NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Proving the Irish Famine was genocide by the British -- Tim Pat Coogan moves Famine history on to a new plane

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Proving the Irish Famine was genocide by the British -- Tim Pat Coogan moves Famine history on to a new plane

Posted on Tuesday, December 04, 2012 at 07:11 AM

Larger Text

E-mail

152 Comments

RSS

Archives

The Famine memorial on the quays in Dublin City

The most significant section of Tim Pat Coogan’s new book on the Irish Famine is not his own writing, but his printing of the United Nations definition of genocide.

“The Famine Plot”, published by Palgrave MacMillan, was released in America last week and Coogan should have been here to launch it but in a separate but equally confounding plot he was denied a visa to come here by the American Embassy in Dublin.

The conclusion from his book is unmistakable. Ireland’s most prominent historian, who has previously created definitive portraits of both Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera, has now pointed the finger squarely at the British during the Famine and stated it was genocide.

It is a big charge, but Coogan is a big man, physically, intellectually, and in every sense and makes a very effective accusation. Coogan has painted a portrait of devastating neglect, abuse, and mismanagement that certainly fits the genocide concept.

I mean if we go back to that time, Ireland was the equivalent of Puerto Rico or Samoa, massive dependencies on the United States today.

If there were a massive food shortage in either of those two countries, we know the US would step up to the plate, literally.

Back in Famine time, the same potato crop disease occurred most heavily in Scotland, outside Ireland, yet there were relatively few casualties as the landowners and government ensured, for their own sakes as much as anything, that there was no mass death.

That was not the case in Ireland, where a very different mentality prevailed. The damned Irish were going to get what they deserved because of their attachment to Catholicism and Irish ways when they were refusing to toe the British line.

Read more: Tim Pat Coogan slams American Embassy as ‘Kafkaesque’ after visa refusal

As Coogan painstakingly recounts, every possible effort by local organizations to feed the starving were thwarted and frustrated by a British government intent on teaching the Irish a lesson and forcing market forces on them.

Charles Trevelyan, the key figure in the British government, had foreshadowed the deadly policy in a letter to the “Morning Post”, after a trip to Ireland, where he heartily agreed with the sentiment that there were at least a million or two people too many in the benighted land and that the eight million could not possibly survive there.

“Protestant and Catholic will freely fall and the land will be for the survivors.”

Shortly after, he was in charge of a policy that brought that situation about.

One Trevelyan story and one quote suffice.

“British Coastguard Inspector-General, Sir James Dombrain, when he saw starving paupers, ordered his subordinates to give free food handouts. For his attempts to feed the starving, Dombrain was publicly rebuked by Trevelyan…”

The Trevelyan quote is “The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”

Tim Pat Coogan has done an enormous service with this book.

Read it and weep.

E-mail

152 comments

Next Page 1 of 11 pages

kawkaw | Mar 04, 2013, 03:29 PM EST

Power Corrupts! And its good thing more such studies come out, as this is not just limited to the Europeans....genocides have happened in every continent...except Antartica cos there are no humans ovr there...its just human nature and we need to protect future generations from experiencing the same. Instead of feeling victimized and generating more hatred we need to channel these emotions/energy into helping regions/tribes that are experiencing subtle genocide by big multinational companies. But are ppl doing that? no its easy to talk abt the past and point fingers rather than be in the present and actively do things that prevent such stuff from happening

Report abuse

Madeliene | Jan 04, 2013, 11:28 AM EST

If you are going to LIE about the Great Hunger, and say it w as not Genocide- you had better wait untill all those of us who had relatives that lived trhough it, and the Black and Tans, got the stories form their parents who were there, and thhier parents , who were there, and thiers. Then Lie away! It was Mass MURDER by starvation!

Report abuse

Madeliene | Jan 04, 2013, 11:24 AM EST

Why comment, if anything against the liberal Irish Cental is mentioned, the comment seems to disappear!

Report abuse

FallsRNat | Dec 27, 2012, 07:24 AM EST

the british famines went back to the 1200s, so to follow coogan's logic, the brits were waging a war of genocide against their own as well, hard to see the wood from the trees through rosy tinted glasses, over 300,000 irish went to mainland britain during the famine years, i'm afraid that like a lot of republican propoganda, once you start sorting the wheat from the chaff, place it in the historical context of the times & yes, the famine was the very worst of it's type that haunted the british isles & other parts of the world in those times, an act of genocide, no i don't think so, as an irishman who grew up draped in my family's IRB/RA flag, we need to get rid of this perceived victimhood status & embrace the 21st century

Report abuse

KerryLKing | Dec 10, 2012, 09:28 PM EST

Just as I have stated in many "a post on this site".....the poor starving Irish were only given soup if they agreed to "renounce" their Catholic faith and become a Protestant as is the Church of England. And although I've stated it several times on here and have been berated for it I still stood by this because of my belief and because of the information relayed from my ancestral relatives....those who lived the horrors!! So now those who negated my posts can eat there words!! Thank you Mr. Tim Pat Coogan for your bravery in bringing these facts forward!!!

Report abuse

FallsRNat | Dec 10, 2012, 02:51 PM EST

Love the headline, Clinton to finish off the Republicans in 2016, does Gerry know!

Report abuse

IrelandNorth | Dec 10, 2012, 08:36 AM EST

TPCs point that the constitutional sleight of hand that was the Act of Union, 1800-1922 (which considered the islands of Great Britain and Ireland a constitutional whole of commercial convenience), obliged the predominantely Anglo administration of both to facilitate a de jure migration that was a de facto emigration. The whole point of the exercise was to clear a colonised Ireland of an largely unprofitable and troublesome rural Irish agrarian peasantry, even at the expense of overcrowding English (or American) urban slums. When questions of religion and nationality have been resolved, core socioeconomic inequalities appear as glaringly obvious even to the most politically obtuse. Except to neo-Trevalyians.

Report abuse

curtisjohnson | Dec 09, 2012, 10:20 PM EST

"The Uk & America were very generous to the Irish people in that time by taking them in & giving them a chance to make a life a good life." Given that the Irish were technically citizens of the UK, it's difficult to imagine what law they would have been violating by traveling to mainland britain or what exception would need to have been made to take "them in." As indicated, the overwhelmingly articulated viewpoint was one of hatred and disdain for the Irish. The reason nothing was done to stop them was that the commericial oligarchs who really run things wanted more cheap labor.

Report abuse

seanomelb | Dec 09, 2012, 07:59 PM EST

BTW gavin you post like a sour apple pie.

Report abuse

seanomelb | Dec 09, 2012, 07:58 PM EST

Anglo may have the right to his opinion. His post below is pathetic and insulting. BTW Gavine we are all intitled to our opinions. If you have something to say please do so. Sitting on the fence maybe hurtful at times.

Report abuse

anglo-norman | Dec 09, 2012, 04:38 PM EST

The Uk & America were very generous to the Irish people in that time by taking them in & giving them a chance to make a life a good life.

Report abuse

curtisjohnson | Dec 09, 2012, 04:08 PM EST

" over 100,00 irish emmigrated to the UK during the Famine years, surely if the UK were waging a genocide war against the irish, these people wouldn't have been given sanctuary," It was part of the cheap labor/industrialization project - hardly out of any type of benevolence judging by the official sentiment at the time (as expressed by the London Times, the mouthpiece of the establishment).

Report abuse

GavinE | Dec 09, 2012, 03:16 PM EST

Exactly, "anglo-norman", for a change, you got in in one. It's called Free Speech! So, why do you get all upset when somebody points out the negatives in something other than the Irish or the Catholic Church? Surely that is free speech also? Read my post, for God's sake! Hold it now, son, cool, cool, calm, smell the roses .................

Report abuse

FallsRNat | Dec 09, 2012, 06:27 AM EST

over 100,00 irish emmigrated to the UK during the Famine years, surely if the UK were waging a genocide war against the irish, these people wouldn't have been given sanctuary, Coogan has some explaining to do.

Report abuse

curtisjohnson | Dec 08, 2012, 09:53 PM EST

"You cannot compare what happened to the Jews in WW2 to a Potato Famine for gods sake!! A bit of perspective curtis please." I'm not equating it, moron, but emphasizing the absurdity of Dano's blame the victim routine.

Report abuse

Next Page 1 of 11 pages