My ancestors were driven out of Ireland about 150 years ago by a deliberate policy of genocidal mass starvation.So the Brits should be careful when they talk about respect for those who are “different”.
Check out my name, I need no history lessons.
So were some of mine, but I doubt it was deliberate. Never attribute malicious motives to what can be blamed more on rank stupidity. I doubt the English much cared about the starving Irish, but it wasn't an official policy.
This is no defense of the Brits who were responsible for the common Irish subsisting mostly on potatoes. And during the famine they exported beef to Britain as the Irish people starved.
After the news of starvation reached England, various charities there tried to set up food aid for the Irish. Too little too late.
FWIW, it was somewhat sobering to see all the "famine houses" in many parts of Ireland when the wife and I visited six years ago. When we got to one B and B in Doolin we exclaimed that we hadn't seen a famine house in the area. Then we opened the window curtain in our room...there was one right across the road from our B and B.
It wasn’t deliberate. Badly handled certainly, but the idea the Catholics were deliberately murdered is Irish-American And Republican myth.
Firstly, the famine killed at least 100000 PROTESTANTS!. possibly UP TO 300000. The six northern counties with their Anglo-Scottish Ulster peoples were also hit, Ulster worst of all. So how is I deliberate when the UK’s ‘own people’ in Ireland are also starving to death?. Why kill the bedrock of Britishism in Ireland?.
Secondly, the UK govt, even if it badly handled the Famine, also brought in or struck down laws to help allievarte the Famine. Britain also bought millions of tons of grain at taxpayer expense and shipped it to Ireland in 1846.