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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

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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.

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FallsRNat | Dec 07, 2012, 04:51 PM EST

Coogan would have us all believe that the Famine was artificially conceived within the Halls of Westminster, however, it is historical fact that from 1840s the successive years of blight destroyed the crop that provided 60% of the irelands food needs. There was sufficient food after 1847 to feed the population & mass starvation could have been avoided if the grain had been properly distributed amongst the pop of the south & west of ireland. The soup kitchen scheme from March-Sep 1847 should have been extended as these fed over a million people daily, Coogan fails to realise that the UK govt consisted of rich upper class men with little or no care of the working class of England, let alone Scotland, Wales or Ireland. It would have appeared as an anathma to them to help the lower classes. Today's ideology is much different as can be seen in the reactions of successive UK govts to famines & natural UK disasters around the world & the amount of humanitarian aid provided. I have no problem with apportioning blame to the UK govt in this period as they could have done much more, but I can't agree with his revisionist rewriting of history to suit his own beliefs, you have to look at that historical period with the political perspective of that period, not through 21st century thought.

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mamaginnty | Dec 07, 2012, 01:05 PM EST

Stevenstar, do not use the word..." us in Ireland " you speak only for yourself and should be ashamed to call yourself Irish. Genocide of our people would not have happened had the british ships not taken/stolen every crop that grew on irish soil. Most had a small bit of land to grow a crop, at harvest the money was paid to british or anglo irish landlords in rent. They did not live off just spuds alone or live rent free.

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ancavker | Dec 07, 2012, 11:59 AM EST

Dan: NO thye did not. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the British government. There is no way it would have been handled in England or Scotland the way it was handled in Ireland.

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ancavker | Dec 07, 2012, 11:54 AM EST

STEVENSTAR: We know. But you are interested in Manchester United, and Coronation Street, and Kate's baby!!

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STEVENSTAR | Dec 07, 2012, 08:36 AM EST

its 2012 move on for god's sake... Im Irish i live over here in Ireland and having rehashed news stories in this newspaper about famines etc is boring and of no interest to us in Ireland...

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IrelandNorth | Dec 07, 2012, 07:02 AM EST

Niall! Given that 1.5 Island of Ireland's would fit into England. And 2.7 would fit into the island of Great Britain. I hardly think the geography of scale between Puerto Rico/Samoa and the vast sub-continent of USA is an even remotely proximate comparator. Surprising that you hold the auld sod in such low esteem?

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IrelandNorth | Dec 07, 2012, 06:48 AM EST

Anglo-Norman Irish sounding (Sir) Robert (Bob) [de] Geldof of Dun Laoghaire (nee Kingstown), (aka Lord Band Aid), is an Hon MBE. Ya know - that guy who the Iron Lady/Maggie Thatcher described as "... a true grit of a true Brit!" and he didn't feel compelled to correct her(?) Apropos land distribution hectarage divided by populace equals neo-Trevelyanism (travailianism). Less cottiers - more rancheros! Political economy beat distributive justice everytime. Est pop of Ireland 1841-51 = c8 m - c1m starved c1m emigrated. Net population after cull of convenience(?) was c6m, causing deficiency of labour to work land. Re Christian orthodoxies' role, (whether Protestant soup or Catholic stew), seems Quaker oats won hands down everytime. God bless the Religious Society of Friends for their non-prosletysing generic Christianity. Whilst Anglo cult worship at the politcal economic shrine of laissez faire capitalism funelled the crisis, blind obedience to authority preached by RC orthodoxy was arguably it's existential softwear programme.

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DanOLoingsigh | Dec 07, 2012, 04:09 AM EST

Curtis J - still peddling the ‘It's always somebody else’s fault’ line?…So when does the ‘taking responsibility for your own decisions’ line make an entrance to this ‘fairytale’ narrative of yours?

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DanOLoingsigh | Dec 07, 2012, 03:55 AM EST

ancavker – How much better the cottier and labourer classes fared under the more ‘Irish’ land owning elite is a moot point…there’s no evidence that they behaved any better than the ‘Anglos’ in famine years – and there was always a significant underclass whoever lived in the ‘Big House’.

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curtisjohnson | Dec 06, 2012, 09:06 PM EST

"Is this current mass emigration due to the corruption & stupidity of Irish Society anti-Irish?" Obviously it's the poisonous influence of degenerate anglo materialism (through the anglo oriented Dublin establishment and media) which led to the industrial estate Ireland vision and the housing/banking bubble. To compound matters, the Irish people were forced to bail out the creditors of internation banks.

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curtisjohnson | Dec 06, 2012, 09:02 PM EST

What's not disputed is that massive amounts of food were EXPORTED from Ireland at gunpoint (arguably the largest British military presence in the world was stationed in Ireland at this point) and the indigenous population disproportionately suffered.

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curtisjohnson | Dec 06, 2012, 08:59 PM EST

@occupied6countybrit - are you a pirate? @Flemska "The main difference is that 'our' local nationalist don't bash the others" And who are the propositional "others" they would bash - the Belgians were occupied by an alien race who stole and outlawed land ownership, made education a felony, and forced them to tithe to an alien slave owning Church? Your "nationalists" sure cry about the German invasions.

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anglo-norman | Dec 06, 2012, 06:34 PM EST

Flemska-Respect.

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anglo-norman | Dec 06, 2012, 06:26 PM EST

Yet 53% of the landlords were Irish Catholic.

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seanomelb | Dec 06, 2012, 05:58 PM EST

THe lande was congested!! considering most of the arable land was held by the lanlord class or stolen from the Irish that theory sucks. "To hell or connacht" was the order of the day.No amount of defending the English authorities of the time will assuage their guilt.

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