5 ms·

The Irish famine is roughly comparable to other famines of the 19th century in terms of its mortality rate (i.e. Mysore in the 1870s). A true comparison is diff

The Irish famine is roughly comparable to other famines of the 19th century in terms of its mortality rate (i.e. Mysore in the 1870s). A true comparison is difficult since there were not accurate census figures in most famine prone regions but the rate is comparable (Ireland is on the high side but it was still comparable within the margin of error). What is unique about the Irish famine is that modern day Ireland’s population is still about 25% lower now than it was in the eve of the famine 180 years ago. I can’t think of any other place that depopulated like that.

ac2u 2y ago
Mortality rate doesn’t paint a full picture of the effect on Ireland. Emigration had a huge effect on the depopulation too. (I don’t think you deliberately left this out or anything just wanted to provide additional context). There were other crops in Ireland at the time that were exported under armed guard. A lot of the policy was driven by the fact that some British politicians saw the famine as a natural way to ‘thin the herd’ of the Irish populous. Of course, Houses of Parliament records show that there were British politicians that were morally aghast at this, but unfortunately they couldn’t have enough of an impact.
rayiner 2y ago
> The Irish famine is roughly comparable to other famines of the 19th century in terms of its mortality rate (i.e. Mysore in the 1870s) Yes, absolutely. But at least for me it was shocking to learn that Ireland, right next door to Britain, was suffering from similar famines to India.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop), they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. I'd be more shocked to find out that Britain in the 19th century made things better in a region with famine.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop) There's a historical grey area here. India had experienced the conditions of their famine before, as you might expect, things happen more than once and so they had a social structure agreement between villages where ones who's crops were stricken and lost would have their food stocks supplemented with those of neighboring villages, and every village grew more than they needed to facilitate this. This worked excellently for probably thousands of years, until the Brits arrived and insisted taxes be collected, and they took crop yields in lieu of money the Indians didn't have. Either they were unaware because they assumed the brown people had no idea what they were doing, or they were aware and didn't give a shit because the people were brown, or some combo of the two, who's to say. But they did the very same to the Irish. Landlords were entitled to the yields of their land, and they took whatever it produced, which exasperated the already dire situation.
  - wolfram74 2y ago
    I don't know, it's been a while since I've read on the subject, but I thought part of what drove the Irish to subsisting off of a monoculture was somewhat driven by necessity from the english consolidating lots of holdings to english lords and collaborators, tax policies shaping what little output they had left basically meant with the amount of arable farm land available to the Irish, it was only the surprisingly effective potato that could keep up. If that recollection is correct, then while the english might not have lit the metaphorical fire, they definitely gathered the kindling.
  - slibhb 2y ago
    It's so trendy to blame everything on the British. Downside of being the local (or global) power; everything is your fault. Probably they should have helped more, but so should have everyone.
    - mtalantikite 2y ago
      It'd be one thing if they just didn't help more, but they actively exacerbated it. There was food in Ireland, it just wasn't for the Irish. From the article: > The problem was not that the land was barren.... But almost none of this food was available for consumption by the people who produced it. It was intended primarily for export to the burgeoning industrial cities of England. ... In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. They rented their lands to farmers, a large majority of whom were Catholics. Scanlan points out that, whereas in England a tenant farmer might pay between a sixth and a quarter of the value of his crops in rent, in Ireland “rent often equalled the entire value of a farm’s saleable produce.”
- fmajid 2y ago
  So the British Empire was color-blind in its viciousness, after all?
  - brink 2y ago
    Sure, but I wouldn't naively believe that it's just the British that are/were like this.
    - hollywood_court 2y ago
      I don't believe they implied that at all.
      - brink 2y ago
        Well it's easy to assume, so it's best to clarify.
        fmajid 2y ago
        I was being sarcastic about how even-handedly the British dispensed their cruelty, to white Irish or Boer just as readily as to brown Bengalis.
  - roomey 2y ago
    No, they had a lot of propaganda that showed the Irish as sub human, look at punch magazine for example The Irish were not "white" back then
    - Gothmog69 2y ago
      Stupid and lazy analysis.... they were not English. The French and the Germans were also not English. Nothing to do with racism it was nationalism.
      - melesian 2y ago
        French and Germans were not depicted in English publications as apes. The Irish were coerced into the UK and were officially British citizens, that is ostensibly, co-nationals. They weren't treated as such because those in power regarded them as subhuman. If that isn't racism the word is devoid of meaning.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
InDubioProRubio 2y ago
Its pretty close to the Holdomor in all attributes?

ac2u 2y ago

Mortality rate doesn’t paint a full picture of the effect on Ireland. Emigration had a huge effect on the depopulation too. (I don’t think you deliberately left this out or anything just wanted to provide additional context). There were other crops in Ireland at the time that were exported under armed guard. A lot of the policy was driven by the fact that some British politicians saw the famine as a natural way to ‘thin the herd’ of the Irish populous. Of course, Houses of Parliament records show that there were British politicians that were morally aghast at this, but unfortunately they couldn’t have enough of an impact.

rayiner 2y ago

> The Irish famine is roughly comparable to other famines of the 19th century in terms of its mortality rate (i.e. Mysore in the 1870s) Yes, absolutely. But at least for me it was shocking to learn that Ireland, right next door to Britain, was suffering from similar famines to India.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop), they were largely responsible for explicitly refusing to help and making the situation worse. I'd be more shocked to find out that Britain in the 19th century made things better in a region with famine.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  > My understanding is that while Britain wasn't the direct cause of the famine itself (that is, they didn't specifically introduce a pathogen that would fuck up their major crop) There's a historical grey area here. India had experienced the conditions of their famine before, as you might expect, things happen more than once and so they had a social structure agreement between villages where ones who's crops were stricken and lost would have their food stocks supplemented with those of neighboring villages, and every village grew more than they needed to facilitate this. This worked excellently for probably thousands of years, until the Brits arrived and insisted taxes be collected, and they took crop yields in lieu of money the Indians didn't have. Either they were unaware because they assumed the brown people had no idea what they were doing, or they were aware and didn't give a shit because the people were brown, or some combo of the two, who's to say. But they did the very same to the Irish. Landlords were entitled to the yields of their land, and they took whatever it produced, which exasperated the already dire situation.
- wolfram74 2y ago
  I don't know, it's been a while since I've read on the subject, but I thought part of what drove the Irish to subsisting off of a monoculture was somewhat driven by necessity from the english consolidating lots of holdings to english lords and collaborators, tax policies shaping what little output they had left basically meant with the amount of arable farm land available to the Irish, it was only the surprisingly effective potato that could keep up. If that recollection is correct, then while the english might not have lit the metaphorical fire, they definitely gathered the kindling.
- slibhb 2y ago
  It's so trendy to blame everything on the British. Downside of being the local (or global) power; everything is your fault. Probably they should have helped more, but so should have everyone.
  - mtalantikite 2y ago
    It'd be one thing if they just didn't help more, but they actively exacerbated it. There was food in Ireland, it just wasn't for the Irish. From the article: > The problem was not that the land was barren.... But almost none of this food was available for consumption by the people who produced it. It was intended primarily for export to the burgeoning industrial cities of England. ... In the mid-nineteenth century, Scanlan notes, fewer than four thousand people owned nearly eighty per cent of Irish land. Most of them were Protestant descendants of the English and Scottish settlers who benefitted from the wholesale expropriation of land from Catholic owners in the seventeenth century. Many lived part or all of the year in England. They rented their lands to farmers, a large majority of whom were Catholics. Scanlan points out that, whereas in England a tenant farmer might pay between a sixth and a quarter of the value of his crops in rent, in Ireland “rent often equalled the entire value of a farm’s saleable produce.”
fmajid 2y ago
So the British Empire was color-blind in its viciousness, after all?
- brink 2y ago
  Sure, but I wouldn't naively believe that it's just the British that are/were like this.
  - hollywood_court 2y ago
    I don't believe they implied that at all.
    - brink 2y ago
      Well it's easy to assume, so it's best to clarify.
      - fmajid 2y ago
        I was being sarcastic about how even-handedly the British dispensed their cruelty, to white Irish or Boer just as readily as to brown Bengalis.
- roomey 2y ago
  No, they had a lot of propaganda that showed the Irish as sub human, look at punch magazine for example The Irish were not "white" back then
  - Gothmog69 2y ago
    Stupid and lazy analysis.... they were not English. The French and the Germans were also not English. Nothing to do with racism it was nationalism.
    - melesian 2y ago
      French and Germans were not depicted in English publications as apes. The Irish were coerced into the UK and were officially British citizens, that is ostensibly, co-nationals. They weren't treated as such because those in power regarded them as subhuman. If that isn't racism the word is devoid of meaning.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

InDubioProRubio 2y ago

Its pretty close to the Holdomor in all attributes?