IRELAND 1845-1851. Mother IRELAND “IRELAND remains a canvas on which many of the broad brush...
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IRELAND 1845-1851. Mother IRELAND “IRELAND remains a canvas on which many of the broad brush strokes of the modern world’s formation – imperialism, colonialism,
IRELAND remains a canvas on which many of the broad brush
strokes of the modern worlds formation imperialism, colonialism,
nationalism, revolution, emigration, democratization, et al. can be
fruitfully studied and examined. --Peter Quinn, novelist, essayist,
and a chronicler of Irish-America.
Slide 4
The Great Irish Hunger epoch changed the face and the heart of
Ireland. The Famine--yielded like the ice of the Northern Seas; it
ran like melted snows in the veins of Ireland for many years
afterwards. --Edith Somerville, Irish Memories (1917).
Slide 5
Prior to 1845, Ireland was called the breadbasket of the United
Kingdom. It was a major exporter of food to Britain, including vast
amounts of high quality grain products. Irish food fueled Englands
industrial revolution.
Slide 6
I relands climate is salubrious, although humid with the
healthy vapours of the Atlantic; its hills, (like its history,) are
canopied, for the most part, with clouds; its sunshine is more
rare, but for that very reason, if for no other, far more smiling
and beautiful than ever beamed from Italian skies. Its mountains
are numerous and lofty; its green valleys fertile as the plains of
Egypt, enriched by the overflowings of the Nile. T here is no
country on the globe that yields a larger average of the
substantial things which God has provided for the support and
sustenance of human life.
Slide 7
A nd yet, there it is that man has found himself for
generations in squalid misery, in tattered garment often as at
present; haggard and emaciated with hunger; his social state a
contrast and an eye-sore, in the midst of the beauty and riches of
nature that smile upon him, as if in cruel mockery of his
unfortunate and exceptional condition. -- B ishop John Hughes, New
York, (from Co Tyrone, Ireland) A Lecture on Antecedent Causes of
Irish Famine - 1847
Slide 8
"IRELAND by a fatal destiny, has been thrown into the ocean
near England, to which it seems linked by the same bonds that unite
the slave to the master .The traveler meets no equality of
conditions: only magnificent castles or miserable hovels; misery,
naked and famishing shows itself everywhere and the cause of it
all? A cause primary, permanent, radical, which predominates over
all others--a bad aristocracy. -- Gustave de Beaumont, colleague of
Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book: IRELAND, after he had visited
Ireland in mid-1830s. (Reprinted by Harvard Press 2006)
Slide 9 >
Slide 46
Ms Cozzens, the author, responds to letter regarding Tracing
Tragedy in Ireland: A travel article is necessarily tied to
destinations and activities that a visitor can experience. My
article focused on the famine's physical legacy and not on the very
complicated historical and political ramifications, which continue
to inspire heated political debate to the farthest reaches of the
Irish diaspora. Ms. Stone might be interested to know that the
print sources I consulted to provide some context for my
observations represent the most recent Irish scholarship. (??-Bob)
The picture of what occurred is still being filled in but is very
much more nuanced than she implies. --Published: July 13, 1997, New
York Times
Slide 47
Andrew Greeley, sociologist writes about the IRISH Famine N o
Western country offers better evidence than Ireland for the
conclusion that all human hopes are futile, all human passions
vanity and all human effort useless. N or does any country provide
more fascinating proof of the obdurate refusal of humankind to give
up in the face of tragedy.
Slide 48
John Mitchel famously put it, that "The Almighty, indeed, sent
the potato blight, but the English created the Famine."-- 1861
Slide 49
George Bernard Shaw of Dublin wrote 50 years after the Potato
Blight in Man and Superman: VIOLET: The Famine? MALONE: No, the
starvation. When a country is full of food, and exporting it, there
can be no famine. Me father was starved dead; and I was starved out
to America in me mothers arms. English rule drove me and mine out
of Ireland.
Slide 50
Q uinnipiac U niversity, Hampden, Ct announced October 2012 the
opening of I relands G reat H unger M useum
Slide 51
G reat H unger memorial, Cambridge Commons, Massachusetts
Dedicated by President of Ireland, Mary Robinson July 23, 1997
