs a livelihood Training and a roof over their heads, Unless of course you happen to be one of those Fireside Republican Rednecks who use terms like West Brit and who contribute to the likes of Noraid to murder innocent people in Northern Ireland and keep terrorism going for another thirty futile years, Does that sound like you Sirpeat, Did you not know that "Sir" Was an English term for a person Knighted by a Royal Personage like the Queen for example...
Dublinjas | Oct 05, 2010, 12:00 AM EDT
And what are ya gonna do about it @Sirpeat
sirpeter | Oct 04, 2010, 05:43 PM EDT
@DublinASS..Famine and Convict ships!! and you expect these poor and downtrodden people to behave in a normal way? On every ship on a long journey at that time in history you had surgeons you dipstick.They were there to treat the crew as well,on such a hazardous journey.The poor in Ireland under English rule were in a pitiful state,ALL the lower class in Ireland were walking a fine line between life and death.Irish women at that time might have been ignorant due to lack of education,but they were far from stupid.As the other fool doctor Thomas s Bell said,The Irish were despondent,what did he expect on these coffin ships.Every page of English rule in Ireland is one of horrific injustice and real ignorance.Then in 2010 you read a post with the same stupidity from West Brit DublinAss and you realize they haven't gone away.Your kind are the on going blight in Ireland.
Dublinjas | Oct 04, 2010, 02:54 PM EDT
HEH give your heads a Shake, If the English had been totally Bad and Evil why did they bother to have Surgeons onboard to tend to these so called Victims, I am sure there must have been some rare sights coming out of the Bog lolol.
manhattan | Oct 04, 2010, 01:51 PM EDT
I dare any other nationality to compare any suffering to what the Irish famine victims suffered. Those surgeons had the same attitude of the English of that day. No compassion,total denial of what they did to that island. And when they got here to New York and Boston they found the same people in charge with the same hate for the Irish as there cousins in England. Tony Blair was the only English person in power to apologize. But it will never happen again.
Lorcan31 | Oct 04, 2010, 11:00 AM EDT
It is shameful articles like this that will cement the English in history as one of if not the most hated people's on the planet !