Talk:Great Famine (Ireland)

Past entries in this famous discussion are archived in:

Ignore that idiot's abuse, JTD. I like the page too. It is very informative and well written. It matches the history I was taught. You get a couple of 'cranks' always complaining about something. Usually they don't know much. Just complain, complain, complain. When someone shows up the limits of how little they know, they throw their little tantrums. Two16 seems like a typical tantrum thrower! 159.134.168.165

count me in as part of the consensus on leaving the page the way it is. It is fine, as far as I can see. i wish all the other pages were as comprehensive. What is Two16's problem? The page is what I was taught as well. DuggieH

The content of this page does not need major work. It is factual, comprehensive and NPOV. The only thing I would do to improve it would be to write a better summary of the major points of the article and have that be the first section (this would the only section most people read anyway). Many of the more interesting facts are buried in this weighty article and anything above 10,000 bytes in size begins to loose people's interest (this article is about 32,000 bytes - and growing). In short; this article needs to be preceded by a smaller article and some of the sections should be spun-off into other articles (leaving summaries of those sections here). As interesting as I find this topic, I know many people who are not interested in wading through this level of detail and analysis. Having a better summary and much of the detail in other articles would improve the readability of this article and also allow people on older Mac browsers to edit this page without chopping off the last few sections (I'm pretty sure these browsers can only handle 30K of text in forms). I would also like to see more detail about the potato blight fungus itself - I don't recall seeing it mentioned. --mav 01:17 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

____________ FOLKS Lets try to get a handle on what is going on here. 23. 28 Jan 9 I posted a question about one count 'em one paragraph. I ended the post by saving :

That aside it is a pretty good article. Two16 23:28 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

My comments lay unaddressed through 5 re -requests for that information. Requests for links went unanwered three times and are still unanswered. I know stuff is easy to find on the internet : however, if one have information bookmarked it is a simple cut and paste.Saves time. Gives guidance. Helps colaboration. Instead of recieving cooperation I recieved lectures on all sorts of topic relating to Irish Decendants in America. I was treated tarred with a label and treated online as sterotype repeatedly. It is no less funny that it doesn't fit. I wrote and reitterated repeatedly:

I don't think the topic of genocide need nessessarily be broached in the article. Just the facts. I think that a npov article might be able to be written without mentioning it at all. But I could be absolutely wrong about that.

This paragraph , which I am reposting for the fourth time due to its ongoing relevence to this talk page , is a pretty clear statement about my own interpetation about the famine. Expressly: If I believed that the famine was a genocide how could an article be written npov which did not mention genocide at all?

I have dialogued in good faith. I was given treatment that JTD probably desrved to go to other quarters.

Could messages be put onto my talk page which might explain how this turn of events took place. Two16 _____________

I would like to have comments on one sentence from any eyeballs watching. JTD has now weighed in specifically on the paragraph The worst sentence of the lot is:

Economic historians have concluded that not to continue the export could

have plunged the entire Irish economy into economic meltdown;

Does this sentence that someone had a choice to continue or not continue? If that is not the case, this sentence must be rewritten. Please comment about the sentence on this page. Two16 02:57 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

Just to alert everyone, I have had to revert to a earlier version because

a historically dodgy diatribe was added in in place of the section on genocide.
the immediately earlier versions of this article could not be reverted to because they had been doctored to at best read as propagandistic gibberish, at worst as POV nonsense.

He is one example of this gobshite's vandalism. (His changes are in capitals)

One issue which divides the perspective of Ireland on the history of the Famine from some BOGUS attitudes among the FAKE Irish - living abroad, is the claim, made by some of the latter, that the Famine amounted to genocide by the British against the Irish. Few Irish historians accept such a PATENTLY FALSE definition, which would imply a deliberate policy of extermination. While all are agreed that the British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied by the ministry of Lord John Russell, were somewhat misguided, perhaps ill-informed and frequently counter-productive, with Professor Joe Lee calling what happened a 'holocaust', [9] Irish, British and American historians of the cailbre of Professors F.S.L. Lyons, John A. Murphy, Joe Lee, Roy Foster, and James S. Donnelly, Jr, as well as historians Cecil Woodham-Smith, Peter Gray, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many others have long dismissed claims of A DELIBERATE POLICY OF genocide. PERHAPS MORE THAN A STRONG BELIEF.

Another twisted addition referred to the 'so-called' famine.

I have had to go back through a series of versions to find one not so doctored. That means that everyone else's work tonight on this article has been lost because some prat thought it funny to screw everyone around.

According to the records, the person responsible for this deliberate vandalism is STEVERTIGO.

So, everyone, feel free to ask the twat responsible what he thought he was doing. And maybe we should all keep an eye out on whatever else he contributes to. If he's tried vandaling here, he may well have tried vandalising other sites when he could not get his way. JTD 05:29 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

Sv - you need to explain yourself here. Have you gone mad? You marked the above as a minor edit stating in the edit summary "typo - overwhelming to overwhelmingly." The above is not minor and the edit summary looks like you were attempting deliberate deception in order to sneak-in your POV and very un-encyclopedic edits. If an anonymous IP had done that I would have banned that person's IP immediately. However, I know you can do better because I have seen you produce good work before. This issue, however, is probably way too close to your heart for you to be neutral on this topic at all. So I suggest you stay away from this subject and concentrate on topics where you will not be reverted into oblivion. --mav

A couple hundred years before this the British were running around chopping off the heads of the Irish and stacking them in piles. Vera Cruz

The "minor edit" checkbox was unintentional. I did write that it was a rewrite of the genocide section. as for going, mad.. Im not sure youre qualified to make that diagnosis, mav, as that would mean you have had some personal experience with madness. So dont make mountains out of molehills, like JDT and call what i did vandalism, when in fact, what he had there was biased, infested with inuendo, leading political jargon. hardly NPOV.

And in keeping with the spirit of the improved article, (still biased)I limited my rewrite to the genocide section. Once again, im suggesting we put a photo of a potato on the page. thats what this really is about isnt it? Potatoes. Right? -Sv

p.s. my "heart is too close to this issue, mav? is JDT's historian (sanitized,clinical) point of view an example of detachment or of bias? Are you capable of telling? And all this, coming from someone keen to point out "derogatory comments dont help ones cause"?

I am capable of telling good work from complete crap. The reason I am being so "derogatory" now is that I am convinced that you are being unreasonable about this issue so there is no point in being nice because you obviously no longer have any intention to improve this article. --mav

This is the section removed by JDT:

The Genocide claim

That the Famine "amounted to genocide" by the British against the Irish, is a divisive issue, and largely representative of the difference in perspective and attitudes among the Amercan Irish from Irish nationals. Few Irish historians accept outright such a definition, as "genocide" implies a deliberate policy of extermination. All are agreed that the British policies during the Famine, particularly those applied under Lord John Russell, were misguided, ill-informed and disastrous. Professor Joe Lee once called what happened a holocaust [9].

There is little or no conflict on the facts; the records are incomplete, for whatever cause, and thus the "debate" is largely a moral one; attempting to ascertain, whether within the policies of the British Empire, lay a racist, forgetful, or simply inconsiderate mentality that, despite its power, was impotent to handle a humanitarian crisis in its own backyard. To British historians, this is so rudimentary and axiomatic, as to be forgotten: Imperial rule was cruel, just as was America's 'Conquering of the West', which America does not, in any sincere way, admit guilt for either, simply because it would raise political issues now.

Irish, British and American historians F.S.L. Lyons, John A. Murphy, Joe Lee, Roy Foster, and James S. Donnelly, Jr, as well as historians Cecil Woodham-Smith, Peter Gray, Ruth Dudley Edwards and many others have long dismissed claims of a deliberate policy of genocide. This dismissal usually does not preclude any assessment of British Imperial rule as inadequate, or ill-mannered to handle the task.

Some historians, however, insist that happened was genocide, though "genocide" was not an internationally-defined term at the time of the famine. These, often Irish-American scholars sometimes accuse Irish historians, statisticians and researchers, (who speak of the famine in clinical, deliberate jargon) of trying to 'pander to the British' and writing a clinical version of history to make excuses for British imperialism'. England, critics say, attempts to "revise" Irish history, by cloaking the callousness of Imperialism in sterile "scientific" language. As Seamus Metress puts it:

"It would appear that one of the major purposes of Irish revisionism is to undermine the basis of Irish nationalism and leave Ireland without heroes or historical memory. It also plays down the British responsibility for the catastrophic aspects of the Irish experience. Though they alternately whimper or crow about their quest for detached truth, Anglo-Irish revisionists attempt to present sociopolitical propaganda under the guise of scholarly writing. They choose to forget that British rule in Ireland was guided by the rope and the bayonet. "

But the popular view in Ireland, however, is that such claims are highly politicized; the 'famine genocide courses' studied in the US are often dismissed as 'politically correct dogma'. Such movements have little support in the Republic of Ireland, where political parties who actively advocate this version of history are overwhelming rejected in elections in the Irish Republic. However, these ideas have a far higher degree of support among many Irish Americans.

Critics of the "British point-of-view" call it at best 'apologist', and often, an example of crude revisionism, and shoddy history. They also point out that the British argument that (paraphrasing)'Ireland's economy depended on its food exports to pay for its land,' is insincere, and inherently contradicted. It asks far more questions than it answers: Why would Ireland export food when it was starving? No doubt, critics say, under the Geneva Conventions, the actions and inactions of Lord John Russell would be called genocide, and the British Empire would bear some degree of responsibility in the acts of its official. Such claims raise the touchy reality of human exploitation by British and Irish landlords, regardless of nationality, but rather, along class lines.

This division, again, highlights the differences between Irish nationals and the broader Irish diaspora, mainly in the United States. In Ireland, the issue has long since been put to rest in the spirit of reconciliation with England, which is the stronger sentiment. Hence, not only do Tory loyalists, and British apologists, tend to reject (in public) the genocide claim, but so does the common Irish citizen.

It is keen to point out that America's violent independence from Britain would not be a possibility for Ireland. The Irish dispora need not live near, nor associate with, British society in any approximation to what Irish nationals do. The genocide claim, in the United Kingdom, is an extremely volatile political issue that would tend to create further divisions, especially in the aftermath of Northern Ireland's socially divisive hostilities, with regard to a dominance in its national and religious identity under British rule.

Changing attitudes may eventually impact on Irish American perspectives on Irish history and the famine. The movement of Sinn Féin from the 'armalite' to the 'ballot box', and its acceptance of the existence and legitimacy of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is leading to not only a reconciliation, but a revision of its general analyses on Irish history topics. For example, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast, in 2002, laid a wreath commemorating Belfast's War dead in the British army during both world wars, while the party also declined to protest at Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee visit to Parliament Buildings in Belfast.

The above edits are my rewrite of the genocide section of the IPF article. Read it before you let JDTs opinion stand as unquestonably the Wiki law.--Sv

BOGUS attitudes among the FAKE Irish <--- POV Vera Cruz