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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Did Irish leader Daniel O’Connell help make the Famine happen? -- “Graves are Walking” book tells powerful Irish Famine truths

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Did Irish leader Daniel O’Connell help make the Famine happen? -- “Graves are Walking” book tells powerful Irish Famine truths

Posted on Friday, September 14, 2012 at 08:19 AM

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Famine memorial in Dublin

“Striding nearer every day
Like a wolf in search of prey
Comes the famine on his way”

That poem in “The Nation,” the journal of the Young Irelanders, who were the Irish republicans of 1846 summarizes what was occurring as Ireland headed full tilt for the Famine and disaster.

In his new book “The Graves are Walking” John Kelly gives an extraordinary insider account of the events that led to the Famine and the machinations on high and the suffering of the peasants below.

It is still an insane thought that the most successful country in the world at the time allowed millions to starve in Ireland, its’ closest colonial neighbor.

Imagine the US, the land of plenty, allowing millions of Hawaiians to starve in a Famine there and you get some sense of the absurdity.

This book reveals insights which have rarely been glimpsed and it does not shun controversy.

The role of Daniel O’Connell as liberator of the Catholic masses is well documented.

But also documented here is O’Connell’s disastrous decision to throw in his lot with Whig leader Lord John Russell who became Prime Minister in July 1846 at the beginning of the worst period of the Famine.

O’Connell did so to help gain the repeal of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, which was at the source of so many of Ireland’s problems.

But in the process he backed a man who had become a fully-fledged free trader who insisted that market prices must be received and no government intervention made – even when the result was millions of Irish starving because they could not afford to buy the imported corn.

Russell’s predecessor, the Tory leader Sir Robert Peel, as Kelly points out, had adopted a far more humane policy and had been widely praised for ordering and freeing up imported corn for starving Irish the previous year when the worst of the Famine was blunted.

Kelly has made a profound point about O’Connell that it was the biggest mistake of his life as Russell paid no heed to repeal and the Irish starved by the millions.

The book is scathing about the various British viceroys who came over to Ireland during that period, but kind to the many incredible charities, such as the Quakers and many American organizations as well who did their best to alleviate the suffering.

There is a hilarious chapter on Monsieur Alexis Soyer, a French chef who had proclaimed he had the perfect ingredients for a gourmet soup to save the starving Irish and was much praised in The Times of London and elsewhere.

He even demonstrated this for hundreds of aristocrats in Dublin watched by a “large and brilliant assemblage” and no doubt by the starving peasants as well. Even Monty Python could not have done such a scenario justice.

M.Soyer, gourmet soup and all were soon dispatched back to Britain and obscurity.

The fate of the Famine ships is also discussed in great detail, as is the sense of impending doom in cities such as Montréal as the famine increased and the Irish boats kept coming, discharging their wretched cargo.

The scenes at Grosse Ile, the quarantine Island as depicted by Kelly would bring tears from a stone, while the unlikely rise of the Irish in New York from Famine masses to political power is also documented.

A great read if you’re Irish and even if you’re not. "The Graves Are Walking" is already deservedly a best seller in Ireland.

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44 Comments

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Seanmor | Dec 02, 2012, 07:21 PM EST

ancarver: Your comment of 14 Sept, 1110 hrs, reminds me of an item I once read about O'Connell and Thomas Davis regarding teanga na nGael. Dasis, a Protestant patriot of Welsh descent who bemoaned the declime of the language, made his feeling known to the "Liberator". In response, O'Connell acknowledged Davis' concern in a condescending, rediculing manner. However, Daniel O'Connell deserves credit for his campaign to repeal the Act of Union and restore self-government to the whole Irish nation.

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Searlit | Sep 18, 2012, 12:37 AM EDT

@Pittsburghkid, that's quite a good analogy.

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ancavker | Sep 17, 2012, 03:53 PM EDT

sirpeter: Do not paint all Irish-Americans with the same brush (apart from whether O Dowd is right or wrong) Any how on a lighter note. A friend of mine here in the U.S. who is Irish born (came here in the late 1980's), just came home from a trip back, and was shocked that someone over there told her she too is now a Plastic Paddy as she has lived in the U.S. too long!!!

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IrelandNorth | Sep 17, 2012, 08:55 AM EDT

O Connell's undoing was when he called off one of his highly successul "monster meetings" (ie mass rallies) for a repeal of that constitutional sleigh-of-hand, Act of Union, 1800/'01. Daniel finally bumped up against the reality that democratically-challenged English imperialism will always threaten military action, even against cuddly constitutionalists like Dan "da man" O' Connell. And then will criminalise physical force when it raises its inevitable head.

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MichaelSavage | Sep 17, 2012, 06:46 AM EDT

"It is still an insane thought that the most successful country in the world at the time allowed millions to starve in Ireland, its’ closest colonial neighbor." It is not an insane thought once one properly understands the prevailing depopulation policy of the establishment in control of the British Empire. A famine in one of the most fertile most fishery rich countries in the world? Our best produce was robbed from us at gunpoint and shipped to the mainland UK. It was Genocide by Starvation and can be called nothing less.

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seanomelb | Sep 16, 2012, 08:12 PM EDT

Should read "the life of Thomas Mitchell" by Sillard 1889.

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dukmarshal@aol.com | Sep 16, 2012, 07:31 PM EDT

If it is to be finger pointing then point at; 1) the English press 2) the English government 3) the English lords 4) most of the landlords, both absent and present.

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dukmarshal@aol.com | Sep 16, 2012, 07:16 PM EDT

Though I have not read this book, currently reading Paddy's Lament", I cannot fathom the idea of someone pointing a finger at Daniel O'Connell and blaming him for an Gorta Mor. When he threw in with Russell he was trying to repeal the act of union. He had already gotten nowhere with Peel's party.

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WoundedKnee | Sep 16, 2012, 05:06 PM EDT

There's a poignant parallel between Ireland during the Great "Famine" and Ireland today. During the "Famine" Irish food was produced in abundance--corn, wheat, vegetables, beef. It was sent out of the country. Into the country came "food" that was alien to the Irish and had no tradition there--maize or American-style corn. Today, something similar happens. Young Irish men and women, the flower of Ireland, stream thru the Departures area in Dublin Airport. At the same time, aliens with no connection with Ireland are flooding in. The Irish of 1847 couldn't digest maize/corn, and today's Irish are getting sick on Mass Immigration.

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Galeforce | Sep 16, 2012, 03:01 PM EDT

Let me tel ya. This is all true in this book and because of travellers like paddy, that mix ad spend time with settle people, country people We are all starting to understand each other more.. Long may it continue, long live the travelling people.

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Pittsburghkid | Sep 16, 2012, 02:24 PM EDT

Ireland's problems never change. Irish Kings invited the English to Ireland, who brought settlers to displace the Irish. Today the Irish are inviting the EU, who are bring settlers to displace the Irish. Ireland should look to the Swizz for a role model.

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patsav | Sep 16, 2012, 05:43 AM EDT

The last I knew, Hawaii was in the United States and not its closest neighbor.

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Lokelani | Sep 15, 2012, 11:58 PM EDT

Sirpeter: I don't think it is fair for you to put down Irish American's. "There but for the Grace of God" go you. No reason to be so boastful & proud; you had nothing to do with where you were born; you could have been born in England & there's nothing you could do about it & you'd be singing a different tune then. I happen to be one of those Irish American's you are talking trash about and I happen to love both America, where I was born & also Ireland, where my ancestors originated from. Check yourself. Rose O'Connor

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seanomelb | Sep 15, 2012, 10:41 PM EDT

Why do you keep referring to it as a "FAMINE" Niall? are you out of touch with the reality of what actually happened. You are correct in saying that peel had a more humane attitude than his opposite number and yet O'Connell slated Peel and would not support his Irish relief programme's(The Life of Mitchell by Sillard 1989).

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curtisjohnson | Sep 15, 2012, 10:24 PM EDT

Anything that deflects blame from the british terror state (with a history of worldwide manufactured famines, the other notable example being in India) is automatically considered scholarship. I doubt he mentions the fact that the terror state continued to steal what little funds the Irish people had in the form of forced tithes to the Anglican "Church."

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