1845 was the start of the Irish Potato Famine. It was the beginning of six years of torture. This famine killed over one million people in Ireland and caused another one million people to flee the country. Before the famine, Ireland was an agricultural nation and consisted of eight million people. Great Britain was the predominant cause of the numerous deaths of the Irish people.
Great Britain is a small landmass with no natural resources. Therefore, they invaded Ireland to obtain Ireland’s. The starvation began when all of the Irish’s food was transported to other countries. Great Britain’s profit from the food was pocketed and the Irish were left with nothing of their own and to die.
In 1847, William Smith O’Brien obtained the position as the leader of the Young Ireland party and became one of the founding members of the Irish Confederation to strive for a Repeal of the Act of Union. The Act of Union called for the export of grain to be stopped and the ports to be closed. The next year, O’Brien organized the resistance of landless farmers in County Tipperary against the landowners and their agents. In 1845, the Ottoman Empire aided Ireland in their time of need. In 1847, the Choctaw Native Americans raised $710.00 and sent it to help feed the hungry in Ireland.
The famine ended in 1849, when British troops stopped removing the food. While enough food to sustain 18 million people was being removed from Ireland, its population was reduced tremendously. What is your definition of genocide? Was this event in history only a famine? To me, it’s genocide. Genocide is the mass killing of a certain race, religion, or culture. So wouldn't this event be named Ireland’s Genocide?
1 comment:
Well this is a very interesting perspective. I suppose most people think of genocide as wiping out of a group of people by killing them with weapons or someway to quickly eradicate them. The Irish Famine in a sense is killing of people by starving them to death. The weapon here is the lack of food. I suppose it can be argued that famine doesn't necessarily ALWAYS equal genocide. As you probably know that many portions of the world have had famine and people have died due to lack of nutrition. This was death in large numbers but not by the hands of anyone that despised them. Ethiopia has gone through such a famine and there are other African countries that have gone through it as well. Many of us in America are lucky to be where we are because we have a lot of luxuries that other countries have never seen.
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