Many irish peole say so indeed.
Historians are divided on this issue, but in any case it was a most dreadful tragedy, exacerbated by the obvious incompetence of the then-government in London.
Needless to say, it also exacerbated the century-old tensions between the British and the Irish: from then on even the more moderate Irish embraced armed resistance against British rule as a means to break free from its pernicious effects.
But at least there was a lot of privately founded relief: Many Americans sent money to alleviate the famine, among them President Polk and Congressman Lincoln. Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander I. and even Sultan Abdülmecid I. sent considerable sums.
What I consider very moving, is that even the Choctaw Indians collected money for the starving Irish, although they themselves had lost most of their wealth years before, in the course of their resettlement in Oklahoma (Just a few years ago, a memorial has been inaugurated in a village near Cork, Ireland, which commemorates the help which came from the Choctaw nation).
This aid arrived in Ireland by proxy of the ever-helpful Quakers.
God’s blessing be upon the memory of all those, who helped the starving Irish!
And there was plenty of food in Ireland, it got all shipped to England.