Posted on 08/22/2017 5:58:40 PM PDT by NFHale
The Fields of Athenry by Paddy Reilly ( with lyrics).
"For you stole Trevelyn's Corn, so the young might see the morn..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr1rzSSMsac
There is also a wonderful version by Shillelagh Law, too.
Pinging you to some wonderful music...
This beats all of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntl9RngZvEE&list=RDNtl9RngZvEE#t=91
The Fields Of Athenry - Frank Patterson
In large part, reluctant though I am to admit it, the Irish famine was a product of classic free market economic liberalism.
The Whigs had just got into power after the Tories had been ousted over the question of the “Corn Laws”, ie the protectionist measures that kept British wheat prices high. The imposition of tariffs on cheap American wheat protected Tory landlords while putting up the price of bread for working men.
To the Whigs the market should be allowed to operate and government not intervene. Something I think we would all agree with but with the law of unintended consequences caused a disaster in Ireland.
When the potato crop collapsed the new Whig government couldn’t be seen to intervene and stop exports of other crops from Ireland to feed the starving or to intervene in the market and buy wheat to feed them.
All a reluctant chief secretary of the Treasury Trevelyan (cited in the song) would do was buy “Indian corn” from America, it was virtually inedible as there weren’t the right type of mills to grind it in Ireland and anyway it was too little and too late.
There is no doubt that the free-market Whigs (especially Trevelyan) thought that the market was doing it’s job efficiently, the Irish were lazy, they thought, too dependent on welfare, if the famine cleared the land of their impoverished small holdings and forced them to go to America so much the better.
In hindsight it was an appalling viewpoint but let’s face it, in many ways it is a viewpoint that many of us share today.
Amazing voice... thank you for sending it.
This is one of my favorite songs.
The correct term should be the “starvation” instead of the “famine.” There was grain and meat in Ireland but only for export. The Irish who worked the fields were not allowed to eat any of it.
“...an appalling viewpoint but let’s face it, in many ways it is a viewpoint that many of us share today...”
I appreciate your historical response. Well-written, and thank you.
As far as the viewpoint goes, my disagreement is that a government’s first - and ONLY - fundamental job is to protect it’s citizens.
A famine on the scale that hit the Irish is akin, to my mind, of a Hurricane Katrina magnitude. Except hurricanes eventually end. The famine went on and on.
If the citizenry is starving due to some natural disaster or catastrophe, the government has the obligation and duty to move heaven and hell to find a way to help stop it. Otherwise, what good is government?
“...When the potato crop collapsed the new Whig government couldn’t be seen to intervene and stop exports of other crops from Ireland to feed the starving...”
That’s the EXACT moment they should have intervened. Their own PEOPLE were dying; you take care of your own people first; or you are worthless.
You can compare years of famine caused by your overseers in order to lessen the population to a storm that wasn’t taken seriously enough by a mayor and a governor of Louisiana. George Bush warned the governor at least 3 days ahead of the storm. The president has no authority for city or state evacuations.
I of course agree, there is no point in running a country if you can’t feed the population. The British insisted that Ireland be ruled by them, well then, when the harvest of the basic food crop of that country fails it’s their job to fix the problem.
But of course that’s not how it was seen then by the British, in their narrow-minded world the Irish were a shiftless lazy lot, too useless to feed themselves and dependent on handouts from Mother England all the time.
It never seemed to cross their mind to ask themselves why the Irish were starving in the most infertile land in the west while the bread-basket of the east and south were continually producing vast food surpluses that were being shipped to feed the teeming masses of England’s industrial cities.
That would require examining the history of Ireland and finding out why the mass of the population was impoverished and why a small minority held ownership of all the best land in the country.
Uh... Yeah...
One of the comments under the video cracked me up... “Makes me wanna go out, find some Russians, and drink vodka in the forest...”
Haha!!!
“...You can compare years of famine caused by your overseers in order to lessen the population to a storm that wasn’t taken seriously enough by a mayor and a governor of Louisiana...”
Don’t take it wrong. I was merely looking at the disaster aspect. I know the Irish were treated horribly.
And the Soviet communists did the induced famine on the Ukrainians too.
Enjoy the song. That’s the only reason I posted it.
Clearly, Ya got no ear for music, GOPSter me boyo... :^)
Thank youtube totally random “related videos/recommended for you” feature for leading me to that song. ;d
I do. I was commenting on the video Impy linked.
It’s funny, bro... :^) The comments underneath YouTube posts are always interesting to read as well.
People fight out there as much as they do on here :^)... over stupid crap.
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