Rome Addict
100+ Posts
Just saw the Famine exhibit in downtown Dublin. It's in a mall in the Center of town.
I am 99% Irish. I know my great x 4 grandparents emigrated in 1846 to Canada during the Famine. So maybe this affected me more than others.
I left crying and furious.
The facts alone are horrifying. 2 million dead or emigrated. 25% of the population. Think of your family or friends. Now pick 8. If you were Irish in 1848 one of these friends/family would have emigrated, the other would be dead of starvation or malnutrition associated disease. The human stories leave you shaken.
But the horrifying politics are what make you furious. Irish have started calling the famine a genocide. They are right. It wasn't benign neglect it was active deprivation of aid by the British government. Dickens in A Christmas Carol has Scrooge say " if they be poor let them die quickly and decrease the surplus population." Turns out he paraphrased Parnell the Secretary of the Treasury.
I am 99% Irish. I know my great x 4 grandparents emigrated in 1846 to Canada during the Famine. So maybe this affected me more than others.
I left crying and furious.
The facts alone are horrifying. 2 million dead or emigrated. 25% of the population. Think of your family or friends. Now pick 8. If you were Irish in 1848 one of these friends/family would have emigrated, the other would be dead of starvation or malnutrition associated disease. The human stories leave you shaken.
But the horrifying politics are what make you furious. Irish have started calling the famine a genocide. They are right. It wasn't benign neglect it was active deprivation of aid by the British government. Dickens in A Christmas Carol has Scrooge say " if they be poor let them die quickly and decrease the surplus population." Turns out he paraphrased Parnell the Secretary of the Treasury.
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