In the 1840s, 1,000,000 Catholics fled from Ireland...
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A potato famine is hardly equivilant to fleeing because to stay would mean death for you and your children because of your Christian faith...
You wrote:
“A potato famine is hardly equivilant to fleeing because to stay would mean death for you and your children because of your Christian faith...”
The English allowed the Catholics to starve to death. They often would only give food to those who abandoned the Catholic faith.
As is well known to anyone who investigates...
“Many Protestants regarded the potato failure as ‘punishment for the prevalence of popery’ and was ‘the main motivation to rescue the people from the darkness of popery and priestcraft and to bring them to the pure light of the gospel’ 3 . The Northern Whig in January 1847 referred to the famine as ‘the present favourable crisis’ which provided an opportunity ‘for conveying the light of the Gospels to the darkened minds of the Roman Catholic peasantry’ 4 . One evangelical group likened Irish Catholics to the people of Israel who underwent a famine because ‘they lacked the knowledge of God - they were superstitious and idolatrous … (the same) consequent wickedness of Ireland, are the cause of its misfortunes’ 5 . In a petition to the English PM Lord John Russell, they pressed for the withholding of relief which, they opined, would ‘support the existence of popery’ and would encourage degradation, misery and vice. Rather than provide food, clothing and shelter, every cabin in Ireland should be provided with ‘the word of God’.”
That’s right. The Protestants were more than happy to let the poor Catholics of Ireland - who long suffered under ruthless Protestant oppression in their own land - to starve to death rather than receive aid!!!
Here’s a lovelt gem:
“William Carleton, a leading member of the Protestant community in Connaught, in 1847 epitomised this God-sent explanation for the famine: ‘We feel that the people must die off … and it is not the first landlord I have heard say as much. This is a blessed famine, God be praised.’ (Bold emphasis my own )14”
A blessed famine? Yep, the Protestants wanted the Catholics to starve to death in the millions if at all possible!!!
http://homepage.eircom.net/~archaeology/two/famine.htm
They are NOT equivalent. The potato famine was real.