#the great famine

[bookish-cravings]

The Great Hunger in 1845 - 1852 can’t actually be blamed entirely on the potato blight, there was plenty of food in Ireland that could have - and should have - been distributed amongst the population, but the British kept exporting all of it: peas, butter, cattle, wheat, etc.

They sent in soldiers to guard the ships full of food from the starving men, women and children and interfered with other countries trying to send aid.

It should serve as no surprise then, that Ireland has been so resolutely on the side of Palestine, when Israel is withholding food, aid and other essentials from being delivered to Gaza.

If you can empathize with the great hunger - and you SHOULD - you need to be able to empathize with the people of Gaza.

[queerindigenouspagan]

Hozier's mention of the word "hushpukena" (a Choctaw word) in the song Butchered Tongue was, of course, not a random decision. In a song about the pain of being disconnected from your ancestral language and culture as a result of colonization and oppression from outside forces- which is something that both Irish and Native American people have experienced to varying degrees. Not only do Irish and Indigenous people have this shared history of colonization at the hands of the British, but Irish and Indigenous communities have a long history of support for one another.

The usage of "hushpukena" is even more specific and important because it calls back to the mutually positive relationship between Irish and Choctaw people specifically. During the Great Hunger in Ireland, the Choctaw Nation donated $170, which is more than $5,000 in today’s money, to aid the Irish. Out of all American aid given to Ireland during the famine, the donation from the Choctaw Nation was the largest donation given.

In 1990, leaders from the Choctaw Nation visited County Mayo in Ireland to participate in the first annual Famine Walk. In 1992, Irish people visited the Choctaw Nation and participated in a trek to commemorate the Trail of Tears. Also in 1992, a plaque commemorating the Choctaw's aid was installed in the house of the mayor of Dublin. In 1995, the Irish President Mary Robinson visited the tribal headquarters of the Choctaw Nation to thank the Choctaw people for their aid. In 2017, a sculpture named "Kindred Spirits" was built in Cork, Ireland to commemorate the Choctaw's aid and to continue friendship between the two communities. In 2018, the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland visited Choctaw tribal headquarters and stated,"A few years ago, on a visit to Ireland, a representative of the Choctaw Nation called your support for us ‘a sacred memory’. It is that and more. It is a sacred bond, which has joined our peoples together for all time". In 2020, more than $1.8 million was raised by Irish people as aid for Native American people (specifically the Navajo and Hopi) during the pandemic, to help provide food, clean water, and health supplies.

[agentem]

It's that time of year when you are going to see some "Irish" t-shirts in stores and can get your Shamrock Shake at Mickey D's. There will be St. Patrick's Day parades this weekend and next.

And I just want to be a nerdy know-it-all for a second. St Patrick's Day was originally a religious holiday (as most holidays were, holy + day = holiday); it still is in some places, like some actual Irish people from Ireland who believe in God--though the American parade/festival mentality seems to be gaining steam in some parts of Ireland, I am told.

St Patrick's Day as we know it is deeply rooted in the United States. Though it's been celebrated here since 1600 in the territory that became Florida, the tenor of the holiday greatly changed after the Great Famine of Ireland.

You may have been told in school that the famine occurred because a blight wiped out potato crops in Ireland. This is true but doesn't address the crux of the matter.

The blight started in North America and travelled to Ireland and into much of Europe. But we only think of it as an Irish problem because the Irish were too poor to eat other foods.

Some scholars have said it was a "man made crisis" and I agree that is true. Other crops in Ireland were not affected by the blight, in fact, this time was considered one of "plenty", but all that food was used to feed the English. Not the Irish.

Nor were the English quick on providing aid, "There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable," said Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel after initial reports of the catastrophe.

Workhouses designed to assist the poor and starving were closed prematurely. "The only way to prevent the people from becoming habitually dependent on Government is to bring the food depots to a close," said Charles Trevelyan, the man who was literally in charge of famine relief. He also said some gems like, Sure the famine is bad but "the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people" was the real problem. Great guy; he became a Baronet.

The soup kitchens, which replaced the workhouses were also closed prematurely, were widely believed to serve portions too small even for children and lacking any nutritional value due to them being watered down to feed more people than anticipated by the brilliant British government.

A million people died in Ireland from famine and disease and nearly 2 million left Ireland for other parts of the world. Including my father's family. (If they survived the "Coffin Ships" leaving their home.)

So when I said above that the tenor of the holiday changed, it was because of increasing Irish Nationalism and anger at Britain. Now, Ireland is a Republic (though it's not unified, yet) and we are proud of those who stayed and fought to make that happen.

We are also proud just to still be alive anywhere. The population of Ireland is 6.9 million now--slowly nearing the 8.5 million it was home to before the famine--but people with Irish ancestry across the world has been measured to be about 80 million people. Take that, Sir Robert Peel.

The English actively tried to kill us. Nevertheless, we persisted. A lot.

I hope you have a Happy St. Paddy's Day (it's Paddy not Patty). Drink some Guinness. Dance some jigs. Definitely eat some potatoes (Boil 'em! Mash 'em! Stick 'em in a stew!) But please remember that when people are starving, you should feed them. Don't be like the English government.

In fact, as I write this there is a crisis in Turkey and Syria. It just so happens that the Sultan of Turkey wanted to donate money to Ireland (10,000 pounds) but since Queen Victoria donated just 2,000, he was told it would be against protocol.

[ileolai]

@napster-insomniac

@ileolai nobody said the famine was inevitable

-

the sociopath i was responding to literally said that.

[triste-guillotine]

VERMINEUX "1315" Demo 2018 (This demo represents the agony of England and France during the Great Famine of 1315-1317)

1. Fief 2. Rain 3. Dépourvu 4. Blight 5. Vermine 6. Oubliette 7. Paysan 8. Forest (The Cure cover) 9. Dearth

"Les rats Peste Leur maladie remplit la rue Les rats Vermine Ils viennent se baigner dans notre crasse

Putrescente Faute Situation obscène Un parfum d'infection Enveloppe la nuit

Tunnel à travers les murs Ils construisent leurs nids Les piaillaient de l'essaim Percer à travers la ville

Vermine Peste Début de la colère divine"

1315 | Vermineux (bandcamp.com)

[thejoyofseax]

Working Backwards

I recently had something of an epiphany, which, like all such things, looks completely obvious when written down. It goes:

The advent of the potato completely wiped out all previous Irish peasant/native cuisine.

There are no recipes and little enough food writing from before 1600 (the end of SCA period), let alone the arrival of the Normans in 1169.

BUT MAYBE THERE'S STUFF BETWEEN THOSE TWO POINTS IN TIME.

So I'm going to be investigating that for a bit, and seeing if there's any writing about Irish food post-SCA-period and pre-potato-saturation that I can work backward from. By pure coincidence, I've already spotted one book by an American author about travels in Ireland from 1840, which is well post-potato, but still pre-(major)-famine, so that's going in the pile.

[richo1915]

Father Stalin, look at this

Collective farming is just bliss

The hut’s in ruins, the barn’s all sagged

All the horses broken nags

And on the hut a hammer and sickle

And in the hut death and famine

No cows left, no pigs at all

Just your picture on the wall

Daddy and Mummy are in the Kolkhoz

The poor child cries as alone he goes

There’s no bread and there’s no fat

The Party ended all of that

Seek not the gentle nor the mild

A father’s eaten his own child

The Party Man he beats and stamps

And sends us to Siberian Camps

[friedfish61]

The ultimate decades challenge

1317 the great famine

Agnes aged up into a toddler.

Joan gave birth to Katherine.

Lucia aged up into a child.

[ishouldhavejustchangedname]

I've been complaining a lot tonight so I'm going to complain some more

I love modern family it's brilliant but in one of tge episodes they use the famine (Irish famine of the 1840s) as a baseline for a joke

I can't remember what exactly happened or was said in the scene but it really bugs me how Ireland and Irish history is treated in American shows

Like it wasn't just a famine, it was borderline genocide, if you wouldn't joke about other places shit like that happened in, don't joke about it happening in Ireland and that goes for everywhere like that

[streetsofdublin]

FAMINE MEMORIAL AT CUSTOM HOUSE QUAY DUBLIN 24 AUGUST 2022

In case you are wondering the people did apologise for intruding into my photographs but as my interest is street photography I decide to leave the images as they were.

[asmiraofsheba]

"Why are Irish people so quick to defend the Palestinians and to call out Israel?"

This is a list of what the British authorities were allowed to do to the local Irish population in Northern Ireland:

This Act was only repealed in the 1970s.

Violence, oppression, and discrimination against the Irish is not ancient history. Many Irish people are still feeling the effects today. Northern Ireland has one of the highest rates of PTSD in the world. It has some of the worst mental health statistics in general. It's still plagued by political dysfunction, which is a direct result of Britain's colonial activity in Ireland.

So why do the Irish support Palestine?

It's because many of us have lived through very similar things to what they are going through.

[mewguca]

OC Palette Swap

some bonus lineups i suppose. not 100% size/height accurate but it gives a good approximation of how freaking tall nctg and eolw are compared to the shortest

[mapsontheweb]

Ireland's population before the Great Famine and today.

[newsfromstolenland]

thinking about all the people that british colonists tried to starve out of existence or into submission. Indigenous people, Irish people, Indian people, I could go on

and it hurt us, don't get me wrong. many died and many suffered and we still feel the impacts to this day

but the fact that so many of us are here. a testament to our ancestors surviving such brutality, to how people cared for one another so we could live on.

my ancestors were starved and slaughtered and here I am. Irish, Scottish, Indian, and alive. my girlfriend, Irish, Scottish, Mohawk, and alive. there's something tragically strong in that.

[creeperchild]

whats your process for drawing heket? i was thinking of making some comfort doodles of her myself but i dont know where to start, and i absolutely love the way you do

Here ya go <3 Hope that helps! If you guys happened to draw her with this tutorial, please reblog and post the drawing under, so I can see it <3

[dailyhistoryposts]

Famine (1997) by Rowan Gillespie. Bronze. Dublin, Ireland.