Recalling the Famine’s impact on Irish and American history

Seanmor, how much of the $170. wound up in executive salaries?

Like the Jewish people never forget Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen 1942-1945, the Irish should never forget 1845-1850 and their own Holocaust. The horrific, squalid condition Ireland found itself in in 1846 didn't happen by chance. It was the deliberate result of hundreds of years under a vicious, harsh and oppressive British colonial rule. When we teach about the degraded condition the Irish people found themselves in 166 years ago, we should make sure we also teach about the earlier dispossesions of the Irish-Catholic people from their land and the Penal Laws as well.

While the potatoe blight caused the falure of the of the main staple of most Irish people, shiploads of grain and livestock were exported from Ireland as a million or more died of disease and starvatio. The government in London which ruled all olf Ireland at the time provided very little relief to the starving Irish. Much help was given by generous souls in the U.S., including the Choctaw tribe of Native Americans, who kindly donated $170 to Irish Famine relief. We are forever indebted to the CHOCTAWS for their great generousity in the time of Ireland's need.

It is a good time to be reminded of the Irish Famine. Cecil Woodham-Smith's “The Great Hunger” is reckoned to be one of the best researched and written books on the Irish famine. Reading it now one can’t avoid the striking similarity of the arguments of those in the UK government then and members of Congress and European governments now. Both place austerity and deficit reduction to preserve the free market – called “laissez faire” in the Famine era - ahead of helping the disadvantaged. Paul Ryan and Charles Edward Trevelyan have a lot in common – selfish policies and agendas plus cherubic appearances. Who says history does not repeat itself.