152 Comments

• 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

• 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!

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

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

• 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

• 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!!!

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

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

• 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.

• 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.

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

  BTW gavin you post like a sour apple pie.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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 .................

• 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.

• 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.

• seanomelb | Dec 08, 2012, 08:35 PM EST

  Perspectivity fromm what point of view???Irish lives are not as precious as European Jewish lives. I wonder who lacks pespectivity.

• anglo-norman | Dec 08, 2012, 07:11 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.

• curtisjohnson | Dec 08, 2012, 06:44 PM EST

  "not the selective history lesson…where taking responsibility might help?" Yes, the Irish need to take responsibility for dispossessing themselves of their property, outlawing their children from receiving an education, preventing the free exercise of religion, forcing themselves to tithe to an alien slave owning "church," then starving themselves en mass. Got it. Next Dano will go on about how the Jews need to take responsibility for the holocaust.

• anglo-norman | Dec 08, 2012, 05:36 PM EST

  GavinE- It's called Free Speech.

• GavinE | Dec 08, 2012, 11:56 AM EST

  Isn't it a peculiar thing, the way that society "allows" certain countries, religions and/or races to be insulted, but will shout "racist", "hate speech" or whatever when an identical form of abuse is made about some other races, etc. For example, "anglo-norman" on these boards, never fails to insult Ireland. In this particular post, he keeps repeating "move on Ireland" at the end of his post. This is a quite gratuitous attempt at an insult to the Irish people. I need not point out to any reader that his, and others', assault on the Catholic church is unceasing and volatile, and is thrown into any post where he/they can manage to do so regardless of the context being relevant or otherwise. However, if one were to say "Move on Nigeria", one would be abused as a racist. I don't have to even hint at what would occur if one were to say anything negative about the Muslim faith. And even now, when I have not abused any race or religion, I know that there will be a few diehards who will find some way to twist what I have said and attack ME - and assume that I am a particular race or religion to boot. Funny old world, ain't it.

• FallsRNat | Dec 08, 2012, 06:06 AM EST

  Seano - if youse think that the English working class were treated any differently from the Irish, dig out your history book & read the 1843 Poor Law, social economic conditions were not the same then & cannot be looked at from the revisionist movement in the 21st century either by Coogan in his anti british rant or Harris in his anti republican one.

• DanOLoingsigh | Dec 08, 2012, 03:16 AM EST

  The ironic thing about Curtis’s endless self righteousness, is his endless references to endless self righteousness of others…

• DanOLoingsigh | Dec 08, 2012, 03:08 AM EST

  CJ - It’s the ‘poisonous influence of degenerate blah blah blah’ mantra…not the selective history lesson…where taking responsibility might help?

• curtisjohnson | Dec 07, 2012, 11:55 PM EST

  " Unless one was living back in that time we can never know the real facts." Weird then how british "historians" seem to talk about the history of other countries such as Ireland with an unwavering certitude. The ironic thing about british atrocities (given their endless self righteousness) is that they in many instances they are copiously documented by the british themselves (that is when the terror state does not destroy the records as in the case with their crimes against the Mau Mau).

• curtisjohnson | Dec 07, 2012, 11:48 PM EST

  " 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." Britain has been in substance a commercial oligarchy since the importation of bill the orange (the weak executive model lifted from the Italian city states). It remains a stratified class based society governed in substance by a commercial elite (granted, their advocacy of the cheap labor project has eliminated their official views on racial supremacism/eugenics - although not in the University of Ulster apparently).

• curtisjohnson | Dec 07, 2012, 11:43 PM EST

  The point, which is continuously lost on you brit trolls, is to highlight the degeneracy of this "britain" monstrosity.

• curtisjohnson | Dec 07, 2012, 11:41 PM EST

  "Curtis J - still peddling the ‘It's always somebody else’s fault’ line?…So when does the ‘taking responsibility for your own decisions’" This is hilarious. I guess the Indians should take responsibility for starving themselves during the Bengali famine and killing themselves during the Armistar massacre (after loyally serving the terror state in WWI), the Kenyans for torturing and sexually mutilating themselves in the british gulags, the Boers for putting themselves in concentration camps, the Kurds for bombing themselves with poisonous gas, etc (the examples are endless - the Tasmanian genocide, collective punishment of the population in Malaya, the bombing of villages in Oman, the dirty war in North Yemen, the evacuation of Diego Garcia). The british terror state is one long continuum of moral degeneracy and criminal aggression from the middle ages to the present.

• anglo-norman | Dec 07, 2012, 06:38 PM EST

  Unless one was living back in that time we can never know the real facts. Move on please Irealnd.

• seanomelb | Dec 07, 2012, 06:28 PM EST

  I wonder who the revisionist are !!certainly no TPC. The Irish peasants did not export food to England during the forced hunger. BTW fallser the British administration in Ireland frowned upon soup kitchens and villified those who manned them.There was sufficient food during the potato blight to feed the population. Your miserable attempt to minimise Btitain's roll in using the famine as a political tool will fall on deaf ears. A plague on the anti Irish British sycophants below. It apperas Dano is back for another verbal hiding,the lad has no sense or feeling.

• anglo-norman | Dec 07, 2012, 06:24 PM EST

  Revisiting the pastt over & over is not good. Coogan is going to make a lot of money out of all this. Move on Ireland!!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!!

• 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...

• 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?

• 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.

• 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?

• 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’.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

  Flemska-Respect.

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

  Yet 53% of the landlords were Irish Catholic.

• 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.

• Flemska | Dec 06, 2012, 05:28 PM EST

  They allways talk about the Irish famine BUT it was an EUROPEAN Famine - here in Flanders Fields also thousands died and a large number of Flemish also imigrated to the US or Canada - just check Hoboken near Chicago etc. There where millions of people in Europe - from Russia right through Spain - that suffered the same problems and where also forced to 'find' a better future outside thier homelands. The main difference is that 'our' local nationalist don't bash the others over this and just see it as a natural disaster that struck Europe because they made the mistake to import US patatoes that were infected by an illness that destroyed the patatoes crops all over Europe - hence the massive famine? So why don't we blame the US for causing those deaths? Sorry guys - get real this is pure onesided propaganda --- now the Irish republic is dire need of help to solve it's money crisis why is it not suffering like Spain or Greece? Because a lot of money to support them come from the British goverment and they seem to be less harsh then the German goverment who don't like 'lazy' people to take advantage of thier hard earned tax money!!! Ever thought of raising this issue in this bashing round?

• anglo-norman | Dec 06, 2012, 05:03 PM EST

  Was De Valera's policies in the last century that resulted in mass emigration & poverty anti-Irish? Is this current mass emigration due to the corruption & stupidity of Irish Society anti-Irish?

• ancavker | Dec 06, 2012, 04:02 PM EST

  6countybritt: Hey guess what the mainland Brits don't want you. You are a drain. Now go collect your dole check.

• ancavker | Dec 06, 2012, 04:00 PM EST

  Dan: Perhaps if the Irish had more of their own land much of which was taken from them, they would not have all been crowded together,living liks sub-humans. That is clearly the fault of British rule in Ireland. The west never regained its population because of continued immigration, which was becasue of the lack of opportunity at home.

• Seanmor | Dec 06, 2012, 03:31 PM EST

  Along with having to pay tithes to the Established Church, did Irish Catholics also have to pay Peter's Pence to Rome during the the Great Hunger of the late 1840s?

• Towngate | Dec 06, 2012, 03:18 PM EST

  "Here's a bit of advice for yeh! I got off an old Fishmonger... When food is scarce ... and yeh see a Hearse ... then you know you've died of Hunger!" (...from 'The Waxies Dargle' Song.)

• DanOLoingsigh | Dec 06, 2012, 02:28 PM EST

  ancavker – I don’t recall saying it was the fault of the Irish people, let alone those who suffered and died in an unimaginable way…but neither was it the fault of the British public or the entire British body politic…even TPC agrees on that, and points his finger clearly at the Whig administration….and the unpalatable truth is that a major change in the dynamics of Irish rural life, particularly in the ‘congested districts’, was inevitable. The land simply could not support the population, except in the very best of years…as demonstrated by the fact that the population of the west and south never again reached the pre-famine figure.

• 6countybrit | Dec 06, 2012, 02:12 PM EST

  Personally, with the history of the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion in general, particularly regarding children, starvation is too generous. Aye blame the British because we can,t grow Potatos, what next. Tell ye what, I have proof September 11th was carried out by Santa. Keep spouting the horse @@@@ Irish Central, someone might listen to you one day outside your bigoted little bubble.

• Portia777 | Dec 06, 2012, 11:30 AM EST

  Many people wonder how one race of human beings could do all this to another. Simple- Dehumanise one group like the British and Rome did with indigenous Americans, Irish, Australians etc. Hitler learned well from the British and Romans. Think about 1996 when the last of the Maggie institutions closed and those women who only knew their number. So much hidden in his/her story.

• ancavker | Dec 06, 2012, 09:07 AM EST

  Dan: So it was a goo thing then in your mind was it not? And again like all of your comments when it comes to the subject of irish hsitory, it was never Britains fault, but rather the Irish, it was their fault. Always th fault of the Irish according to you. Britian of course the noble country that tried to do so much for Ireland, and rid them of their ignorance.

• curtisjohnson | Dec 05, 2012, 10:32 PM EST

  "The hierarchy in Ireland turned its back on the people when the accepted 20,000 pounds,maynooth and food and wine rations for all priests.They sided with the landlord class and told their flock to obey the law." The indigenous people were robbed of their real hierarchy and all that remained was the Church, which had always opposed Irish nationalism (at least after the 1640s).

• anglo-norman | Dec 05, 2012, 10:22 PM EST

  seems like someone is hacking my posts. Grow up son.

• anglo-norman | Dec 05, 2012, 06:57 PM EST

  You should watch "Keeping up with Kardashians" on TV. That show will inform you what's right about everything.

• anglo-norman | Dec 05, 2012, 06:34 PM EST

  seanomelb- spot on as it proves that the Irish themselves were much at fault as well

• seanomelb | Dec 05, 2012, 06:03 PM EST

  The hierarchy in Ireland turned its back on the people when the accepted 20,000 pounds,maynooth and food and wine rations for all priests.They sided with the landlord class and told their flock to obey the law. A plague on them and the authorities for what they did.

• Happyhippo | Dec 05, 2012, 06:00 PM EST

  I wish someone would some day make a movie and tell the horrific true story of the famine in Ireland,from 1846 so as to enlighten the millions of descendants worldwide, maybe our friend Gabriel Byrne with Liam Neeson and Tim Pat's help might get it off the ground.

• Sparklet | Dec 05, 2012, 04:12 PM EST

  How were poverty stricken people supposed to help themselves? And if they resorted to stealing in order to survive where was the compassion? And Dominic - you don't need to shout.

• Dominic1 | Dec 05, 2012, 04:02 PM EST

  CAN ANYONE SEE MY POST AT ALL??????????????

• anglo-norman | Dec 05, 2012, 03:54 PM EST

  In that period it must be remembered that 53% of the landlords were Irish Catholic. Lord Herbert of Killarney did great work to help the victims yet the catherdral catherdral in killarney was busily in construction. Other words where was the Vatican in all this? While Trevelyans comments were harsh there was an element of truth in it as even Daniel o Connell said that the people cannot take care of themselves. It was a tragedy for sure with incompetence on all sides.

• antoman | Dec 05, 2012, 03:11 PM EST

  God bless the Native Americans. They had nothing themselves and yet they sent us Irish aid.

• vince363 | Dec 05, 2012, 02:54 PM EST

  towngate tries to trivilise the suffering of the irish people when he state only 1,000.000 died in the so- called "famine" how many were tossed overboard from coffin ships ?how many died in canada or the US after they arrived? "trevelyn " the "right honorable gentlemans " was obviously a heartless wretch on a par with oliver "nits breed lice" cromwell ,the 1,000,000 figure is a misnomer the figure is probably much higher remember ireland was like a huge death camp during the famine ,workhouses were places to be dreaded , the british govt at the time saw the famine as a way to be rid of the"troublesome irish".

• antoman | Dec 05, 2012, 02:47 PM EST

  @Towntroll- Use the words "spineless Irish" again and I will lift you up with an uppercut.

• antoman | Dec 05, 2012, 02:29 PM EST

  Can I say that the famines in Ireland and the millions that died and emigrated is something that I or any Corkman ponders on or any Irishman for that matter. The thought that millions of us died as a result of being under the whip hand of the British whose subjects we were at the time and yet they let us die. Well the monarch was negligent in her duties now wasn't she. Tis no wonder we strived for a country of our own so we would not have to rely on the mood of a foreign Queen. 8-10 thousand died in Skibberean alone of hunger. The famine in Ireland is something I can't bring myself to properly research because it hurts me to think so many of my fellow Irish people were left to die of neglect under British rule. I tell you no lie that it saddens me to think of the starving back then. It reminds me of the victims of starvation in Africa and Band Aid and Bob Geldof.

• DanOLoingsigh | Dec 05, 2012, 01:42 PM EST

  If the Whig administration had continued the policy of the Peel Government, and purchased massive amounts food to distribute amongst the unfortunate population, what then? An ever-increasing rural population scratching an existence on tiny, marginal holdings, continuing to subdivide their poor land as the generations came along, waiting anxiously for the next crisis of crop or climate…an ill-educated peasantry beholden to their munificent donors… is that the Ireland anybody would really want to see?

• Sparklet | Dec 05, 2012, 12:43 PM EST

  Can't believe the twaddle that Anglo-Norman is coming out with.

• RedBranch | Dec 05, 2012, 12:38 PM EST

  To paraphrase the the author: 'read it below and weep'

• mlchellus | Dec 05, 2012, 12:21 PM EST

  Please join us at FB site - Irish Holocaust - Push to Educate the Facts. We have been posting on the Irish genocide for years...TRUTH.

• bob40wil | Dec 05, 2012, 11:20 AM EST

  oldboreen, look it up, one of the major reasons for the so called potato famine was a fast growing spud that unlike the usual ones grown in Ireland were not able to fight the blights that occured, trying to get more crops from inferior plantings.

• Brnmar1 | Dec 05, 2012, 10:55 AM EST

  Correction: The mid 1800s.

• Brnmar1 | Dec 05, 2012, 10:52 AM EST

  I agree from my limited study of history that the Irish Potato Famine was engineered. But, by whom. There was a plot by the leadership of the Catholic church in the mid 1880s to flood major American cities with Catholics. The aim was to gain control of the political leadership of America. When they were thawarted in this scheme, they actively courted the leaders from the southern states in America and instigated the south to seceede from the north. One book that dealt with this issue was "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome," by a former Catholic priest.

• Brnmar1 | Dec 05, 2012, 10:36 AM EST

  Towngate, my compliments. You make the point that I've been making in these pages for years - that it's way past time that we grew up and became adults. We have outrageously overplayed the victim role. At the national school in Ireland I learned that every misfortune to fall on dear'oul Ireland could be laid at John Bull's feet. Later I learned that we ourselves were complicit in our subjucation from the get-go. We have dumbed ourselves into believing that we have an heroic past when the truth is that all of our so-called rebellions together didn't amount to a pimple on an elephant's arse. TPC's populist spin on the Famine is just what the lads need to refresh and rekindle blind old myths and blind old hatreds.

• Dominic1 | Dec 05, 2012, 09:25 AM EST

  FAMINE IN 2012 DEJA VU? It is all a complete and utter travesty anywhere and at any time to let one person starve to death let alone millions! Today we have mass emigration caused by starvation of almost everyone in this country of Ireland with people not having enough to feed their families, not enough money to heat their homes, not enough to ensure n provide proper health care or education. This is a fact! I say almost everyone in this country is suffering because it is like Deja vu to the 1840's because this country is still being reigned over by a power that are not within this country but the rules are being set and dished out by their 'puppets' within the Irish Government. These 'puppets' (our new landlords) live a lavish life style most with a fatter salary than the President of the United States of America (Are the people of the US aware of this) They push 'austerity' on an already suffering Irish People with starvation of food, of jobs, of money, of health, of education, and of human dignity; a price being paid for events that were not of their making, ‘The Celtic Tiger’. They have now stooped to a new low and even begun to evict families from their homes They (the Irish Government) lord over us the citizens just like their counterparts did during the famine of the 1840's because all of their luxuries are off the back of their citizens Irish Families whom they have heaped and visited austerity after austerity upon while remaining in a lavish austerity free lifestyle themselves. 1840’s or 2012 what is the difference? Absolutely none, none in context, none in reality, and none in real terms. When will we as Irish people ever learn? Dominic McKevitt

• ancavker | Dec 05, 2012, 08:59 AM EST

  barnie: You might actuallywant to read one of Coogan's books before you make the claim he hates the British. The leve of ignorance and stupidity on this site is shocking at times.

• Towngate | Dec 05, 2012, 08:58 AM EST

  bbbmckeon. Aw, now you've gone all weasely-words and obfuscational on me!You are fooling nobody. Lookit! If there were seven million and one million 'left' - what were the other six million doing as they watched them starve or leave? -Simple question! Also, you've mentioned 'Guilt'. I admit I was consumed with it when I learned about how it was NOT all 'Cruel Inglan's' fault - the gombeen spineless Irish themselves had a hand in it! - but we were taught to blame only the 'oppressors! Time we grew up and challenged thes 'Sacred Cow' delusions!

• ancavker | Dec 05, 2012, 08:54 AM EST

  rebelforce: Historians do not talk about it, because it involves England. SImple as that.

• glounlathan | Dec 05, 2012, 08:53 AM EST

  In the name of God, what goos is all this doing? Will all the recounting of the famine bring my great great granduncle back? Will it stop children starving today. The Irish Famine was indeed a great wrong but if we talk of wrong we need to talk of all wrongs in that time frame. I have heard idiots pass comments such as even Native Americans contributed to the famine when England failed. This is true but these same individuals failed to acknowledge 'Paddy in the Cavalry's guilt' when tehy name others. Names like Sheridan, Connors, Kearney, Keogh and Meagher did not come from Buckingham Palace but they were as bad as Cromwell to those who met the wrong end of their sword. If we have to talk of these things let it be across the board, some say it took some testicles to build a famine monument on ground where millions were eliminiated by Europeans of all creeds. In reality, we still can do alot about the hunger in the world today---so why not cultiviate the potapo plot at the back of the house and feed someone less fortunate than us, In many ways we have become like the French Upper Classes before the Revolution---with many manicured lawns growing no food. When we turn a blind eye on anyone where hunger is we are as guilty as anyone as we join the masses in the 'I walk idly by type of genoside of the complacent.'

• IrelandNorth | Dec 05, 2012, 07:48 AM EST

  PS Line below should have read: I hardly think Caitlín Ní Houlihán [ie feminine personification of Ireland] was more dependent on John Bull [masculine personification of England]."

• IrelandNorth | Dec 05, 2012, 07:44 AM EST

  It would be more correct to say that Tim Pat Coogan's (2012) "The Famine Plot:- England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy" (NY: Palgrave/Macmillan, 247 pp h/bk) points the finger at England rather than Great Britain (GB) as a whole, being a peculiarly Anglo- rather than Welsh or Scottish policy that did socioeconomic GBH to the 19th c. Emerald Isle. While the UK wanted Ireland, she certainly didn't want the Irish. A unique insight is TPCs appendicising of Trevelyan's epistle of his 6 day abbreviated sojourn in 1848 Ireland, which his vanity lead him to believe made him an expert on all things Irish. Equally impressive was Earl Grey's address to then the House of Lords, which proves there's always a good Englishman to be found, however selfish his peers. (His tea will taste even sweeter!) Given that Ireland was England's grannery, I hardly think that John Bull was more dependent on Caitlín Ní Houlihán. Why else the democratically-challenged Act of Union 1800/'01, the constitutional equivalent of a gunshot wedding, after the bride has been raped. Might TPC difficulties in entering the USA to promote his academic scholarship have been to do with a certain residual affection for neo-Travelyanism in the woodwork of the body politic? TPC is a peculiar melange of historical scholar and seanachaí/folk wisdom storyteller. Indispensable reading for inhabitants of a compulsively repetitious world.

• Dominic1 | Dec 05, 2012, 05:46 AM EST

  FAMINE IN 2012 DEJA VU? It is all a complete travesty anywhere and at any time to let one person starve to death let alone millions! Today we have mass emigration caused by starvation of almost everyone in this country of Ireland with people not having enough to feed their families, not enough money to heat their homes, not enough to ensure n provide proper health care or education. This is a fact! I say almost everyone in this country is suffering because it is like deja vu to the 1840's because this country is still be reigned by a power that is not within this country but the rules being set are being dished out by their 'puppets' within the Irish Government. These 'puppets' (our new landlords) live a lavish life style most with a fatter salary than the President of the United States of America (Are the people of the US aware of this) They push 'austerity' on an already suffering people with starvation of food, of jobs, of money, of health, of education, and of human dignity. They (the Irish Government)lord over us the citizens just like their counterparts during the famine of the 1840's. All there luxuries are off the back of their citizens whom they have heaped and visited austerity after austerity upon while remaining in a lavish austerity free lifestyle themselves. Will we as Irish people ever learn? Dominic McKevitt

• antoman | Dec 05, 2012, 04:23 AM EST

  I told you guys here long merry ago that twas genocide. Put no stock in words from the likes of Towntroll. His version of history is his own and as they say misery loves company. Instead do your own research and come to your own conclusion. The internet is an invaluable tool, use it.

• bbbmckeon | Dec 05, 2012, 01:14 AM EST

  @Towngate-whoops yourself! It's you who are confused or are desperately trying to muddle the argument. I mentioned nothing about there being six million English and Anglo-Irish landlords post-famine. My reply to your post that was answering the question of who were the bystanders who ALLOWED this to happen was that you clearly must have meant the wealthy and land owning class who had ALL the power and obviously not the native Irish Catholic underclass that had little means to prevent what happened to them. There is no historian of legitimate stature that has ever promoted the idea that the Irish Catholic underclass (who were the majority of that six million) were in any position to save the masses who were starving.

• vince363 | Dec 05, 2012, 12:56 AM EST

  irish famine indeed! it was definitly ethnic cleansing ,didnt trevelyn say when asked what steps were being taken to alleviate the suffering of the irish people "the edict of natural causes will ease the situation " shades of the "final solution" i remember my late father when he was watching the nurnberg trials on tv remarking after a flowery grandstanding speech by sir hartley shawcross "these people shouldnt be sitting in judgment of anyone after what they did in ireland , and that goes double for the soviets ,but today is today2012 enlish people are christining their children with irish names its common to see englishmen named "liam" sean" kevin" etc and english women called "kelly " deidre" and "maureen " so i guess things are achanging .

• Towngate | Dec 05, 2012, 12:37 AM EST

  bbbmckeon@06.09@ Whooops! - there goes yer brain! Are you seriously suggesting that the 6 million survivors of the 'Famicide' were all Anglo-Irish who owned 95% of the land!? ~ get a grip, my good man!

• Rebelforce | Dec 04, 2012, 11:39 PM EST

  Historians and politicians talk a lot today about "ethnic cleansing", yet rarely is Ireland mentioned as an extreme example of it. Which is strange when you consider that Ireland is probably the only place on earth that has fewer Irish people living in it today (6 million) than in 1844 (8 million).

• seanomelb | Dec 04, 2012, 10:22 PM EST

  glounlathan he who forgets the past is apt to repeat it. Maybe forgetting 9/11 would be a way forward. I suppose to the victor goes the spoils and the downtrodden are left with the bitter memories of genocide or murder and justice denied. They the victims or their descendants had no closure only to be swept under the carpet of lies and deceit. This is true of all who have suffered from deliberate starvation or genocide.

• glounlathan | Dec 04, 2012, 10:04 PM EST

  Will this never end. The whole thing about the famine was one the worst calamities ever but it was so many years ago. Can I bring my great great grand uncle back? Can I bring back the Native Americans who died as US cavalry ploughed into homes and fields. Where did the names Sheidan, Keogh, and Meagher come from. It takes some testicles to build a famine memorial on lands taken from a people who were starved, diseased and ethnically cleansed by a force with so many Irish troops in the ranks of those who performed the autrocities on these people. We certainly must fight injustice, but this constant rubbing of salt in the wounds will not move this forward. When we fail to feed a hungry neighbor, or fail to do or say anything in areas where current day famines are happening---then we too are guilty of 'the I am ok jack type of genocide.'

• misneac | Dec 04, 2012, 08:12 PM EST

  The WASPS in the US did not want Tim Pat Coogan cming to the States and telling the truth about the Famine , hence the contact with the Dublin Embassy and visa refusal !

• ciara joyce | Dec 04, 2012, 07:39 PM EST

  Stop calling the Great Hunger a famine. The failure of a single crop on a fertile island does not cause a famine. Everything but the potato grew as well as it did every year, from barley to cattle. It was all shipped out of Ireland. When 1.5 million people die and at least that many emigrate from an island as small as Ireland in five or six years, that genocide and ethnic cleansing. And the brits wonder why we hate them,

• SheilaSB | Dec 04, 2012, 07:16 PM EST

  Seanomelb makes very good points, and I thank him. Sending all the food out of the country and leaving only potatoes for the Irish to eat was the British practice. I mean no offense to anyone, but I often have wondered if the Irish fondness for alcoholic beverages might be rooted in a vitamin and/or mineral deficiency brought on by the British leaving the Irish hardly anything to eat. For example, many alcoholic beverages contain B vitamins which are essential for normal function of the nervous system, among other body systems. I would like to hear the viewpoint of others on this topic. I agree the way the British have treated the Irish is unconscionable. The people of Scotland survived the same potato shortage because the Scottish people believe in the equality of man, whereas the English have clung to a rigorous and cruel class system, especially in the 19th century.

• merefalow | Dec 04, 2012, 07:05 PM EST

  it WAS documented,historically proven,deliberate ethnic cleansing,no wonder they tried to ban him,the truth still hurts.

• EamonnDublin | Dec 04, 2012, 06:35 PM EST

  I have no doubt but that there are more than a few on here who also deny the Holocaust.

• Seanmor | Dec 04, 2012, 06:26 PM EST

  Proving the Great Hunger/Famine was genocide is a monumental task, even for Tim Pat Coogan. However, any writermay be justified in claiming that the 13 killings by British soldiers in Derry on Bloody Sunday was ethnic cleansing, and the same is probably true od the 9 Nationalists shot dead by the forces of G.B. in Ballymurphy on the 2nd weekend of August, 1971. These included an R.C. priest, and a mother of 9. Also, The killing by the Brits of Fr. Noel Fitzpatrick (40), Ptk Butler (39), John Dougal (16), Dave McCartney (15) and Mgt. Gargan (13) in Springhill on 9 July, 1972, had the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The Irish media, for the most part, is still silent on the killing of these Nationalists.

• Irishphotograph | Dec 04, 2012, 06:14 PM EST

  test

• seanomelb | Dec 04, 2012, 06:14 PM EST

  Why were the 'peasants' (you mean the Irish people) denied the produce they grew you ask Anglo.1 The landlords took it and sold it. The London Times had an article when the so called famine hit "now we can do with the Irish what we wish" Blair did not apologise for the blight on the potato! He apologised for the government of the time's lack of action to stave off the great hunger. In fact using the crop failure to delibertately decimate the population and weaken the resolve of the native Irish to pursue political change.

• bbbmckeon | Dec 04, 2012, 06:09 PM EST

  @Towngate-if by 'bystanders' you are referring to the English and Anglo-Irish landlords who owned 95% of the land (and wealth!) in the whole of Ireland, then I will agree with you that they also did not do enough. But ask yourself whose side were they were on?? If you are a survivor of that class, then I can certainly understand YOUR survivor guilt but I will pray only for your redemption and not that of your forebears! Irish Catholic land ownership was @ 5%. That meant little to no Irish Catholic representation in an already British and Protestant dominated London legislature that never placed the needs of Ireland over Britain even when the masses were dying right next to them. Great neighbors on both counts!!

• anglo-norman | Dec 04, 2012, 05:03 PM EST

  maybe there was some injustices but why were the peasants relying solely on the potato crop?

• seanomelb | Dec 04, 2012, 04:53 PM EST

  BTW torytory should crawl underneath the nearest rock and wrap himself in his cloak of ignorance.

• seanomelb | Dec 04, 2012, 04:51 PM EST

  Tim has only written what the Irish have known for 170Yrs. Anglo-normans reply only belays his lack of knowledge and a simplistic point of view.Clowngate most of the grain imported into Ireland was used to make whiskey(Irish whiskey was the favourite tipple of the Brit ruling classes) Tell me clowngate why were 20,000 sides of salted pork exported to the UK in one year from wexford or why a million (greased) eggs sent their or why any Irish caught fishing in goddam irish rivers or hunted game were imprisoned or deported. Or maybe ask youselves why Tony Blair apologised for that great injustice.

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

  That Famine was a natural disaster not man made. Why didn't the people get together & fish out of the sea & hunt? It was a tragedy of course & a sad loss of life but really the people could have done more to help themselves rather than relying on the potato crop.

• sharoneileen | Dec 04, 2012, 04:23 PM EST

  It is my understanding that Trevelyan ordered ships from the US carrying famine relief, (grains-corn, wheat), to be turned back from Irish ports. The ships were not allowed to dock and unload the much needed relief. The British told the US government that it was not needed and they were handling the situation. In my eyes this was genocide, no different to what the US was doing to the native Americans, what Hitler did to Jews and others who opposed them and so on through history. It makes no sense to me, free the slaves and slaughter the indigenous people at the same time. It's crazy. On the program "Who Do You Think You Are?" (genealogy program sponsored by Ancestry.com) Rosie O'Donnell was guided through a work house in Ireland and told the story of the work houses. She cried and I cried thinking that this was probably the story behind my own Irish ancestors who came to the US and most probably the story behind those who disappeared. It's sad and shocking but this type of behavior continues throughout the world to this day. What we do to each other. "what so ever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." I believe an apology is long overdue we are millions of descendants waiting for the official apology from the British government, long, long over due.

• Towngate | Dec 04, 2012, 04:20 PM EST

  bbbmckeon: My point still stands that we look at this from a 'survivor' standpoint. Someone else here asks 'who were these bystanders were who allowed it all to happen?' Easy: Look at the famine map and compare the quality of that land, compared to the rich farm land of the remaining country, populated by the 'I'm alright Jack'people who kept their heads low and their bellies full, ~ but at least did help unload the shiploads of grain the English BOUGHT from America,that the Brit-bashers tend to overlook.

• RedBranch | Dec 04, 2012, 04:18 PM EST

  Dan I think the term you're looking for is Manifest Destiny. A nice euphemism for ethnic cleansing at best, genocide at worst.

• Springfield9 | Dec 04, 2012, 04:18 PM EST

  Has anyone ever doubted that starving 1/4 of a Nation's polation to death is a genocide? What else could it be? Bad luck, bad Karma, fate, angry Gods? My Great-Great-Grandfather put himself in a debtor's workhouse to get money for his wife and 3 boys to escape.

• Nicomax | Dec 04, 2012, 03:40 PM EST

  This is why some of us could care less whether the prince and his wench have two, three or whatever number of children. There are much more important issues to contemplate and resolve.

• Nicomax | Dec 04, 2012, 03:19 PM EST

  Barnie Niall was referring to the U.S. now

• maireadinmelb | Dec 04, 2012, 03:08 PM EST

  No surprise here Niall, did a paper on this topic in university! The irish have long believed this we do not need Tim Pat to tell us!

• barnie4001 | Dec 04, 2012, 02:50 PM EST

  Nothing surprising about that

• barnie4001 | Dec 04, 2012, 02:34 PM EST

  Niall proudly points out how 1840’s USA would have ‘stepped up to the plate’ if needed…hang on though, didn’t they have five or six million of their citizens as slaves at that time? And would they not spend the next few decades trying to wipe out some ‘injun folk’whose land they coveted…or was that a different USA?

• barnie4001 | Dec 04, 2012, 02:33 PM EST

  Laughable. Just laughable. Coogan is not 'Ireland's most prominent historian' - the man is a journalist, broadcaster and, it is true, a fashionable POPULAR historian. He writes popular history, albeit through his own prejudicial eyes. This man hates Britain and anything British, that much is pretty clear, but that's bye the bye. There's nothing new in this work - the poor laws, Trevelyan's typical belief in providence, the governments devotion to Smithian economics - all well documented by much better historians. The only difference is he's wrapped a bit narrative around an unsubstantiated belief: that the Great Famine was orchestrated 'genocide' - fact of the matter is that it wasn't and the failings of the British government in succoring the Irish (and the Scots - yes there was a concurrent famine in the Highlands, though the Scots don't whine about it continually like the Irish) have been iterated time and time again.

• Sparklet | Dec 04, 2012, 01:47 PM EST

  Ancavker, nothing if it's a one-off, but they latch on to anything, be it current or centuries old, time and time again, sometimes rehashing the same stories. Maybe they don't have an agenda, so just call me cynical.

• Porickseantuny | Dec 04, 2012, 01:25 PM EST

  The genocide continued well after the famine. Hence the creation of the land leaque in the late 1800's and even the dervivation of the term boycott as in the refusal of Mayo tenants to harvest the crop of the vile Captain Boycott.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 01:22 PM EST

  Towngate: Who were these Irish who did nothing for their neighbors. The overwhelming majority were poor and destitue themselves.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 01:21 PM EST

  sparklet: IC reports on a new book written by an Irish historian on a a historical Irish matter. What exactly are they guilty of?

• bbbmckeon | Dec 04, 2012, 12:52 PM EST

  @Towngate-you are welcome but maybe it is you who should remember that VICTIMS are most often made to believe that they are responsible for their own fate even when it is clear that their fate lies in the hands of their oppressor and that is the garbage that has been handed down to the survivors for generations now. When shackled to a miserable fate by a foreign government that oppressed for centuries and who committed atrocities prior to and post 1845-1852 "famine" then there is little argument about what the intent was during this time. There were many, many failures of the potato crop before and after the 1845-1852 period that killed large percentages of the population. Genocide has several definitions, the United Nations Convention very intelligently covered those powers who are not stupid enough to kill off an entire population before the eyes of the world but who use "opportunities" such as this natural disaster to cull from an ethnic group those that they conveniently placed in such precarious circumstances in order to allow what they knew would eventually happen. That sir is indeed genocide!

• phinsman | Dec 04, 2012, 12:39 PM EST

  I completely agree that this was genocide. During the famine, the British that occupied Ireland were farming, harvesting and shipping lots of edible food out of Ireland and did not help the Irish with the famine. To be honest, I don't respect the British of the past. They significantly removed quite a bit of Irish culture when they occupied Ireland and as well as the cultures of other countries they occupied. Luckily they lost the American Revolution.

• slainte9 | Dec 04, 2012, 12:33 PM EST

  How in the world are the Irish, the victims, guilty for the Famine. For what? Failing to defeat Cromwell, or for being victims of subjugation by the Penal Laws enforced by military power. The Famine is remembered as an act of God by the British because the British wrote the history books, notably Trevelyan and Macaulay.

• Towngate | Dec 04, 2012, 12:00 PM EST

  Shuvonne and bbbmckeon; good response,thanks, but please remember this: the 'famine' happened - or was caused, if you like - long before a 'United Nations' (formerly League of Nations) was dreamt of, and invented its own definition of the word 'genocide'. The other more important thing to remember is that we Irish are all SURVIVORS of the famous 'Famicide'. Is it because we feel just a little bit guilty for letting our countrymen die, that we bang on about the horrid English causing it all? ~~~~ Lookit! - if THEY are guilty - so are WE!

• TisEyerish | Dec 04, 2012, 11:57 AM EST

  To take this theory one step further...there is a line of thought that the blight was deliberately introduced to Ireland by the British. Whether or not it was, the British did stand by and do nothing. It's not a far cry from what Hitler perpetrated against Germany. Although Hitler accomplished the German genocide through activity rather than passivity, the result was the same.

• GavinE | Dec 04, 2012, 11:54 AM EST

  Where does one start? There are too many erroneous statements in the comments to respond to all of them, but here are just a few. "Glounlathan" says "give this up, it is all history now". Tim Pat is a historian - history is what he writes about, as do many others. History and its lessons should NEVER be forgotten. "Towngate" says, "If it was genocide, all the Irish would have perished - by definition". WRONG! Any definition of genocide states that it is destruction of an ethnic group "in whole OR IN PART". "Glounlathan" says, to we Irish, "Wouldn't you all be better off to plant a few spuds to give to hungry neighbours". Don't believe the media, Glounlathan, there are far fewer hungry Irish than almost any other nation, including the USA (which I love dearly). We look after those who live here, Irish and non-Irish, with one of the very best social welfare systems in the world. We also give more per capita to foreign countries than almost any other country gives. I could go on, but I shan't bother myself - the anti-Irish comments on here simply reflect the similar rhetoric of the rag that it has become.

• Mortimer74 | Dec 04, 2012, 11:48 AM EST

  "Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy. We must not forget such a dreadful event.” PM Tony Blair, 1997, at 150th commemoration Blair rightfully "apologised." TPG is ensuring it is indeed not forgotten.

• Sparklet | Dec 04, 2012, 11:37 AM EST

  I sometime get the idea that Irish Central can't bear the idea that there's little animosity between Ireland the UK these days, and will do anything to stir it up. I do agree though, that the record should be put straight, and that it should be publicised enough so that your average Brit is aware of what actually happened, because tbh, I'd say 75% don't have a clue.

• pilib04 | Dec 04, 2012, 11:35 AM EST

  I'm happy that Tim Pat has caught up with American-Irish on the subject of Famine related Genocide. Presumably he has included citations from the Genocide committee and the Irish Hunger Committee.

• DrDerek | Dec 04, 2012, 11:32 AM EST

  An interesting fact was not mentioned . Certain English Landlords who grew wheat and maybe potatoes exported their crops back to England during the famine. That was disgusting.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 11:19 AM EST

  towngate: Most of the other 6 million who survived had nothing to give. What an ignorant comment.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 11:18 AM EST

  Whoever the fake ancavker is, please stop posting under my handle. It is very immature.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 11:15 AM EST

  Tom: When you choose to do nothing, when you could have done something, and make comments indicating that less Irish would be better, than that is genocide. No one is bent on savaging the English today, but the historical record should be set straight once and for all. This was genocide. If this famine had occurred in England, there is no way the British government would have set back and done basically nothing. Mr. Trevelyan spews forth his disgust at the Irish. Had they really been thought of as British citizens in the UK, they would not have been left to die. In reality they were a conquered people ruled by an elite who despised them.

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 11:09 AM EST

  In the name of God, give this up. It is all history now. There are many Irish Americans who ran from the famine whose descendaants have well moved on and done great things, without the land or Eire or English coin. Why so much energy on hate and salt when the same energy could be spent on today's famines. Wouldn't you all be better off to go out and cultiviate your back gardens and plant a few spuds to give to hungry neighbors than dwelling in this constant bickering. If you pick any corner of the world you will not find a piece of land that was not conquered by one people to the demise of others.The bickering in these pages will only make for more arguement and maybe sharpen some daggers---go plant some spuds and feed the hungry!

• oldboreen | Dec 04, 2012, 11:01 AM EST

  @bob40wil-Offensive and silly comment. I won't ask you to justify it since you almost certainly cannot!

• bob40wil | Dec 04, 2012, 10:50 AM EST

  Wrong choice of potatos to grow.

• bbbmckeon | Dec 04, 2012, 10:35 AM EST

  @Towngate-the definition of genocide described in the book, as the article above clearly states, is taken from the United Nations Convention on Genocide. It is defined there as "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part". Read some history and try to understand what the lives of the remaining "six million" were like before you judge them. They were mostly destitute! Ireland was described as a "nation of paupers" at the time by Gustave de Beaumont who travelled the country and wrote of its ills. And that six million number is also brought into serious question by many scholars as there was no true accounting of the number of lives lost or of those who fled the country.

• handsome68 | Dec 04, 2012, 10:30 AM EST

  It seems like as much verbiage has been expended on the Great Famine as, e.g., the Holocaust. If one cares to experience some sense of the former, I suggest going to Grosse Ile, a day trip outside Quebec-ville, Canada. In Ireland, another venue besides the Famine Museum is the memorial in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim.

• miamicanes | Dec 04, 2012, 10:27 AM EST

  "yes, many of the English elite thought it a good thing to 'thin out' the Irish population, so to speak.". Tom Swinford writes the above. If that's the case, then what role did they plan in it.

• Mortimer74 | Dec 04, 2012, 10:27 AM EST

  “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…” Bit of a hint, there, Swinford. Back to your books, boy.

• Silling | Dec 04, 2012, 10:26 AM EST

  By The English, " Not the British ".

• Silling | Dec 04, 2012, 10:11 AM EST

  Niall, I'm surprised at your headline. Tim Pat Coogan can never prove that the Famine was genocide because it wasn't. I expect that TPC offers nothing new but simply puts a populist spin on what has already covered by many authors over many years. Yes, the English authorities were negligent; they were callous; yes, the famine was at first ignored, then mismanaged; yes, many of the English elite thought it a good thing to 'thin out' the Irish population, so to speak. But, as one who has read a fair number of books on the subject, I do not believe that there is any credible evidence that there was ever a deliberate, organized, systematic effort at government level to annihilate the Irish people or a portion thereof. I know that we have this pathological bent to savage the English at every turn but we should be careful not to use such incindiary language for no worthwhile purpose, save to bring out the loonies.

• shuvonn | Dec 04, 2012, 10:05 AM EST

  Did it not kill enough Irish for you there towngate? Seriosuly how dare you attempt to invalidate or belittle the suffering of millions of Irish people. OR the reduction of the Irish population by 25%. You seem oblivious of the actual definition of what the UN deems to be genocide and it does NOT on any level state that all OF THE people in a group or religion. It CLEARLY states that Genocide is *Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part* so spare us the hypocrisy Towngate, your post was beyond ignorant and arrogant, congratulations...

• Mr. Boston99 | Dec 04, 2012, 10:01 AM EST

  From what I understand it was more an attempt to force "free markets" in pricing onto the Irish that resulted in the starvation of more than one million as opposed to a planned genocide. The usual crap we get from the elites. I would hate to see us Irish emulate the Jews and run around lecturing everyone about how good and innocent we are and hateful and evil they are. And to describe assimilation and multi-culturism as genocide. That is not a very Irish was to be

• lecorri | Dec 04, 2012, 09:33 AM EST

  Well of COURSE it was genocide by the British. We didnt need Coogan to tell us that, although it never hurts, on occasion, to remind people of the truth about what the Brits did in Ireland. As with Germany and it's Jews, just a different method, but, never again!

• Towngate | Dec 04, 2012, 09:28 AM EST

  If it WAS 'Genocide' - all the Irish would have perished - by definition. As it is, one million of a population of seven, either died or emigrated. That leaves SIX million caring, compassionate,generous, holy fellow-Irish stood by and watched as their friends and neighbours starved or fled! ~ In exactly the same way as those today with 'cute' money are lying low , pretending they have nothing, whilst watching their fellows suffer in the current economic disaster that has befallen Ireland.

• cpflann | Dec 04, 2012, 09:24 AM EST

  The book Paddy's Lament also has vivid descriptions of the famione times. I'm currently reading The Great Shame by Thomas Keneally which describes the conditions in East Galway, where my father was from. Clearly many elements in British society thought the Great Hunger was a positive thing to reduce the surplus population.

• cpflann | Dec 04, 2012, 09:23 AM EST

  Scholarly studied and history are important to explore. The should never be used to incite old hatreds or animosities. At a time when there is still some delicacy in the peace in our country we should all be mindful to make extra efforts to build friendships and bridges across emotional divides. Kindness and compassion toward each other and never ever animosity stoked by historical events. Energy put into negative things and snide remarks do disservice to peace and to our children and communities.

• cpflann | Dec 04, 2012, 09:13 AM EST

  In 'The great Hunger' by Cecil Woodham Smith' a British Economist called 'Nassau Senior',of Jewish/Spanish stock, stated that "over the 1847 Winter only 1,000,000 will die and that will not be enough",so the Irish genocide was well planned. The British even stopped the donation of worn out clothing to the Irish so that they would freeze to death. I think Thatcher called it 'Free Market Forces'. The jews do NOT have the monopoly on the word 'Holocaust'!

• ancavker | Dec 04, 2012, 09:04 AM EST

  It was most certainly genocide. The fact that is happened under British rule, does not change that fact. Hd it been any other country there would not be an argument that it was genocide. Because it was the British they get a pass.

• dublinshea | Dec 04, 2012, 09:00 AM EST

  they done well out of it. farming practices where reorientated to their benifit and to this day it set in train a system where by irish people supplied cheep labour to england or english speaking countries.

• runningaway | Dec 04, 2012, 08:51 AM EST

  Irish committing suicide nowadays via secular multi-culturism....religion is culture, Irish have abandoned both.

• luxefaire | Dec 04, 2012, 08:47 AM EST

  well famine is the cheapest and quickest way to get rid of the unwanted, afterall...i saw it first by studying chemtrailing and enmod in africa, it was a plan, a conspiracy, to cause famine, and in 30 days or so all the problems were gone, once it got going...its what has a lot of peole worried here, the spraying in the sky since 911 seems to point to the old roman way of salting the fields to starve the people, and lets face it, the british were and still are the romans, no matter what....there is a lot of it in ireland now too, roman judaic thinking, god money, so its just water under the bridge, what they did in the past, but be careful and aware, and do not let them do it to you again. remove yourselves spiritually and financially from the bankers who have bought into judah, that means the catholix too, and get back to the old ways while embracing new technologies for growing foods and medicinals....b

• Portia777 | Dec 04, 2012, 08:23 AM EST

  " The damned Irishry 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." There is a little more to it than that. The ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH wanted Eire and her people fully subdued under Roman/British rule. The British were merely the agents of the Vatican from 1171 Cashel. The Irish were too spiritual, too well educated for their own good and as Jesuits did in Americas, language,indigenous culture had to be exterminated.Names were changed, old traditions demonised as Pagan/Irish Catholic church, his story was changed and written by the conquerors.Anyone with eyes saw the Queen of England last year obey the Pope. His hand over hers and she obeys. USA still pays taxes to the Crown of England. The church claims rights to most minerals, etc of Mother Earth and is down as "owner" even though Mother Earth never sold any rights to the men in frocks.