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0 pointspaublyrne6y ago0 comments

I agree that it's a simplification to blame the famine on 'British oppression', but to say `governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government` is something of a strawman.

There were a number of interventions accessible by the government. As parent points out there was ideological resistance to employing them, and where employed they were done so weakly and without enthusiasm. Sir Charles Trevelyan used the same argument you do - that there was ample actions Irish landlords could take directly - as an excuse for the government not to take action. Given he described the famine as a Godly judgement on the Irish, that argument is not a reasonable explanation for his approach.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

jajag6y ago· 3 in thread

I didn't say that the British government had no scope of action, but that it was limited compare to what a modern government could do. That this was further compounded by the attitudes and beliefs of members of the government of the time there's no doubt. But to be explicit about this, I believe that had there been an independent Irish state at the time, it would have continued to export food because not to do so would have been to risk economic collapse and would have outraged its merchant class.

borvo6y ago

Before the act of union of 1801 the Irish parliament, although pretty ineffectual, did block food exports during times of crisis. Even in the year of slaughter 1740 when a short term famine was caused by climate change food exports were stopped by a combination of local officials and angry citizens. The difference in the 1840s was the presence of a large number of troops who protected food exports at gunpoint. It is nonsense to suggest that an independent Irish State would have continued to export food in these conditions: it wouldn't have lasted a week.

camelite6y ago

> it was limited compare to what a modern government could do

That's 100% irrelevant. Compare it to what the contemporary British government was capable of doing - the very same protagonists with the same means available to them, who refused to act in Ireland - which was to prevent starvation during a the Highland potato famine[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Potato_Famine#Famine_...

Trevelyan made completely clear that "the people cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to starve" in a letter of September 1846.

discreteevent6y ago

Have you studied the actions of the Irish government in the decades after independence? The "economic war" with Britain caused economic collapse of it's 'merchant class' and it was undertaken to directly support tenant farmers.

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