[Rytwyng]

The amazing thing is that Ireland still has only half the population it had 150 years ago.

We have the British to thank for that. The potato blight wouldn't have killed anyone except for the fact that the British forcibly exported the other crops leaving the Irish only potatoes to eat.

[wideawake]

The English bear quite a bit of blame for the famine, but realistically a large percentage of the Irish population couldn't afford to eat much besides potatoes in the best circumstances and the blight sent the price of grain rocketing past even that prohibitive level.

If the English had permitted all grain grown domestically in Ireland to be consumed in Ireland, many would have died of hunger just the same.

[kellynla]

"We have the British to thank for that. The potato blight wouldn't have killed anyone except for the fact that the British forcibly exported the other crops leaving the Irish only potatoes to eat."


Thank you!

[Irish_Thatcherite]

We have the British to thank for that. The potato blight wouldn't have killed anyone except for the fact that the British forcibly exported the other crops leaving the Irish only potatoes to eat.

2000 people murdered by the Provisional IRA in modern times - that is worth closer consideration.

[Monterrosa-24]

The long treatise weakens itself by the supporting anecdote from George Bernard Shaw. Shaw was one of the main apologists for the Soviet Union and Stalin's relentless policies during the Ukranian "famine".

The real propaganda from an earlier era, as Riley the historian at Drogheda points out, is that Royalists were always tougher on Ireland than were the Parliamentarians and Cromwell. Cromwell he says was an "honorable enemy" that the Irish outfoxed to a great extent at Clonmel.