AHC: Large scale British relief during Irish Famine

[frlmerrin]

No it isn't, the Fields is sung in virtually any Irish team competition, just because elements of Celtic use it in that way doesn't make it part of the nationalist agenda or Sectarian.

Ah come on Sparky you are being disengenuous. As you say just because they sing it at the Celtic does not mean it is a Nationalist song. None the less it very definitely is a Nationalist song. It is less than three weeks ago that I had to walk out of a pub in Cahersiveen* on didli-i night because the crowd had go themselves all steamed up singing Nationalist songs including Fields, half the bloody Wolftones back catalogue and bunch of mawkish hearts and shamrocks crap about Connolly. At that point an RP accent became a liability.

*The place where the Anglo-Irish war memorial has no end date on it.

 

[OwenM]

I was always under the impression that the Irish were forced to continue exporting food by the British at the worst time of the famine

"In History Ireland magazine (1997, issue 5, pp. 32–36), Christine Kinealy, a Great Hunger scholar, lecturer, and Drew University professor, relates her findings: Almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men, women and children died of starvation and related diseases. She also writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the Famine. "
Im not an expert on this but to me just simply ignoring the laissez faire opinion at the time and allowing the Irish to keep their food would be a significant help for them and lower the casualties, though a smaller potato famine would have a huge effect on America if the Irish decided to stay

Also first time poster, long time stalker.

Yes, food from eastern Ireland continued to take the quicker and easier route to the markets of British ports rather than the much more difficult and slower overland journey. That's hardly forcing the Irish to give up food.
They probably could have forced them to send it west instead, but I think all that would have achieved would be to have more food shortages further east rather than west; and again, would have been violating laissez-faire.
It's also worth pointing out the government literally collapsed over this issue.

 

[GeographyDude]

I heard some of a man's sermon on the radio who I think was a Baptist preacher. He was talking about once saved, always saved. And he acknowledged, yeah, I supposed someone could go back to sinning and not trying, but what a loss. The person would miss out on all the blessings. Then he added, it's not our job to decide on someone's ultimate salvation.

And if that attitude was more common. We can show by example, we can share what has worked for us, but it is not our job to decide on someone's ultimate salvation.

I'm a Yank, and I understand the current abbreviations are RC and C of E. And the attitude is very relaxed. If you're Roman Catholic, that's fine, and if you're Church of England, that's fine. Well, things were quite tense in the 1600s (and 1700s?) and had to change sometime.

If the change is fresh and people are proud of it, that's what I mean by the "sweet spot." People want to prove, including to themselves, that they are no longer against Catholic people. And such people will be open to requests to help.

For example, maybe a Protesant church in England collects food, money, and material goods, and sends a small delegation to make sure that it actually gets to needy people. And when they see the condition of the Irish people, they're in. They're want to do more. They're want to tell other people in England what they saw.

And Protesant churches and esp. the Church of England is a large enough of a base, that if this gets rolling, it really will change national policy.

 

[Corjomc]

Cutting off one's nose despite one's face

If the British Empire had gone all out to save the Irish might Ireland still be part of the Commonwealth? Was the abandonment of the island, for the most part, to its fate in the long run short sighted and contrary to what one would perceives as what's best for an Empire?

 

[Seleucus]

I have heard and read this anecdote many times I have never seen a copy of Queen Viccie's letter or the Sultan's response. I am begining to suspect it is not true. Does anyone have a copy?

Googled it, and found this Irish newspaper:

According to the Drogheda Independent, two of the ships arrived from the Ottoman Port of Thessalonica, which is now known as Salonika. The third ship arrived from the port of Stettin. The three ships brought wheat and Indian Corn for local merchants in the area.

A local historian, Brendan Matthews, said, “The timeframe matches perfectly, but the fact there is no firm documentary evidence may not be a coincidence”.

“This is the closest I have come to finding documentation, as there are no shipping records for Drogheda Port at that time,”

According to the newspaper, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Majid Khan sent £1,000 on Wednesday, March 31, 1847, to Dublin Castle. He had wanted to make a larger donation but was advised not to donate more than Queen Victoria, who had sent £2,000.

His generosity to the Irish people was reported in the in the London Times on Saturday, April 17, 1847, as well as in the Nation newspaper in Ireland.

“According to sources within the Turkish Embassy and the oral history of the Turkish people, the Sultan also sent three ships very soon after he had sent the £1,000 and that all three ships, although they may not have left the same port, arrived in Ireland at the same time and docked at the port of Drogheda,” Matthews said.

“If the Sultan had indeed sent such ships after the money aid, these ships would then have reached Irish shores around the first or second week in May of 1847.”

“The sultan of Turkey, Abdul Medjid Khan, may have sent the ships as a "hushed-up" gesture, not wanting to upset Queen Victoria,” Matthews added.

So, according to the Irish source, the details (if not the exact wording) should be in the London Times of Saturday, April 17, 1847.... if anyone has a subscription to the Times to look it up in their archives.

 

[Morty Vicar]

I heard some of a man's sermon on the radio who I think was a Baptist preacher. He was talking about once saved, always saved. And he acknowledged, yeah, I supposed someone could go back to sinning and not trying, but what a loss. The person would miss out on all the blessings. Then he added, it's not our job to decide on someone's ultimate salvation.

And if that attitude was more common. We can show by example, we can share what has worked for us, but it is not our job to decide on someone's ultimate salvation.

I'm a Yank, and I understand the current abbreviations are RC and C of E. And the attitude is very relaxed. If you're Roman Catholic, that's fine, and if you're Church of England, that's fine. Well, things were quite tense in the 1600s (and 1700s?) and had to change sometime.

If the change is fresh and people are proud of it, that's what I mean by the "sweet spot." People want to prove, including to themselves, that they are no longer against Catholic people. And such people will be open to requests to help.

For example, maybe a Protesant church in England collects food, money, and material goods, and sends a small delegation to make sure that it actually gets to needy people. And when they see the condition of the Irish people, they're in. They're want to do more. They're want to tell other people in England what they saw.

And Protesant churches and esp. the Church of England is a large enough of a base, that if this gets rolling, it really will change national policy.

But unless you have a definitive source proving otherwise, I don't think religion had much of a factor here. As mentioned previously the Highlands of Scotland, by this time Protestant, in fact almost Protestant Fundamentalists for lack of a better term, had the exact same conditions and response (or lack thereof). And again protestants in Ireland were also affected. Remember that contrary to popular belief, many Irish Catholics are rich landowners, while many protestants are poor tenant farmers. On the whole the reverse is true, but that doesn't apply in every single instance.

If the British Empire had gone all out to save the Irish might Ireland still be part of the Commonwealth? Was the abandonment of the island, for the most part, to its fate in the long run short sighted and contrary to what one would perceives as what's best for an Empire?

It's doubtful, the Irish Nationalist movement was well underway long before the Famine, and in fact even during the Famine Daniel O'Connel and others argued that Home Rule was the only solution to the problem. Without the Famine the Nationalists would have found other arguments for Home Rule, it's not like they loved being part of the Empire until the Famine hit.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . the Highlands of Scotland, by this time Protestant, in fact almost Protestant Fundamentalists for lack of a better term, had the exact same conditions and response (or lack thereof). And again protestants in Ireland were also affected. . .

The POD I'm thinking of is that many C of E members are in the "sweet spot" of religious liberty. They are rather recently, say within the previous ten years, of the change of thought and feeling that Catholics are equal citizens and follow an equally valid although different religion. And perhaps not all C of E members feel this way. This might very well be a change still in progress.

And so, many individual members might initially help out in part to prove to themselves that their change of heart is real. And once they see how bad things are, they keep helping and in fact increase their efforts, and talk with other people about what they have seen with their own two eyes.

And with this POD, the order might surprisingly turn out to be, first helping the Catholics in Ireland, and then realizing, Oh, yeah, the Scots are in just as bad a situation.

PS I've thought about other possibilities. For example, the utilitarians were surprisingly influential for a philosophical movement. And perhaps newspapers could have been at a "sweet spot." But neither of these would be near as big as the Church of England being an early and energetic leader of relief efforts.