The Irish don't call it "The Potato Famine". It is called "An Gorta Mor", "The Great Hunger". Potatoes became the food on which the Irish were made dependent by British policy. The British took the land and the Landlords, usually those who were 'granted' the land by the British, demanded rents from the Irish who lived on and worked the land. Those rents were spent on the luxurious lifestyles of the Landlord class, very often Absentee Landlord families living in England. The potato was introduced as a cheap food for the peasants who had to work the Landlord's estates. Sometimes a Landlord had several estates. All sorts of food stuffs were produced in Ireland but the tenants of the Landlords had to depend for survival on the potato. The tenant was tied to the land and to the Landlord. In Galway City alone during the famine there were 9 mills that sent their product, mostly to England, while people starved. The famine was well known. News of the famine was widespread. It was not something that the average person in England did not know about. One of the lasting stories of famine relief that shows this to be the case concerns the gift that was sent to help the starving in Ireland that was made in March 1847 by the Chocktaw Nation, who had just themselves suffered the awful "Trail of Teats" and had suffered starvation, and in response to the news from Ireland raised money to offer aid to the people of Ireland. This aid helped to bind a strong connection between the Irish and the Chocktaw Nation that is still evident today. The "Potato Famine" is a euphemism. The potato was not the culprit. The culprit is well known.
In the book "Even the Graves are Walking" (I can't remember the author) they show how enough Irish produced food passed through the port of London in the month of September, 1847, alone, to feed the entire Irish population for six months. In the same month, over 40,000 Irish people died of hunger.
@Noel Pucarua This is the comment I was going to make, albeit less well. The expansion of monoculture cropping is consistently bound up with empire and 'primitive accumulation'
I’d say the potato famine is still accurate - the famine induced by the entirety of the conditions surrounding the potato, not just by the simple lack of them
Eire = sad past ! Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932 which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine. At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died. Cannibalism was common
As an Irishman, I really appreciate you researching this dark part of our history and exposing England's role in it. It's time England learns of what they did to our country. Go raibh maith agat a chara.
@mob3144 yes, I believe that in English schools, history classes should place emphasis on learning about how Britain's colonial days had such a negative impact on the rest of the world. Not just Ireland, but the Indian sub-continent, what they did to the indigenous peoples of the North America, how they profited from the slave trade, how they exploited the African nations they held, only to leave them with borders which put no consideration into different ethnic groups and religions which have resulted in numerous civil wars in these countries.
An Irish convict named Patrick Fitzpatrick was sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in January 1848 for stealing potatoes. In some ways this was a blessing for him - certainly preferable to a coffin ship. His granddaughter married a man in 1903 who was himself the great grandson of Mannalargenna, a leader of the indigenous Tasmanians whose extermination was sought to clear the island for capital. The couple were my great-grandparents - two genocides for the price of one! Needless to say, no-one on my family has a fondness for the British Empire.
England sent 250,000 soldiers to Ireland to ensure all grain that was still being grown to leave Ireland. "An Island of Fish". It was a hanging sentence to be caught trying to catch fish. Even today the Great Hunger is still present. I was a project manager for a new carpark for a hospital in Mid Ulster. During soil investigations we had to halt work. Due us to finding 3 mass graves! The hospital had been a work house, on record was the death of 30,000 people at this work house, the highest death toll to any recorded work house. Problem we discovered was we discovered entire area new mass graves that were not part of these records, area of 100m by 100M at least 1000 unmark graves on each ground radar, we could see 4M+ deep! Them poor souls!
@@stiofain88 There are "Anglophiles" all over the World, from Australia to India to the Americas.........and ALL the World's most successful former Colonies were British ones, built on the "Rule of Law"! Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, canada, Australia, USA............ALL former British colonies............Strange that, eh kiddo??? And I'm not even English, Lmfao!! 🤣
@@brother1ray Australia likes taking advantage of ye after Brexit for sure. The US likes it's useful idiot as long as it remains useful. Not even English but have your tongue deep inside them? That means either Welsh or Orange man. Pretty sure apart from Hong Kong none of the ones you mentioned like ye that much. And Hong Kong is only because China is worse, not that ye are good.
Almost every food product was plentiful in Ireland during the famine. Only two were in short supply - potatoes and pork but everything else was in good supply. The trouble was that the British grabbed the lot and shipped it off to be sold in UK.
Fake History! Irish Farmers sold then as now to the highest bidders, and the poor make the worst payers. Plus the blight affected the whole of Northern Europe at the same time!
How did they "grab" them? No one forced the Irish to sell them, did they? But that gets in the way of your neurotic need to demonise your neighbours doesn't it? And why you always leave out the part about the huge public relief effort the British public raised
English/British teaching of Irish history is really poor if not non existant Very little if anything is taught about the Great Hunger or the Plantation or the actions (war crimes) of Cromwell's army in Ireland and more recently the partition of Ireland.
Which makes Priti Patel's comment about using food to squeeze the Irish into Brexit acquiescence all the more insulting and also why Ireland is one of the highest ranking in world food security.
the IRA should assasinate Priti Patel; full stop. she deserves it; advocating recreating a historic genocide because you can't get a deal on your deluded and unrealsitic ambitions is beyond repugnent. if a german politician had advoctated holding israel's oxygyn supply hostage to get a deal; they would probably be dead or awaiting incarceration for life withing 24 hours.
@@aries6776exactly, British colonialism and interference in foreign affairs has created a migration wave that will overwhelm and irreparably divide it's own society. We only have to take a quick look at how much hate, fear and racial division there is in modern Britain, with countless more migrants to come, to see how bad things are going to get between Britains communities. Karma.
Sad that this isn't taught in British schools. Lived in England and was astounded how little was known about Irish history, geography and the Irish people. Unfortunately protrayed as thick and uneducated when we have one of the best education systems in the world.
We did the Irish famine for a term in primary school and then it was never mentioned again and it was presented like 'we just don't know whose fault it was'.
As a British person who sees their country continue to push a fictionalised version of events, it's both depressing and telling. Even the National Trust isn't safe when deciding to portray an accurate version of events. This isn't about wallowing in guilt, but simply being honest. Nations owe each other that, especially ones who've benefitted from such destruction.
@@hmq9052 Ask yourself the sensible question over why Ireland would send its sons to fight for the British. And, lets remember, the US almost didn't get involved either. It was only after Pearl Harbour that they decided to. I'll bet you still make stale jokes about the French. Let it go.
@@hmq9052 no apology. We feed your population during the War. We supplied you with many volunteer soldiers. Our men filled the gaps in your industry to keep the war machine going. We passed on vital intel. We allowed your airmen and sailors return to UK instead of being interned. We owe you nothing.
But Aaron, this is tantamount to critical race theory! Seriously, dude, thank you so much. It's depressing how little people understand of the geopolitical drivers of the famine.
There is a movement in western countries to downgrade the teaching of History and humanities in general in favour of STEM and Science subjects. There is a tendency to demonitise and undervalue education in what are deemed to be "non profitable" and "impractical" subjects in school or college. This would be a great mistake. If a people does not know its history then unscruplous people will fill in the blanks and put out a skewed and twisted narrative to create hate and destroy any semblence of balance and non partisan telling of the accounts.
The elites haven't changed and the elites control the education system, British empire and anything caused by it isn't talked about all that is stated is that it existed. I don't even remember the empires involvement in slavery being mentioned just that america was involved and that slaves came from west africa. Any of these events are overshadowed by WW2 and the cold war.
There was no "genocide" and we literally never hear the end of this tale. If there was a "genocide" why did ordinary British people organise a huge public relief effort? And what makes you need to put a guilt trip on people completely unconnected to these events TWO HUNDRED YEARS later?
This is when the word holocaust was first used about the intentional starving of the Irish people. The British army were deployed all over Ireland to stop food being given to the Irish people despite food still being exported. Search online for much more detail.
Im a Gael. My ancestor baring my surname fled starvation in Ireland. He landed in Wales. Married an Irish girl. Worked as a foundry man, ended up in Newcastle. Had 8 children. Now has over 1000 decendants on Tyneside, some in USA, Canada and Australia. Even some back in Ireland. The English failed to Genocide us! But i love England, bare no grudge against the current English people.
@@occidentadvocate.9759 None of this is directed at the common English person, or any other British person either, who also suffered under the rule of the same class.
Market capitalism created by them and for them to line their own pockets . If it happened today these so called men would be convicted of crimes against humanity. I hope they are rotting in hell. Scumbags
The origin of the social conditions leading to The Great Hunger was 2 centuries earlier. In 1642, the English Parliament decared over 2 million acres of Irish land forfeit; this policy was extended a decade later to reward Cromwell's soldiers in lieu of pay. By 1656, two-thirds of all land in Ireland was in new ownership. In 1641, the population of Ireland was 1.5 million. By 1656, over 500,00 had lost their lives from famine or disease or violence. (These estimates are from Frank Kitson's book "Old Ironsides"). The landlords during the Hunger were in large part the descendents of soldiers and speculators who took possession of the land in the 17th Century. Some of them did try to ameliorate the worst effects of the blight; some were good landlords before and after. Most were paracites - and the absentee landlords were the worst.
@@miakeogh6844 All governments need to go, we do not need them, they cause far more harm than good. And the elite need to go with them. I have traced my ancestry back to mid 1750's, I have found English, Scottish, and a bit of Welsh, there is Irish on my children's side [County Mayo] I am actually happy now that my family were/are poor working people, so could not [I hope] have been involved with this wickedness.
Perhaps the Irish should have defended their country better? Because that of course is how things used to work back then. If the Irish could have invaded England and colonised it, they would have. Instead what we have today is selective amnesia about all this and a vast army of neurotic little men playing the victim online
@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rp "Perhaps" "Amnesia" Selective amnesia about something that didn't happen? What? Peak nonsense in this thread. Well done. British nationalists are now blaming Irish people for not stopping British people murdering, raping and genociding them Do you have any idea how stupid the average BritNat apologist looks in these comments? Seriously. Read what you wrote. "We wouldn't have been able to do truly inhuman things to the Irish if they'd fought harder. Mother of jaysus.
When you say Irish landlords can't you say Anglo Irish? Or protestant Irish because they would not consider themselves Irish they would consider themselves British and protestant in the higher classes of the British colonial occupation
There is also an interesting story of how the Ottoman Empire pledged £10,000 in aid t the dying people of Ireland, but this was blocked by Victoria as she had only given £2000
The Ottomans popped up whenever there was an earthquake or famine etc. They didn't send money they sent Imams to convert people! Do you think the British were going to tolerate that? Part of the defence budget for centuries had to be spent on protecting the coast against Ottoman and Barbary slavers! Trust me these weren't people that cared about the poor Irish, you wouldn't have mattered anymore to them than the Armenians did!
Ireland has for centuries been a net food exporter, we're an island with rivers and surrounding seas teeming with fish, yet we weren't allowed by law to catch the fish. Last year Ireland produced enough food to feed 48 million people. There was never a famine in Ireland. An Gorta Mor was no natural disaster but a failed attempt by the British to wipe out the Irish people.
Very, very similar to what the British did in China and India. Funny how the same people who talk endlessly of famine in the early Soviet Union are always silent about these events.
Первый голод в молодой Советской республике устроила Антанта. Англия и Британия устроили блокаду нашей стране,а еду меняли только на церковное и императорское золото. Английская королева не стеснялась носить диадему Романовых, которая по сути украдена у народа России.
I’m from Ireland. I grew up with British tv, the Beatles, all the great comedy. I also grew up while Margaret Thatcher was in power and watched her destroy everything great about Britain. As a kid I thought British people were like Thatcher, they hated the Irish, the poor and people who spoke a different language. I’ve grown up to realise that British people are warm hearted, down to earth and fair minded people. The country has a Tory problem. The ruling class that committed genocide in Ireland and prolonged the Troubles out of spite are now screwing Britain over in the same way they’ve been blithely screwing over Ireland and it’s peace process. It breaks my heart, but the Irish saw this coming a long time ago.
Britain has always been at war with itself let alone other places. Classism is still such a prominent theme. Sadly the people here often follow the ruling upper classes blindly as long as their lives remain easy - hence the tory rule and the terrible policies that follow. It is truly sad to be lumped in with those people, even while fighting for a better Britain.
We also spent the Middle Ages butchering the French... I think British people are poorly educated and easily indoctrinated... I despair sometimes. People in my town would vote Conservatives even if the candidates ate babies. Why?
Thanks Novara and Aaron on shedding light on this. Sad this was deliberately omitted from the education system. These attitudes still continue to this day by millions of people in this country. With each passing year, it gets easier to refuse to call yourself British. It’s no wonder a lot of people are pushing for independence.
It’s the fact that British people don’t seem to be educated about it that the Irish are resentful of, rather than it being the case that we still hold a grudge
@@RF-ye7wu I knew about the 'potato famine' but that's it, what I have just watched is heartbreaking, however governments and the elite are to blame not ordinary people. We need to realize neither the government or elite are needed.
Alba I am Scottish of Irish descent and I pray for Scotland to vote for Independence Soar Alba and Erin go Bragh and ☘🏴🏴🏴🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
What is despicable is that the Whigs talked about free trade with Ireland is if it was a mutual level playing field when it was a colonial exploitation situation. What were they thinking?
As an Irishman I thank you for this video but please call it " An Gorta Mór " not the Famine as there was plenty of food available but it was sent to England guarded by armed soldiers.
Eire = sad past ! Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932 which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine. At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died. Cannibalism was common
Indeed and that was a result of the free market. I think this detail is very important to keep in mind if we want to take away the right lessons. There was plenty of food and the British made it available for the Irish to buy as much as they wanted. However the exploitation of the landlords meant all the Irish were far too poor to do so. Because it was market price there was no way the exploited Irish could compete with the enriched British middle class. The Irish famine is a perfect example of how "market freedom" is an illusion. Technically the Irish had food available to feed themselves, they just couldn't afford it. This excuse is still used a lot with black people today, technically there is nothing stopping them but practically there were many barriers. Another important lesson that I think was overlooked in the video is that many British felt the Irish were too lazy to grow surplus food and too undisciplined to actually save it for hard times. This practice of blaming the victims of capitalist exploitation as being too lazy to work hard and too into partying to think about the future is still very much alive today.
Priti Patel saying the UK should use food shortages in Ireland as leverage against the Northern Ireland backstop in 2018 and the shitty job the UK has done during the pandemic is why I feel it's time for the British border on the island of Ireland to go.
@@mrbearbear83 that animal Patel thinks she is part of the establishment , does she not realise because of her heritage, the establishment despise her.
I'd argue that the potato famine was not a natural disaster at all. It was result of policies that forced the poor into relying solely on the potato in the first place.
You needn't argue the point - the humble blight on the potato was so successfully propagandised as the cause of mass starvation as to be still believed by the uneducated. Escaping the genocide perpetrated by the British meant emigration. The desperate few who could escape the stricken land left - maybe, a life-sustaining bit of hope in a dying mother's/elder aunt's heart as the last son boarded the coffin ship to Newfoundland, should chance choose his side. The 'famine' was fake news, an attempt to mask the wholesale murder, land theft and related crimes of the British. They criminalized the Irish language, banned music and education, never succeeding in crushing the spirit of this great nation. Let's leave the Northern Ireland issue for another day! Peace and good health to all here.
Correct. He kinda skips the bit where the British establishment stole all the good land, leaving the dirt poor Irish without enough arable land to raise other crops or livestock. Pretty good video other than that
It's a common model in 'Colonial' countries, the historical education syllabus is fairly propagandist so Brits have no idea of the acts carried out by Brittania in the past. Churchill, who is lionised in UK, and was a remarkable man admittedly, was also responsible for genocide in India. This is the problem when one group of people consider themselves superior to another group. Bad things can happen
I used to work in the Central Statistics Office in Dublin, and even though many of the 19th century records were destroyed in a fire, we were able to gather Statistical data on the population level of Ireland for the whole of the 19th century. The number of people that actually died of disease and hunger was far higher than these so-called "official" numbers.
The imposition of their religion upon the people they imposed their presence upon via colonization and the laws prohibiting the local languages would indicate that the British did not fully believe in free market... or they believe that their religion and language would lose out in a free market situation.
Only thing missing from this is the fact that in clearing Irish forestry, for profit, and in order to make the ships that ruled the empire, they also left a ravaged landscape, another legacy of empire. We are the most deforested country in Europe, and yet Irish beef was still exported for British plates during the famine. We are left with vast acres of grassland, good for cattle to graze on but not much else, and a permantly scarred eco system (that to be fair successive Irish governments did little to improve either.)
Aaron did a really nice job on this video. I’m glad this history is getting a more thorough and accurate accounting. The Gravel Institute also did a good video about this recently.
Thank you so much for this video guys, as an Irishman I got into leftism through anti-imperialism - even in Ireland our capitalist government would never deign to call what happened in the 1840s a genocide.
IrishSoc I agree but also wonder why this is it was clearly a genocide these politicians seem to suffer from an inferior complex when it comes to the English ugh
You hit the nail on the head there irishsoc. Our government wanted to put a plaque up in a street in Dublin commentating all combatants on both sides in 1916. It would be like putting up a plaque in London commentating all the soldiers who died in ww2 , English and German. Where is the pride in our country gone ?
@@greenandgold6814 Worse, they wanted to commemorate the RIC, including the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries. Official Ireland has this narrative that we have to “mature as a nation”, in order to facilitate reunification, but ironically there’s nothing that unionists respect less than toadyism. My great grandfather was killed by the Black and Tans, he was a station master in the west of Ireland, where republicans robbed an armaments train. The idea that our own government would commemorate the same group is quite frankly disgusting.
leftist are the biggest genociders imperialism wasnt capitalism it was feudalism which is way closer to socialism than capitalism. genocide only possible under collectivist centralized government.
The Potato was of Colombian Origin, when it failed the Irish were denied every other food. Ireland was also deforested to build ships for the Royal Navy
The ‘wealthy Irish landowners’ you refer to were in fact English colonialists who had stripped the Irish of the ownership of their own lands and reduced them to dispossessed peasants paying rent to their colonial masters. If you don’t include that as part of your narrative you don’t understand the great famine.
T T O’Keefe. Please please please use the word genocide underline genocide Irish people and nearly as much to blame as they continue to call it a famine which of course is what the English still wants you to think
Moot...when does a colonist become part of a nation. Norman, Anglo-Norman, English, Anglo-Irish, Irish. People are often hued by their cultural (or perceived cultural) hereditary identity. One only has to look at America for this. Americans that are 3/4/5 generations American, still call themselves Irish. My grandparents were from Cork and my mother was fiercely republican. My siblings and I consider ourselves British. That said, what the British (in the 19th century) did must be acknowledged, if way are to forge a great partnership together ❤️
@@anglomandingo666 I am third generation Irish in America. My great grandparents were also from Cork. My Great grandmother was Catholic and my great grandfather was protestant. But that's a long story. During the 1970s I did fund raising for the Northern Aid Committee. I consider my self American-Irish.
Note the modern techniques the Brits are pushing to achieve Irish genocide: feminism, divorce, abortion, dink lifestyle, incel lifestyle, mass immigration of non-assimilables, NATO membership (i.e. participation in meaningless Anglo-American wars) etc etc.
England is ruthless when dividing and ruling the UK and the Annexation the rest of the Island nations. Scotland, for example, was starved of cash by an English royal decree. Then our South American colony was blockaded by England employing the services of the East India Company ships and the Spanish fleet. Like Ireland, the Scottish rich and nobility were bribed with offers of Gold, Land, Property and Royal titles, and Scotland was annexed. All Scottish culture, heritage, independence and sovereignty were removed with an Act of the Union still in play today. The Scottish population has also stalled and stagnated during this period with the famine and highland clearances. Brexit has ended all that. England will be cast out on the Brexit street as Ireland unifies, Scotland and Wales take back control, and both apply to join the EU (again).
Thanks Aaron, great video. I don't think it's tought enough here in our schools in Ireland. I seen photos recently of my own village where the local landlords militia were evicting the families of the village. As they looked on in despair their houses were destroyed so they couldn't return back to them. The locals looked emaciated already. Your spot on..it was genocide. It flung the Irish to all corners of the world to survive.
Funny how this video is just out today, am currently been listening to "Behind the Bastards - That Time Britain Did a Genocide in Ireland". Great podcast series.
It's worth noting that Ireland's population grew at a significant rate from the mid-18thC to the time of An Gorta Mor. This is because the lumper potato proved to be an excellent cheap and efficient subsistence for the Irish peasant year-round and became the main source of nutrition for the bulk of the population, while all other agrifoods and livestock got absorbed into a supply chain that got exported out of the country. The collision of the potato blight in Europe, Malthusian economics and a providentialist outlook combined with negligent colonialism brought catastrophe to Ireland. Amazingly, there are still leaders, politicians and fabulously paid consultants who still think the best way to improve a system is to continue along the path of what has been proven not to work. We have not come very far.
And another thing the.population of lreland was 8.5 million in 18 41 3.5 in 18 51 1million died and 1 million emigrated and rember they only paid to go on ships to be used as ballast and every ship an d passengers are recorded and still o record where did the other 3 million go
Indian here, British did the same here!During WW2 there was a food shortage in Europe, so British took all the food & grains from our farmers & exported all of it to Europe because of which 4 million people died in the Indian state of bengal..and they don't even acknowledge it & they say bengal famine was natural
What is not known is that there was a food, and medical supply shortage in the U.S. during the war that began in 1942, and did not subside until 1948 when rationing went off. Many children suffered from malnutrition. I was one of them.
When on honeymoon in Ireland we went to the National Museum of Ireland Country Life. It tells an unbelievably horrendous story of how human beings were expected to live.
My favorite history of a nation was the Americans and their revolution I knew very little of the Irish until a visiting professor from queens University Belfast arrived the history of the Irish Is a history of courage and tenacity beyond belief it is the best history ever I still cannot believe what they went through
Thank you for this. Some of my friends are Irish and they've all tried to explain the Irish history. They've been true friends to me despite my inability to grasp their difficulties.
Eire = sad past ! Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932 which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine. At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died. Cannibalism was common
The histories of Ireland and Scotland are very similar, it wasn't just evictions and cultural and linguistic genocides, but the land lord system was a means of controlling populations and eliminating the threat of rebellions and Independence. The walls of destitution and military roads were built all over Scotland, as I'm sure they are in Ireland. Scotland's population has not doubled. However, over the last 20 years, there has been a large incoming of Eastern Europeans, and houses being sold for holidays, mainly English, which has boasted our population. But rural areas have continued to decline, as late as the 1940s, the clearances were still going on and communities were still being abandoned in the 1970s. When my mother left school, there was 63 pupils, when I left there were only 10, now shut down, and I'm on the edge of the Highland line, its even worse in the Highlands, which had a population of 1.6 million in 1861, now around 200,000. The Duke of Atholl is allowed a private army, but the reason for this is 10,000 Atholl Highlanders marched to his house to kill him, due to forced conscription to fight imperialistic wars. Scotland also had famine periods, however, I dont want to distract from Ireland, which suffered far greater during the Gorta Mhor
I went to school in England in the 50s and 60s. The Famine was mentioned, but we were never told the facts, which I had to read about myself. No wonder the treatment of the Irish is burned into their national memory.
The facts as told by the spiteful resentful Left and their demonisation project. These events happened TWO HUNDRED YEARS ago, if the Irish wish to stew in victimhood that's entirely up to them
Don't forget that half the reason that Ireland was so reliant on potatoes was down to sanctions England had put on Ireland. stealing land and squeezing the economy forced the Irish to use the little farmable land left on the crop that would provide the best yield. I do wonder in what way going and stealing land in other countries and ruling over them fits in to the so called ideal of free market and if they can make that exception, why not humanitarian exeptions
“To hell or to Connacht”. It’s an indictment of the British education system that more of their citizens learned about the Famine from an episode of Victoria a few years back than through formal teaching.
Rees mogg would undoubtably claim it was divine providence; echoing both Russell and trevelyan at the time. Have lived in England and had many English friends; what struck me was their total ignorance not only regarding what occurred in Ireland, but the history of their own country, which largely comprised of Henry the eighth, WW2 and the world cup in 1966. George Bernard Shaw remarked that the Irish knew more about British history than the Brits themselves. I believe that's still the case.
Thank you , for pointing out genocidal policies by the British establishment . One mistake , though Irish landowners were in fact absentee British landlords .
UK was overtly racist against the Irish into the 70's. I just had an Irish name, the Irish Jokes and the protestant teacher awe-full religious intolerance I experienced and didn't even realise the myriad subtle discriminations, till years later.
Do you think it might be because of the IRA bombing campaign? Not to mention the long history of Irish labour being used against the British working class? Religious intolerance? Please, it makes me puke how grown men play the victim these days
@@stevekildare4053 LOL have you any idea what's happened with Muslims in Britain and the rest of Europe? Well, Paddy will find out soon enough now he's decided to replace himself with them
An Gorta Mor as referenced by another comment below was not a blight of the potato it was a scourge of occupation, and policy that lead to millions dead and many more leaving Ireland's shores.
Thank you for this video. As an Irishman it’s refreshing to see such a detailed and objective overview of the causing sand impact of ‘The Great Hunger’. I would also ask that the term ‘Potato Famine’ is not used…as a resident in the UK, I cant count the number of times I have had to tolerate ‘potato jokes’. An Gorta Mor or The Great Hunger please.
This could be an opportunity to discuss this important ancestral history - and you can observe if the jokes and most especially the smile remains on their face.
Farrah h it was not a famine a famine means there is nothing to eat when in Ireland nothing failed except the potato so it was organised genocide by the English
Great overview. You should have mentioned that the reason why large numbers were dying in the workhouses and coffin ships was because of typhus and cholera. The spread of these diseases to England, Canada and the USA also made the local inhabitants resent the Irish and the resulting prejudice lasted a century.
It never used to be called a genocide so what's changed? What's changed is the destructive Left have decided to inject maximum poison into society because they want to tear everything down. They are then surprised when this gets ordinary people's backs up or demoralises them and they reject the Left yet again. Would you like to see ordinary English people suffer some sort of revenge for these events?
Glad to see Gravel Institute and now Novara Media cover this, it's baffling living in the North and seeing so many people still worship the Brits after all they've done to our people.
Because that is the culture they cling to, the worship of monsters. They voted for Churchill as the greatest Briton and Cromwell is right outside Westminster. The first things they teach their children are empire and why it's bad the empire is gone.
I'm English, I live in Paris. My mum lives in Spain & she voted Brexit. I didn't. She always is amazed that Irish bars /enclaves are everywhere she goes, totally oblivious to why Irish enclaves are so far flung. We don't learn about it at school, & Irish History is not in modern Pop Culture/netflix tv. I've had to do my own research on it. I love the Fields of Athenry song. I'm gonna play it to my mum.
I have mentioned this a few times on line about the marginalisation of the teaching of history and people not being told about their past in a fair and balanced way. This leaves the door open for unscrupulous people to slant the narrative to their own ends and hide the real truths of why things are they way they are today.@@Thom-jj7yr
Very good except that I'd urge you not use maps showing 'Northern Ireland' when talking about the Famine and British policies in the 1800s - the pro-British Northern Ireland statelet was only created in 1921 by Westminster's partition of the island of Ireland (and gerrymandering in the province of Ulster) following the Irish War of Independence.
@@dubhainoceanntabhail5262 It’s what it’s commonly known as. Wiki says: “A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe *or government policies*.”
Lot's of my family involved in irish independence. Tom Barry was my uncle . Left Ireland as a child but i am so proud of the success of the Republic particularly in literature and enormous success in America. I watch you on GBNEWS well done .
Nothing says ‘free market liberalism’ like state enforced land grabs of fertile farms. It never was liberalism, it was syndicalism with the Brits as the beneficiaries.
It would honestly be more appropriate to call it a genocide than a mere famine. This was specifically engineered by the British State. Once again, another major piece of history that was not even compulsory in my history class at school.
Unlike what passes for history with the wider British public , with Netflix recounting how a teary eye , young queen Victoria , enquires of some flunky "And what of Ireland"? In actuality ,she declined the offer of help , in monies and foodstuffs, to Ireland from , amongst others the Ottomans and went so far as to instruct that the ,Royal Navy , who only thirty years previously at Trafalgar, arguably Britain's greatest recorded sea battle , had consisted of one in three , white Chimpanzees, to Blockade any attempts to assist the beleaguered , starving masses , by force if necessary. History indeed ,but not as we ' know' it.
@@SacClass650 the British did make the Gaelic language illegal to be spoken in Ireland and they did the same with the various languages spoken by Native Americans in North America. This supports the ethnic cleansing argument.
@@SacClass650 if it had indeed faded, then a law mandating its exclusion wouldn't be judged necessary. It would be like politicians of today banning Latin. Gaelic was banned in 1616.
@@SacClass650 the Great Famine in the context of a Genocide in which other acts of genocide such as extinguishing a language by laws outlawing it are pertinent to the discussion.
If people only knew the full brutal history of Britains rule over Ireland. Number one, you would be sick to your stomach and number two,you would never look at Britain in the same light ever again and this is why it is not talked about nor taught in history class in British schools.The fact that Britain forcibly extracted 95% of food stuffs from Ireland during the famine is not disputed.What they do dispute however is did this actually cause the famine.I will let you work that out yourself.
I concur with Stíofán Ó Cathmhaoil, this video, although rather short, it was fair and balanced. I would love it if you could do more in depth videos on this subject.
@@mrjackbennyVery distant, as I think a lot of people in the UK do. Just seem to have found and sought out a lot of content recently centered mostly around The Troubles, maybe bc NI elections in the news, I don't know.
Well we see undiluted hatred towards Britain and British people online all the time and this - the selectively told version of events which leaves out many details such as the huge public relief effort organised by British people - is one of the key features. So does that make you happy? Does it scratch that neurotic itch that you have to demonise people completely unconnected to these events? Does it make you feel better that you're actually inciting genocidal feelings? Does it advance the rest of the Left's agenda or does it make them reject it?
People like trying to imagine how the third reich would have portrayed itself in the aftermath of the second war had it been victorious. No need to imagine - just look how the British state conducts itself.
The English had a similar attitude towards Scotland for more than a century during the highland clearances circa 1750; they wanted the land for sheep farming on a grand scale and people were driven from their homes to facilitate this.
Give it up. The clearances were generally Scot on Scot, the Laird versus the Highland peasant and you know it. Remember, the Scottish monarchy became the sovereign of Britain and the Scottish aristocracy have survived almost intact for centuries.
@@ThyCorylus Indigenous elites collaborating with external exploitation to benefit their own power is the norm in exploitative relationships. That doesn't mean they weren't being exploited.
@@ChavvyCommunist I don't think they were saying highlanders weren't being exploited, they were saying that the people who conducted the exploitation were Scottish. History would tend to back them up. On top of that, there was less of a national element in the exploitation of Scottish highlanders than in that of the Irish, given the fact that the Scottish lowlanders and the Scottish highland landlords tended to look down on the highlanders as much as, or more than, the English did. It is much easier to make the case that Ireland was a situation of colonial exploitation (though there were some important differences between Ireland and the rest of Britains possessions) than it is in the case of Scotland.
Its commonly and openly called genocide in Ireland, the word famine seems applied to this situation by those who caused the genocide, the term famine serves to obfusicate the reality in many peoples opinion.
@@sean_d you contradicted yourself, let me explain. 1, you stated that "it's commonly called the famine in Ireland" 2. You stated that it commonly being referred to as genocide is "a recent thing". So, because it being referenced as genocide is "recent" (its been commonly referred to as such over the last 30 years or more at least) you argue that ot is not commonly referred to as genocide. Literally using proof that you are incorrect in your assertion as your argument in support of your incorrect assertion. And, let's be clear here, genocide it was, a quite deliberate and orchestrated plan to expunge a certain gene stock from the land of Ireland in order to create favorable conditions for another. If that is not genocide (the act of attempting to eliminate a certain gene pool) then what is? This is why it is commonly referred to in Ireland as genocide. (FYI, before we engage in a long and tedious exchange of further comments, note my use of the word "commonly" as opposed to "exclusively") have a nice life, goodbye.
@@sean_d I haven't lived there in 15 years true, but it's quite obvious that your statement contradicts itself. Maybe you first heard the term genocide regarding this on the Internet, but that only serves to evidence the fact that the term wasn't used in your circle, 30 year ago is way before the widespread use of Internet and I have heard and used the term genocide for at least that long. Sinead O'connor album "universal mother" (circa 1990-92) for instance contains the song "famine" in which she expresses the conviction that "famine" is an inappropriate term for what was inflicted on us by the British landlord class. Obviously you have been living under a rock, prehaps you could do everyone a favour and crawl back there.
Thank you for this. I am Irish, now living in Scotland. At school I learned about an Horta mór. It’s only in later years that I have learned about the English attitude to the Irish people. Nothing has changed, has it? The English still have this better than thou attitude and would repeat what they did to the Irish in a heartbeat.
The Great Hunger, as it's known in Ireland, didn't happen next door to the United Kingdom. Ireland was then part of the UK. For the British, it happened at home, yet so many of them don't know anything about it.
A helpful and well-outlined refreshment that can easily slip the memory.....Neo-liberalism is the love child of Capitalism and Liberalism. Has been unleashed in all its most brutality, from 2010 especially....
@@comanchio1976 precisely. Although the Ukraine seem to be pretty happy accepting the British lead in supporting their cause unlike the begrudging European powers.
Many thanks for this Aaron. A clear and succinct summary of Ireland's and many other colonized nations' horrific ordeal, at the hands of the British Empire.
Thank you so much Aaron & Novara for telling this story, so few British people know either about the brutal history of colonialism in Ireland or how the market ideology that still prevails compounded the starvation and displacement of millions of Irish people, Britian's long suffering neighbours (just think of how even Brexit has severe negative impacts on our country though we had no opportunity to either vote for or against it). Also really appreciate how this video frames Famine as an ongoing injustice (Afghanistan to name one of several horrific examples) rather than some historical anomaly.
It is an easy deflection to say they were Irish landlords selling the food to Britain, in reality they were all part of the British aristocracy, who owned the land as a result of the first Genocide which happened 200 years previous . When two thirds of the land was taken from the Irish and given to the butcher Cromwell’s men and as presents to English aristocrats who supported the savage ethnic cleaning of Ireland, these people were not Irish they owed the land but they were closer to their English family’s than any assimilation to Irish culture
Great video. The irony is in 1840s this was the worlds richest nation by far with a huge empire that began to rapidly contract after the famine. Up until then all the major battles that made the empire involved Irish regiments on the front line ie cannon fodder. By letting the population contract so fast meant new recruits dried up. The Scots made better writers than fighters (not my words) and regiments from the home counties just didn't cut it. Kind of Karma really and not too dissimilar to the Nazi's genocide killing all their best engineers and scientists ie. the Jews at a time when they would have made the difference between winning and loosing.
@@ThyCorylus it’s unlikely the English working class wanted this as it basically caused a surplus of workers in the industrial cities which benefited their bosses greatly and is the reason why Marx thought the revolution would begin there
@@ThyCorylus not really, there were a lot of average britons involved in making these things happen. its like saying german soldiers were guilt free since they didnt create genocidal policies, "they were just following orders"
@@ince55ant the average Briton couldn’t even vote whilst this was happening. Certainly after 1918 you could argue any and all countrymen had opportunities to influence but everything before then is basically an elite dictating the destiny of a country.
To this day, there is nobody alive in IRELAND who does not know how the English treated IRISH people. And deep down there is still NO Forgiveness! We keep the memory of this atrocious historic event and, in truth, often regret our proximity to our island 'neighbours'! And who would blame us?
"Nobody alive in IRELAND who does not know how the English treated IRISH people" I was raised in unionist community in Belfast, went to a deeply protestant school, we were taught an extremely skewed perspective that distanced Britain from most of the blame. I dread to think how many of the bigoted asshats that live around me still consider the great hunger to be entirely of Irish invention.
A dreadful History and stain on England indeed, but one correction was they were British Landlords, as the Irish weren't entitled to own Land, outside of the 5% of land in the rocky Connaught region in the West of Ireland. However, it is a fair coverage of the Genocide Period 1845-1850. RIP.
I've often brought this up with people who sing the praises of Capitalism, and talk about the harm done by communist regimes. it is right to see the horrors of Stalin and Mao, but just as necessary to count the costs of free market ideologies.
Incorrect about the single crop of potato. The biggest crops were parsnips, turnips, carrots and exported with beef, lamb, milk, and cream. On average 20 million tonnes of food exported from Ireland per year, from 1830 to 1880
The same potato blight affected the Scottish highlands. There was very few deaths due to starvation in Scotland due to relief efforts of the Scottish Office. The legacy of these times are the Destitution Roads.
The issue I have is when you say “wealthy Irish landowners” They were English absentee landlords or part of the protestant ascendancy
bingo
Not all of them.
Really? All of ‘em?
@@robertcottam8824 The vast majority. How's that?
@@garybarnett583 got any names?
The Irish don't call it "The Potato Famine". It is called "An Gorta Mor", "The Great Hunger". Potatoes became the food on which the Irish were made dependent by British policy. The British took the land and the Landlords, usually those who were 'granted' the land by the British, demanded rents from the Irish who lived on and worked the land. Those rents were spent on the luxurious lifestyles of the Landlord class, very often Absentee Landlord families living in England. The potato was introduced as a cheap food for the peasants who had to work the Landlord's estates. Sometimes a Landlord had several estates. All sorts of food stuffs were produced in Ireland but the tenants of the Landlords had to depend for survival on the potato. The tenant was tied to the land and to the Landlord. In Galway City alone during the famine there were 9 mills that sent their product, mostly to England, while people starved.
The famine was well known. News of the famine was widespread. It was not something that the average person in England did not know about. One of the lasting stories of famine relief that shows this to be the case concerns the gift that was sent to help the starving in Ireland that was made in March 1847 by the Chocktaw Nation, who had just themselves suffered the awful "Trail of Teats" and had suffered starvation, and in response to the news from Ireland raised money to offer aid to the people of Ireland. This aid helped to bind a strong connection between the Irish and the Chocktaw Nation that is still evident today.
The "Potato Famine" is a euphemism. The potato was not the culprit. The culprit is well known.
In the book "Even the Graves are Walking" (I can't remember the author) they show how enough Irish produced food passed through the port of London in the month of September, 1847, alone, to feed the entire Irish population for six months. In the same month, over 40,000 Irish people died of hunger.
@Noel Pucarua This is the comment I was going to make, albeit less well. The expansion of monoculture cropping is consistently bound up with empire and 'primitive accumulation'
@Noel Pucarua, Thank you for this. And thank you Novara Media for doing a piece on this all but forgotten genocide.
I’d say the potato famine is still accurate - the famine induced by the entirety of the conditions surrounding the potato, not just by the simple lack of them
@@patrickclarke8013 I see u have misunderstood me. Never mind.
As a Cork man, Respect for putting out this video. Not just on behalf of Irish but all states that are marginalised.
Eire = sad past !
Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932
which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine.
At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died.
Cannibalism was common
As an Irishman, I really appreciate you researching this dark part of our history and exposing England's role in it. It's time England learns of what they did to our country. Go raibh maith agat a chara.
Unfortunately this is true of everywhere the British colonised, but much of our country live in strong denial.
Time england learns?
@mob3144 yes, I believe that in English schools, history classes should place emphasis on learning about how Britain's colonial days had such a negative impact on the rest of the world. Not just Ireland, but the Indian sub-continent, what they did to the indigenous peoples of the North America, how they profited from the slave trade, how they exploited the African nations they held, only to leave them with borders which put no consideration into different ethnic groups and religions which have resulted in numerous civil wars in these countries.
Don’t worry I think English historians already know about it
Has it ever learned. I feel that the government has gone full circle to the 1940s philosophy @@mob3144
An Irish convict named Patrick Fitzpatrick was sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in January 1848 for stealing potatoes. In some ways this was a blessing for him - certainly preferable to a coffin ship. His granddaughter married a man in 1903 who was himself the great grandson of Mannalargenna, a leader of the indigenous Tasmanians whose extermination was sought to clear the island for capital. The couple were my great-grandparents - two genocides for the price of one! Needless to say, no-one on my family has a fondness for the British Empire.
What do you think of the social engineering going on presently?
Thank-you for sharing and remembering your ancestors. You honour Tasmania
Hardly any good has come from it since the Revolt in the 16th century except the English Martyrs.
Thanks so much for sharing. Tassie is located south of Stralya?
What an amazing background!
England sent 250,000 soldiers to Ireland to ensure all grain that was still being grown to leave Ireland. "An Island of Fish". It was a hanging sentence to be caught trying to catch fish.
Even today the Great Hunger is still present. I was a project manager for a new carpark for a hospital in Mid Ulster. During soil investigations we had to halt work. Due us to finding 3 mass graves! The hospital had been a work house, on record was the death of 30,000 people at this work house, the highest death toll to any recorded work house. Problem we discovered was we discovered entire area new mass graves that were not part of these records, area of 100m by 100M at least 1000 unmark graves on each ground radar, we could see 4M+ deep! Them poor souls!
England ceased to exist after 1707, but otherwise great fiction writing, Pmsl!!🤣
@@brother1ray You know why everyone hates ye don't you? Like why ye haven't a friend in the entire world?
@@stiofain88 There are "Anglophiles" all over the World, from Australia to India to the Americas.........and ALL the World's most successful former Colonies were British ones, built on the "Rule of Law"!
Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, canada, Australia, USA............ALL former British colonies............Strange that, eh kiddo???
And I'm not even English, Lmfao!! 🤣
@@brother1ray Australia likes taking advantage of ye after Brexit for sure. The US likes it's useful idiot as long as it remains useful. Not even English but have your tongue deep inside them? That means either Welsh or Orange man. Pretty sure apart from Hong Kong none of the ones you mentioned like ye that much. And Hong Kong is only because China is worse, not that ye are good.
The British army had only 90,000 men on 1845.
Shiploads of Life Stock and Grain were exported from Ireland while Two Million of our people starved and died
Almost every food product was plentiful in Ireland during the famine. Only two were in short supply - potatoes and pork but everything else was in good supply. The trouble was that the British grabbed the lot and shipped it off to be sold in UK.
Dab genocide not famine
Ireland was knowen as the bread basket of the UK I think that says it all.
Fake History! Irish Farmers sold then as now to the highest bidders, and the poor make the worst payers.
Plus the blight affected the whole of Northern Europe at the same time!
How did they "grab" them? No one forced the Irish to sell them, did they? But that gets in the way of your neurotic need to demonise your neighbours doesn't it? And why you always leave out the part about the huge public relief effort the British public raised
@@Minime163 No it wasn't.
English/British teaching of Irish history is really poor if not non existant
Very little if anything is taught about the Great Hunger or the Plantation or the actions (war crimes) of Cromwell's army in Ireland and more recently the partition of Ireland.
That's because the Irish were bombing us until fairly recently. In a war you don't broadcast enemy propaganda.
Which makes Priti Patel's comment about using food to squeeze the Irish into Brexit acquiescence all the more insulting and also why Ireland is one of the highest ranking in world food security.
Wonder what she makes of Indian history. The dirty vile creature.
the IRA should assasinate Priti Patel; full stop. she deserves it; advocating recreating a historic genocide because you can't get a deal on your deluded and unrealsitic ambitions is beyond repugnent. if a german politician had advoctated holding israel's oxygyn supply hostage to get a deal; they would probably be dead or awaiting incarceration for life withing 24 hours.
Oh she knew exactly what she was saying. Got rid of her and now we have Suella Braverman likening refugees to swarms.
@@aries6776exactly, British colonialism and interference in foreign affairs has created a migration wave that will overwhelm and irreparably divide it's own society.
We only have to take a quick look at how much hate, fear and racial division there is in modern Britain, with countless more migrants to come, to see how bad things are going to get between Britains communities.
Karma.
The fact they also did this to her people in India 😅 there's a want in her!!
Sad that this isn't taught in British schools. Lived in England and was astounded how little was known about Irish history, geography and the Irish people. Unfortunately protrayed as thick and uneducated when we have one of the best education systems in the world.
They could start by teaching it correctly in Irish schools.
Its been many tears since I did my leaving cert. How do you feel it could be taught better? @@johnkelly1027
It is taught is Scottish schools. I had to study it for the last four years in high school
We did the Irish famine for a term in primary school and then it was never mentioned again and it was presented like 'we just don't know whose fault it was'.
@@johnkelly1027a moron speaks
First time i've heard an englishman talk at length about the truth of the Famine - excellent work Mr Bastani...
As a British person who sees their country continue to push a fictionalised version of events, it's both depressing and telling. Even the National Trust isn't safe when deciding to portray an accurate version of events.
This isn't about wallowing in guilt, but simply being honest. Nations owe each other that, especially ones who've benefitted from such destruction.
The Irish were neutral for the whole of the second world war. Do we get an apology for that?
@@hmq9052 Not the same thing at all or even vaguely relevant, but well done, good comment.
@@mattcast44 Just being honest.
@@hmq9052 Ask yourself the sensible question over why Ireland would send its sons to fight for the British. And, lets remember, the US almost didn't get involved either. It was only after Pearl Harbour that they decided to.
I'll bet you still make stale jokes about the French. Let it go.
@@hmq9052 no apology. We feed your population during the War. We supplied you with many volunteer soldiers. Our men filled the gaps in your industry to keep the war machine going. We passed on vital intel. We allowed your airmen and sailors return to UK instead of being interned. We owe you nothing.
But Aaron, this is tantamount to critical race theory!
Seriously, dude, thank you so much. It's depressing how little people understand of the geopolitical drivers of the famine.
I'm one of them that only learnt today before it was explained by Aaron.
@@philipscott4456 You mean after he explained it?
@@hazelwray4184 yes sorry after, thanks.
CRT is racist towards white people.
There is a movement in western countries to downgrade the teaching of History and humanities in general in favour of STEM and Science subjects. There is a tendency to demonitise and undervalue education in what are deemed to be "non profitable" and "impractical" subjects in school or college.
This would be a great mistake.
If a people does not know its history then unscruplous people will fill in the blanks and put out a skewed and twisted narrative to create hate and destroy any semblence of balance and non partisan telling of the accounts.
Irish history in school always told about the genocide of the Irish people but sadly the British were never told about it.
We were told about it back in the 80s in my school in Englad.
The elites haven't changed and the elites control the education system, British empire and anything caused by it isn't talked about all that is stated is that it existed. I don't even remember the empires involvement in slavery being mentioned just that america was involved and that slaves came from west africa. Any of these events are overshadowed by WW2 and the cold war.
There was no "genocide" and we literally never hear the end of this tale. If there was a "genocide" why did ordinary British people organise a huge public relief effort? And what makes you need to put a guilt trip on people completely unconnected to these events TWO HUNDRED YEARS later?
This is when the word holocaust was first used about the intentional starving of the Irish people. The British army were deployed all over Ireland to stop food being given to the Irish people despite food still being exported. Search online for much more detail.
The word Holocaust was first use in medieval England to describe how Jews where treated by Edward the 1st 1239 to 1307
Im a Gael. My ancestor baring my surname fled starvation in Ireland. He landed in Wales. Married an Irish girl. Worked as a foundry man, ended up in Newcastle. Had 8 children. Now has over 1000 decendants on Tyneside, some in USA, Canada and Australia. Even some back in Ireland. The English failed to Genocide us! But i love England, bare no grudge against the current English people.
@@occidentadvocate.9759 None of this is directed at the common English person, or any other British person either, who also suffered under the rule of the same class.
a bit of wishful thinking on your part
Market capitalism created by them and for them to line their own pockets . If it happened today these so called men would be convicted of crimes against humanity. I hope they are rotting in hell. Scumbags
The origin of the social conditions leading to The Great Hunger was 2 centuries earlier. In 1642, the English Parliament decared over 2 million acres of Irish land forfeit; this policy was extended a decade later to reward Cromwell's soldiers in lieu of pay. By 1656, two-thirds of all land in Ireland was in new ownership. In 1641, the population of Ireland was 1.5 million. By 1656, over 500,00 had lost their lives from famine or disease or violence. (These estimates are from Frank Kitson's book "Old Ironsides"). The landlords during the Hunger were in large part the descendents of soldiers and speculators who took possession of the land in the 17th Century. Some of them did try to ameliorate the worst effects of the blight; some were good landlords before and after. Most were paracites - and the absentee landlords were the worst.
Wilhelm it was also during this period that the English sent and sold over five hundred thousand Irish, mainly young, to America the West Indies etc
@@miakeogh6844 All governments need to go, we do not need them, they cause far more harm than good. And the elite need to go with them. I have traced my ancestry back to mid 1750's, I have found English, Scottish, and a bit of Welsh, there is Irish on my children's side [County Mayo] I am actually happy now that my family were/are poor working people, so could not [I hope] have been involved with this wickedness.
Perhaps the Irish should have defended their country better? Because that of course is how things used to work back then. If the Irish could have invaded England and colonised it, they would have.
Instead what we have today is selective amnesia about all this and a vast army of neurotic little men playing the victim online
@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rp "Perhaps" "Amnesia" Selective amnesia about something that didn't happen? What?
Peak nonsense in this thread. Well done.
British nationalists are now blaming Irish people for not stopping British people murdering, raping and genociding them
Do you have any idea how stupid the average BritNat apologist looks in these comments? Seriously. Read what you wrote.
"We wouldn't have been able to do truly inhuman things to the Irish if they'd fought harder.
Mother of jaysus.
@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rpcheck the history
When you say Irish landlords can't you say Anglo Irish? Or protestant Irish because they would not consider themselves Irish they would consider themselves British and protestant in the higher classes of the British colonial occupation
and the Irish would consider them British too!
lots of absintee landlords.
No, that wouldn't fit the narrative.
I was going to make that point ,well said Bailey.👍
And of course we all know that not a single Protestant died in the Famine...
There is also an interesting story of how the Ottoman Empire pledged £10,000 in aid t the dying people of Ireland, but this was blocked by Victoria as she had only given £2000
The Ottomans popped up whenever there was an earthquake or famine etc. They didn't send money they sent Imams to convert people! Do you think the British were going to tolerate that? Part of the defence budget for centuries had to be spent on protecting the coast against Ottoman and Barbary slavers! Trust me these weren't people that cared about the poor Irish, you wouldn't have mattered anymore to them than the Armenians did!
Why did you leave out the bit about the public relief effort organised by ordinary British people?
Because I was talking about Victoria blocking aid from the Ottomans. Why?@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rp
Ireland has for centuries been a net food exporter, we're an island with rivers and surrounding seas teeming with fish, yet we weren't allowed by law to catch the fish. Last year Ireland produced enough food to feed 48 million people.
There was never a famine in Ireland.
An Gorta Mor was no natural disaster but a failed attempt by the British to wipe out the Irish people.
I'm Indian, during the British era we weren't allowed to make salt from the sea
The empire strikes again
good on you Novara for some long-awaited Ireland commentary! may there be more to come!
Very, very similar to what the British did in China and India. Funny how the same people who talk endlessly of famine in the early Soviet Union are always silent about these events.
Первый голод в молодой Советской республике устроила Антанта. Англия и Британия устроили блокаду нашей стране,а еду меняли только на церковное и императорское золото. Английская королева не стеснялась носить диадему Романовых, которая по сути украдена у народа России.
I’m from Ireland. I grew up with British tv, the Beatles, all the great comedy. I also grew up while Margaret Thatcher was in power and watched her destroy everything great about Britain. As a kid I thought British people were like Thatcher, they hated the Irish, the poor and people who spoke a different language. I’ve grown up to realise that British people are warm hearted, down to earth and fair minded people. The country has a Tory problem. The ruling class that committed genocide in Ireland and prolonged the Troubles out of spite are now screwing Britain over in the same way they’ve been blithely screwing over Ireland and it’s peace process. It breaks my heart, but the Irish saw this coming a long time ago.
Britain has always been at war with itself let alone other places. Classism is still such a prominent theme. Sadly the people here often follow the ruling upper classes blindly as long as their lives remain easy - hence the tory rule and the terrible policies that follow. It is truly sad to be lumped in with those people, even while fighting for a better Britain.
We also spent the Middle Ages butchering the French... I think British people are poorly educated and easily indoctrinated... I despair sometimes. People in my town would vote Conservatives even if the candidates ate babies. Why?
I just cannot fathom why people keep voting them in, again and again....
@@aries6776 Billionaire controlled press that shits on any credible alternative. Just look what they did to Jeremy Corbyn.
They rule in Britain by rule and divide through wars religion and class
Thanks Novara and Aaron on shedding light on this. Sad this was deliberately omitted from the education system. These attitudes still continue to this day by millions of people in this country. With each passing year, it gets easier to refuse to call yourself British. It’s no wonder a lot of people are pushing for independence.
True. I am Scottish not British. 🏴🇪🇺
It’s the fact that British people don’t seem to be educated about it that the Irish are resentful of, rather than it being the case that we still hold a grudge
@@RF-ye7wu I knew about the 'potato famine' but that's it, what I have just watched is heartbreaking, however governments and the elite are to blame not ordinary people. We need to realize neither the government or elite are needed.
Alba I am Scottish of Irish descent and I pray for Scotland to vote for Independence Soar Alba and Erin go Bragh and ☘🏴🏴🏴🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
@@eph2817 is what you have watched, the whole truth. No mention of the war nor the huge numbers who died in it
What is despicable is that the Whigs talked about free trade with Ireland is if it was a mutual level playing field when it was a colonial exploitation situation. What were they thinking?
As an Irishman I thank you for this video but please call it " An Gorta Mór " not the Famine as there was plenty of food available but it was sent to England guarded by armed soldiers.
Eire = sad past !
Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932
which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine.
At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died.
Cannibalism was common
Same difference dude!
I 2nd that motion.
Indeed and that was a result of the free market. I think this detail is very important to keep in mind if we want to take away the right lessons. There was plenty of food and the British made it available for the Irish to buy as much as they wanted. However the exploitation of the landlords meant all the Irish were far too poor to do so. Because it was market price there was no way the exploited Irish could compete with the enriched British middle class.
The Irish famine is a perfect example of how "market freedom" is an illusion. Technically the Irish had food available to feed themselves, they just couldn't afford it. This excuse is still used a lot with black people today, technically there is nothing stopping them but practically there were many barriers.
Another important lesson that I think was overlooked in the video is that many British felt the Irish were too lazy to grow surplus food and too undisciplined to actually save it for hard times. This practice of blaming the victims of capitalist exploitation as being too lazy to work hard and too into partying to think about the future is still very much alive today.
@@MrMarinus18 Well said Marinus
Priti Patel saying the UK should use food shortages in Ireland as leverage against the Northern Ireland backstop in 2018 and the shitty job the UK has done during the pandemic is why I feel it's time for the British border on the island of Ireland to go.
That priti Patel comment summarises the British attitude to Ireland
@@mrbearbear83 that animal Patel thinks she is part of the establishment , does she not realise because of her heritage, the establishment despise her.
@@mrbearbear83 It sums up Patel’s extraordinary lack of both historical and self-awareness and why she epitomizes the term, “Uncle Tom”.
I have only one word for Patel "Bás" (that is Irish for 'death')
I'd argue that the potato famine was not a natural disaster at all. It was result of policies that forced the poor into relying solely on the potato in the first place.
Spot on.
You needn't argue the point - the humble blight on the potato was so successfully propagandised as the cause of mass starvation as to be still believed by the uneducated. Escaping the genocide perpetrated by the British meant emigration. The desperate few who could escape the stricken land left - maybe, a life-sustaining bit of hope in a dying mother's/elder aunt's heart as the last son boarded the coffin ship to Newfoundland, should chance choose his side. The 'famine' was fake news, an attempt to mask the wholesale murder, land theft and related crimes of the British. They criminalized the Irish language, banned music and education, never succeeding in crushing the spirit of this great nation. Let's leave the Northern Ireland issue for another day! Peace and good health to all here.
Correct
Correct. He kinda skips the bit where the British establishment stole all the good land, leaving the dirt poor Irish without enough arable land to raise other crops or livestock. Pretty good video other than that
I don't think that was a result of any policy, which is worse when you think about it.
It's a common model in 'Colonial' countries, the historical education syllabus is fairly propagandist so Brits have no idea of the acts carried out by Brittania in the past. Churchill, who is lionised in UK, and was a remarkable man admittedly, was also responsible for genocide in India. This is the problem when one group of people consider themselves superior to another group. Bad things can happen
I used to work in the Central Statistics Office in Dublin, and even though many of the 19th century records were destroyed in a fire, we were able to gather Statistical data on the population level of Ireland for the whole of the 19th century. The number of people that actually died of disease and hunger was far higher than these so-called "official" numbers.
The Irish were punished for daring to be Catholics. This is often forgotten - the persecution under the Penal Laws was explicitly anti-Catholic.
Same with the Cornish in 1549 and the Highland Scots in 1746.
The imposition of their religion upon the people they imposed their presence upon via colonization and the laws prohibiting the local languages would indicate that the British did not fully believe in free market... or they believe that their religion and language would lose out in a free market situation.
Only thing missing from this is the fact that in clearing Irish forestry, for profit, and in order to make the ships that ruled the empire, they also left a ravaged landscape, another legacy of empire. We are the most deforested country in Europe, and yet Irish beef was still exported for British plates during the famine. We are left with vast acres of grassland, good for cattle to graze on but not much else, and a permantly scarred eco system (that to be fair successive Irish governments did little to improve either.)
So we othered people in order to justify treating them like shit. Nothing ever changes here, does it?
Without vulgarity
@@theoryianabsolute8777 sorry for the bad word, sir
Aaron did a really nice job on this video. I’m glad this history is getting a more thorough and accurate accounting. The Gravel Institute also did a good video about this recently.
Don't trust the Gravel Institute they're just the lefts answer to PragerU
The Gravel Institute killed it! *no pun intended*
Thank you so much for this video guys, as an Irishman I got into leftism through anti-imperialism - even in Ireland our capitalist government would never deign to call what happened in the 1840s a genocide.
IrishSoc I agree but also wonder why this is it was clearly a genocide these politicians seem to suffer from an inferior complex when it comes to the English ugh
You hit the nail on the head there irishsoc. Our government wanted to put a plaque up in a street in Dublin commentating all combatants on both sides in 1916. It would be like putting up a plaque in London commentating all the soldiers who died in ww2 , English and German. Where is the pride in our country gone ?
@@greenandgold6814 Worse, they wanted to commemorate the RIC, including the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries. Official Ireland has this narrative that we have to “mature as a nation”, in order to facilitate reunification, but ironically there’s nothing that unionists respect less than toadyism.
My great grandfather was killed by the Black and Tans, he was a station master in the west of Ireland, where republicans robbed an armaments train. The idea that our own government would commemorate the same group is quite frankly disgusting.
@@TheLastAngryMan01 well said. It's a disgrace and an insult of the highest degree to everyone killed by the tans.
leftist are the biggest genociders imperialism wasnt capitalism it was feudalism which is way closer to socialism than capitalism. genocide only possible under collectivist centralized government.
The Potato was of Colombian Origin, when it failed the Irish were denied every other food. Ireland was also deforested to build ships for the Royal Navy
The ‘wealthy Irish landowners’ you refer to were in fact English colonialists who had stripped the Irish of the ownership of their own lands and reduced them to dispossessed peasants paying rent to their colonial masters. If you don’t include that as part of your narrative you don’t understand the great famine.
He might just mean it was in land in Ireland i.e. Irish land
Very true. These folk would consider themselves as British.
T T O’Keefe. Please please please use the word genocide underline genocide Irish people and nearly as much to blame as they continue to call it a famine which of course is what the English still wants you to think
Moot...when does a colonist become part of a nation. Norman, Anglo-Norman, English, Anglo-Irish, Irish.
People are often hued by their cultural (or perceived cultural) hereditary identity. One only has to look at America for this. Americans that are 3/4/5 generations American, still call themselves Irish. My grandparents were from Cork and my mother was fiercely republican. My siblings and I consider ourselves British.
That said, what the British (in the 19th century) did must be acknowledged, if way are to forge a great partnership together ❤️
@@anglomandingo666 I am third generation Irish in America. My great grandparents were also from Cork. My Great grandmother was Catholic and my great grandfather was protestant. But that's a long story. During the 1970s I did fund raising for the Northern Aid Committee. I consider my self American-Irish.
Ireland for the Irish ☘️
Note the modern techniques the Brits are pushing to achieve Irish genocide: feminism, divorce, abortion, dink lifestyle, incel lifestyle, mass immigration of non-assimilables, NATO membership (i.e. participation in meaningless Anglo-American wars) etc etc.
@1:25 not Irish landowners, these were British landowners, the vast majority
England is ruthless when dividing and ruling the UK and the Annexation the rest of the Island nations. Scotland, for example, was starved of cash by an English royal decree. Then our South American colony was blockaded by England employing the services of the East India Company ships and the Spanish fleet. Like Ireland, the Scottish rich and nobility were bribed with offers of Gold, Land, Property and Royal titles, and Scotland was annexed. All Scottish culture, heritage, independence and sovereignty were removed with an Act of the Union still in play today. The Scottish population has also stalled and stagnated during this period with the famine and highland clearances.
Brexit has ended all that. England will be cast out on the Brexit street as Ireland unifies, Scotland and Wales take back control, and both apply to join the EU (again).
Thanks Aaron, great video. I don't think it's tought enough here in our schools in Ireland. I seen photos recently of my own village where the local landlords militia were evicting the families of the village. As they looked on in despair their houses were destroyed so they couldn't return back to them. The locals looked emaciated already. Your spot on..it was genocide. It flung the Irish to all corners of the world to survive.
The term "irish lanlords" is misleading, Palmerston , Landsdown, weren't Irish
First-gen Irish-American. Never thought Id hear the this from anyone else but my grandparents and family. This is the Truth!
Funny how this video is just out today, am currently been listening to "Behind the Bastards - That Time Britain Did a Genocide in Ireland". Great podcast series.
Behind the Bastards is good, I just finished a course on post-colonial IR Theory and they were on the reading list
It's worth noting that Ireland's population grew at a significant rate from the mid-18thC to the time of An Gorta Mor. This is because the lumper potato proved to be an excellent cheap and efficient subsistence for the Irish peasant year-round and became the main source of nutrition for the bulk of the population, while all other agrifoods and livestock got absorbed into a supply chain that got exported out of the country. The collision of the potato blight in Europe, Malthusian economics and a providentialist outlook combined with negligent colonialism brought catastrophe to Ireland. Amazingly, there are still leaders, politicians and fabulously paid consultants who still think the best way to improve a system is to continue along the path of what has been proven not to work. We have not come very far.
You are right in a way but there was a danger point between may and September that wellington said something about and l just can't remember
And another thing the.population of lreland was 8.5 million in 18 41 3.5 in 18 51 1million died and 1 million emigrated and rember they only paid to go on ships to be used as ballast and every ship an d passengers are recorded and still o record where did the other 3 million go
Indian here, British did the same here!During WW2 there was a food shortage in Europe, so British took all the food & grains from our farmers & exported all of it to Europe because of which 4 million people died in the Indian state of bengal..and they don't even acknowledge it & they say bengal famine was natural
That’s very typical British rewriting history to fit their benefactor narrative
Horrific what happened in India horrific
What is not known is that there was a food, and medical supply shortage in the U.S. during the war that began in 1942, and did not subside until 1948 when rationing went off. Many children suffered from malnutrition. I was one of them.
When on honeymoon in Ireland we went to the National Museum of Ireland Country Life. It tells an unbelievably horrendous story of how human beings were expected to live.
Just because someone tells it, doesn't make it true,
My favorite history of a nation was the Americans and their revolution I knew very little of the Irish until a visiting professor from queens University Belfast arrived the history of the Irish Is a history of courage and tenacity beyond belief it is the best history ever I still cannot believe what they went through
Never in all my days did i think i would see this on English media.
Thank you for this. Some of my friends are Irish and they've all tried to explain the Irish history. They've been true friends to me despite my inability to grasp their difficulties.
Eire = sad past !
Holodomor famine was part of the Soviet famine of 1932
which affected the major grain-producing areas of Ukraine.
At least 3.8 million Ukrainians died.
Cannibalism was common
The histories of Ireland and Scotland are very similar, it wasn't just evictions and cultural and linguistic genocides, but the land lord system was a means of controlling populations and eliminating the threat of rebellions and Independence. The walls of destitution and military roads were built all over Scotland, as I'm sure they are in Ireland. Scotland's population has not doubled. However, over the last 20 years, there has been a large incoming of Eastern Europeans, and houses being sold for holidays, mainly English, which has boasted our population. But rural areas have continued to decline, as late as the 1940s, the clearances were still going on and communities were still being abandoned in the 1970s. When my mother left school, there was 63 pupils, when I left there were only 10, now shut down, and I'm on the edge of the Highland line, its even worse in the Highlands, which had a population of 1.6 million in 1861, now around 200,000. The Duke of Atholl is allowed a private army, but the reason for this is 10,000 Atholl Highlanders marched to his house to kill him, due to forced conscription to fight imperialistic wars. Scotland also had famine periods, however, I dont want to distract from Ireland, which suffered far greater during the Gorta Mhor
I went to school in England in the 50s and 60s. The Famine was mentioned, but we were never told the facts, which I had to read about myself. No wonder the treatment of the Irish is burned into their national memory.
The facts as told by the spiteful resentful Left and their demonisation project. These events happened TWO HUNDRED YEARS ago, if the Irish wish to stew in victimhood that's entirely up to them
Don't forget that half the reason that Ireland was so reliant on potatoes was down to sanctions England had put on Ireland. stealing land and squeezing the economy forced the Irish to use the little farmable land left on the crop that would provide the best yield. I do wonder in what way going and stealing land in other countries and ruling over them fits in to the so called ideal of free market and if they can make that exception, why not humanitarian exeptions
“To hell or to Connacht”.
It’s an indictment of the British education system that more of their citizens learned about the Famine from an episode of Victoria a few years back than through formal teaching.
Mogg and cronies are this reincarnated aren’t they.
It could only be reincarnated if this way of thinking died
They're definitely applying the same economical philosophy to the poor in Britain, how did food banks become normal over the last 12 years?
Rees mogg would undoubtably claim it was divine providence; echoing both Russell and trevelyan at the time. Have lived in England and had many English friends; what struck me was their total ignorance not only regarding what occurred in Ireland, but the history of their own country, which largely comprised of Henry the eighth, WW2 and the world cup in 1966. George Bernard Shaw remarked that the Irish knew more about British history than the Brits themselves. I believe that's still the case.
Thank you , for pointing out genocidal policies by the British establishment . One mistake , though Irish landowners were in fact absentee British landlords .
Everyone seems to forget the Irish Penal laws which forbid Irish people from having any right
UK was overtly racist against the Irish into the 70's. I just had an Irish name, the Irish Jokes and the protestant teacher awe-full religious intolerance I experienced and didn't even realise the myriad subtle discriminations, till years later.
Just be thankful they're focused on the Muslims now
Do you think it might be because of the IRA bombing campaign? Not to mention the long history of Irish labour being used against the British working class? Religious intolerance? Please, it makes me puke how grown men play the victim these days
@@stevekildare4053 LOL have you any idea what's happened with Muslims in Britain and the rest of Europe? Well, Paddy will find out soon enough now he's decided to replace himself with them
@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rpyou use the same excuses to abuse all the minorities
An Gorta Mor as referenced by another comment below was not a blight of the potato it was a scourge of occupation, and policy that lead to millions dead and many more leaving Ireland's shores.
The landlords weren't Irish. They were largely Anglo-Irish who had been educated in England, many being absentee owners
@Black Lesbian Poet The worst level of hell is reserved for those who betray.
@Black Lesbian Poet I don't even know what you mean? Or what you think I am debating.
@Black Lesbian Poet the landlords weren’t traitors to Ireland as they aren’t Irish. They were English.
@Black Lesbian Poet the traitors have been writing the history, it's not the truth.
So are Irish Americans Irish or American? ; )
They weren't wealthy Irish landowners, they were wealthy English landowners.
Are "Irish Americans" Irish or American? ; )
My brethren Michael RIP seen would be grinning his cheeky Irish ☘️ grin and say about bloody time, salute my brother.
Thank you for this video. As an Irishman it’s refreshing to see such a detailed and objective overview of the causing sand impact of ‘The Great Hunger’. I would also ask that the term ‘Potato Famine’ is not used…as a resident in the UK, I cant count the number of times I have had to tolerate ‘potato jokes’. An Gorta Mor or The Great Hunger please.
This could be an opportunity to discuss this important ancestral history - and you can observe if the jokes and most especially the smile remains on their face.
Farrah h it was not a famine a famine means there is nothing to eat when in Ireland nothing failed except the potato so it was organised genocide by the English
@@MonaLisa-lu8zi It will, the British take special pride and joy in humiliating us.
Great overview. You should have mentioned that the reason why large numbers were dying in the workhouses and coffin ships was because of typhus and cholera. The spread of these diseases to England, Canada and the USA also made the local inhabitants resent the Irish and the resulting prejudice lasted a century.
About time the Brits start honest reflecting on their history. Modern Germany may serve as a blueprint how to do it.
I know we are responsible for all the Evils in the world past and present, please accept my humblest apologies.
@@eph2817
I would if it was honest.
LOL we never hear anything else but negativity about our history! What good has it done Germany? You're literally a psychologically emasculated nation
@@eph2817but your not your ancestors
Brits (and non) are lying about most things ww2 as well.
Thanks for getting this message to England. There was no famine in Ireland it was a genocide.
It never used to be called a genocide so what's changed? What's changed is the destructive Left have decided to inject maximum poison into society because they want to tear everything down. They are then surprised when this gets ordinary people's backs up or demoralises them and they reject the Left yet again.
Would you like to see ordinary English people suffer some sort of revenge for these events?
Glad to see Gravel Institute and now Novara Media cover this, it's baffling living in the North and seeing so many people still worship the Brits after all they've done to our people.
Because that is the culture they cling to, the worship of monsters. They voted for Churchill as the greatest Briton and Cromwell is right outside Westminster. The first things they teach their children are empire and why it's bad the empire is gone.
I'm English, I live in Paris.
My mum lives in Spain & she voted Brexit. I didn't.
She always is amazed that Irish bars /enclaves are everywhere she goes, totally oblivious to why Irish enclaves are so far flung.
We don't learn about it at school, & Irish History is not in modern Pop Culture/netflix tv.
I've had to do my own research on it.
I love the Fields of Athenry song. I'm gonna play it to my mum.
I have mentioned this a few times on line about the marginalisation of the teaching of history and people not being told about their past in a fair and balanced way. This leaves the door open for unscrupulous people to slant the narrative to their own ends and hide the real truths of why things are they way they are today.@@Thom-jj7yr
Very good except that I'd urge you not use maps showing 'Northern Ireland' when talking about the Famine and British policies in the 1800s - the pro-British Northern Ireland statelet was only created in 1921 by Westminster's partition of the island of Ireland (and gerrymandering in the province of Ulster) following the Irish War of Independence.
Lets stop calling it a famine.
@@dubhainoceanntabhail5262 It’s what it’s commonly known as. Wiki says: “A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe *or government policies*.”
Lot's of my family involved in irish independence. Tom Barry was my uncle . Left Ireland as a child but i am so proud of the success of the Republic particularly in literature and enormous success in America. I watch you on GBNEWS well done .
America ? You mean the USA that was founded on Genocide and slavery? It is the place I live, but let’s not forget the foundations of that place too.
Could probably have been called "How and why Britain Starved Ireland", for even greater impact.
Nothing says ‘free market liberalism’ like state enforced land grabs of fertile farms. It never was liberalism, it was syndicalism with the Brits as the beneficiaries.
It would honestly be more appropriate to call it a genocide than a mere famine. This was specifically engineered by the British State.
Once again, another major piece of history that was not even compulsory in my history class at school.
Unlike what passes for history with the wider British public , with Netflix recounting how a teary eye , young queen Victoria , enquires of some flunky "And what of Ireland"?
In actuality ,she declined the offer of help , in monies and foodstuffs, to Ireland from , amongst others the Ottomans and went so far as to instruct that the ,Royal Navy , who only thirty years previously at Trafalgar, arguably Britain's greatest recorded sea battle , had consisted of one in three , white Chimpanzees, to Blockade any attempts to assist the beleaguered , starving masses , by force if necessary.
History indeed ,but not as we ' know' it.
@@SacClass650 the British did make the Gaelic language illegal to be spoken in Ireland and they did the same with the various languages spoken by Native Americans in North America. This supports the ethnic cleansing argument.
@@SacClass650 if it had indeed faded, then a law mandating its exclusion wouldn't be judged necessary. It would be like politicians of today banning Latin. Gaelic was banned in 1616.
@@SacClass650 the Great Famine in the context of a Genocide in which other acts of genocide such as extinguishing a language by laws outlawing it are pertinent to the discussion.
@@SacClass650 i think you're gonna have to define genocide mate. cant have a semantic arguement with undefined terms
If people only knew the full brutal history of Britains rule over Ireland. Number one, you would be sick to your stomach and number two,you would never look at Britain in the same light ever again and this is why it is not talked about nor taught in history class in British schools.The fact that Britain forcibly extracted 95% of food stuffs from Ireland during the famine is not disputed.What they do dispute however is did this actually cause the famine.I will let you work that out yourself.
I concur with Stíofán Ó Cathmhaoil, this video, although rather short, it was fair and balanced. I would love it if you could do more in depth videos on this subject.
Keep finding myself coming back to docs and shows that centre on Ireland in some way or another - great video Aaron, much appreciated.
Any connection to Ireland?
Must have a bit of Irish ancestry somewhere, a lot of British people do
@@mrjackbennyVery distant, as I think a lot of people in the UK do. Just seem to have found and sought out a lot of content recently centered mostly around The Troubles, maybe bc NI elections in the news, I don't know.
Apparently many true English people were also chased from England years ago. They relocated to the west and to Wales. This is rarely discussed.
Unfortunately, you are correct. Spread the word. People need to know. The British need to know this.
Well we see undiluted hatred towards Britain and British people online all the time and this - the selectively told version of events which leaves out many details such as the huge public relief effort organised by British people - is one of the key features. So does that make you happy? Does it scratch that neurotic itch that you have to demonise people completely unconnected to these events? Does it make you feel better that you're actually inciting genocidal feelings? Does it advance the rest of the Left's agenda or does it make them reject it?
People like trying to imagine how the third reich would have portrayed itself in the aftermath of the second war had it been victorious. No need to imagine - just look how the British state conducts itself.
Aw Jaysus, the Third Reich, that's tearing the arse out of it
Bit of a stretch there
There was no famine
There was a genocide
Genocide by famine (caused by the British) . Imposed, intentional famine. 😡
The English had a similar attitude towards Scotland for more than a century during the highland clearances circa 1750; they wanted the land for sheep farming on a grand scale and people were driven from their homes to facilitate this.
Give it up. The clearances were generally Scot on Scot, the Laird versus the Highland peasant and you know it. Remember, the Scottish monarchy became the sovereign of Britain and the Scottish aristocracy have survived almost intact for centuries.
@@ThyCorylus "black on black crime is the real issue" --- that's you right now.
@@ThyCorylus Indigenous elites collaborating with external exploitation to benefit their own power is the norm in exploitative relationships. That doesn't mean they weren't being exploited.
I wouldn't say much of the same attitudes back then have changed even today
@@ChavvyCommunist I don't think they were saying highlanders weren't being exploited, they were saying that the people who conducted the exploitation were Scottish. History would tend to back them up. On top of that, there was less of a national element in the exploitation of Scottish highlanders than in that of the Irish, given the fact that the Scottish lowlanders and the Scottish highland landlords tended to look down on the highlanders as much as, or more than, the English did.
It is much easier to make the case that Ireland was a situation of colonial exploitation (though there were some important differences between Ireland and the rest of Britains possessions) than it is in the case of Scotland.
Its commonly and openly called genocide in Ireland, the word famine seems applied to this situation by those who caused the genocide, the term famine serves to obfusicate the reality in many peoples opinion.
It is commonly referred to as The Famine in Ireland and always has been. The genocide thing is a recent internet phenomenon.
@@sean_d you contradicted yourself, let me explain.
1, you stated that "it's commonly called the famine in Ireland"
2. You stated that it commonly being referred to as genocide is "a recent thing".
So, because it being referenced as genocide is "recent" (its been commonly referred to as such over the last 30 years or more at least) you argue that ot is not commonly referred to as genocide.
Literally using proof that you are incorrect in your assertion as your argument in support of your incorrect assertion.
And, let's be clear here, genocide it was, a quite deliberate and orchestrated plan to expunge a certain gene stock from the land of Ireland in order to create favorable conditions for another. If that is not genocide (the act of attempting to eliminate a certain gene pool) then what is? This is why it is commonly referred to in Ireland as genocide.
(FYI, before we engage in a long and tedious exchange of further comments, note my use of the word "commonly" as opposed to "exclusively") have a nice life, goodbye.
@@Ben-Downlow. You obviously don't Iive in Ireland. Both my statements are correct. You don't need to explain anything, thanks.
@@sean_d I haven't lived there in 15 years true, but it's quite obvious that your statement contradicts itself.
Maybe you first heard the term genocide regarding this on the Internet, but that only serves to evidence the fact that the term wasn't used in your circle, 30 year ago is way before the widespread use of Internet and I have heard and used the term genocide for at least that long. Sinead O'connor album "universal mother" (circa 1990-92) for instance contains the song "famine" in which she expresses the conviction that "famine" is an inappropriate term for what was inflicted on us by the British landlord class.
Obviously you have been living under a rock, prehaps you could do everyone a favour and crawl back there.
Malfeasance genocide personal preference. Dammnation under the guise of salvation. 'Perfidious Albion'.
Thank you for this. I am Irish, now living in Scotland. At school I learned about an Horta mór. It’s only in later years that I have learned about the English attitude to the Irish people. Nothing has changed, has it? The English still have this better than thou attitude and would repeat what they did to the Irish in a heartbeat.
Funny how I (and probably most of us) were brought up to believe it was a totally natural event
The potato famine was not unique to ireland but the massive population decline was, that's not natural
Yip, one of my English friends said he remembers being taught that it was due to overpopular - aoooch!!
It started out as a natural event.
Really?
All famines are political.
The Great Hunger, as it's known in Ireland, didn't happen next door to the United Kingdom. Ireland was then part of the UK. For the British, it happened at home, yet so many of them don't know anything about it.
Ireland was not part of the UK, it was not known as the great hunger, facts matter.
@@tommercury3349 Ireland was part of the UK from 1801 to 1922. That's why it was then known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
@@memisemyself that's what the British said, the Irish said no, which do you follow, British law or Irish law. We were never conquered
@@tommercury3349 That comment is too stupid to even try to respond to. I deal in reality, not fantasy.
You should do a follow up on the Bengal famine if you think the actions by the Government in Britain were atrocious during the Irish famine.
A helpful and well-outlined refreshment that can easily slip the memory.....Neo-liberalism is the love child of Capitalism and Liberalism. Has been unleashed in all its most brutality, from 2010 especially....
Let's hope that love child does not reproduce..
And this is why the current unravelling of the UK, and its descent into irrelevance and global disdain can only be seen as a well deserved outcome.
...except for the fact that the only people who will suffer from the UK's decline, are the ordinary people, who for the most part, are decent.
@@comanchio1976 Are they though? They voted overwhelmingly for Brexit because they hate foreigners.
@@comanchio1976 precisely. Although the Ukraine seem to be pretty happy accepting the British lead in supporting their cause unlike the begrudging European powers.
@@ThyCorylus Their cause? It's a senseless proxy war.
Wow, I am really glad I wouldn't wish harm on anyone. The people who will suffer are not to blame.
Many thanks for this Aaron. A clear and succinct summary of Ireland's and many other colonized nations' horrific ordeal, at the hands of the British Empire.
Happy this is finally being shared and not put under the rug!!! This is so important and in NY SCHOOLS nothing is though about this
Thank you so much Aaron & Novara for telling this story, so few British people know either about the brutal history of colonialism in Ireland or how the market ideology that still prevails compounded the starvation and displacement of millions of Irish people, Britian's long suffering neighbours (just think of how even Brexit has severe negative impacts on our country though we had no opportunity to either vote for or against it). Also really appreciate how this video frames Famine as an ongoing injustice (Afghanistan to name one of several horrific examples) rather than some historical anomaly.
What severe negative has Brexit forced on Ireland?
It is an easy deflection to say they were Irish landlords selling the food to
Britain, in reality they were all part of the British aristocracy, who owned the land as a result of the first Genocide which happened 200 years previous . When two thirds of the land was taken from the Irish and given to the butcher Cromwell’s men and as presents to English aristocrats who supported the savage ethnic cleaning of Ireland, these people were not Irish they owed the land but they were closer to their English family’s than any assimilation to Irish culture
Great video. The irony is in 1840s this was the worlds richest nation by far with a huge empire that began to rapidly contract after the famine. Up until then all the major battles that made the empire involved Irish regiments on the front line ie cannon fodder. By letting the population contract so fast meant new recruits dried up. The Scots made better writers than fighters (not my words) and regiments from the home counties just didn't cut it. Kind of Karma really and not too dissimilar to the Nazi's genocide killing all their best engineers and scientists ie. the Jews at a time when they would have made the difference between winning and loosing.
Aaron thanks for highlighting the famine never taught i the schools of Scotland.
England has a lot to answer for. Not just from ireland.
The English aristocracy*
@@ThyCorylus it’s unlikely the English working class wanted this as it basically caused a surplus of workers in the industrial cities which benefited their bosses greatly and is the reason why Marx thought the revolution would begin there
@@ThyCorylus not really, there were a lot of average britons involved in making these things happen. its like saying german soldiers were guilt free since they didnt create genocidal policies, "they were just following orders"
@@ince55ant the average Briton couldn’t even vote whilst this was happening. Certainly after 1918 you could argue any and all countrymen had opportunities to influence but everything before then is basically an elite dictating the destiny of a country.
It may have taken a long long time but I think the chickens are coming home to roost
To this day, there is nobody alive in IRELAND who does not know how the English treated IRISH people.
And deep down there is still NO Forgiveness!
We keep the memory of this atrocious historic event and, in truth, often regret our proximity to our island 'neighbours'!
And who would blame us?
Not the English... the British govt ... theres a difference.
Erin go bragh! 🇮🇪
"Nobody alive in IRELAND who does not know how the English treated IRISH people"
I was raised in unionist community in Belfast, went to a deeply protestant school, we were taught an extremely skewed perspective that distanced Britain from most of the blame. I dread to think how many of the bigoted asshats that live around me still consider the great hunger to be entirely of Irish invention.
A dreadful History and stain on England indeed, but one correction was they were British Landlords, as the Irish weren't entitled to own Land, outside of the 5% of land in the rocky Connaught region in the West of Ireland.
However, it is a fair coverage of the Genocide Period 1845-1850.
RIP.
Best thing we ever did was get our independence from Britain.
I've often brought this up with people who sing the praises of Capitalism, and talk about the harm done by communist regimes. it is right to see the horrors of Stalin and Mao, but just as necessary to count the costs of free market ideologies.
Now you know why Ireland will never be at peace until England gets out of Ireland, for good.
Spot on, Aaron. 👏👏
Incorrect about the single crop of potato. The biggest crops were parsnips, turnips, carrots and exported with beef, lamb, milk, and cream. On average 20 million tonnes of food exported from Ireland per year, from 1830 to 1880
The same potato blight affected the Scottish highlands. There was very few deaths due to starvation in Scotland due to relief efforts of the Scottish Office. The legacy of these times are the Destitution Roads.
It affected every country that grew potatoes but the British used it to cleanse Ireland of the Irish .. genocide