WI: France helps the Irish during the famine

Saphroneth

Banned
Most recent Irish import vs. export I could find:
foodgraph.gif

Okay, that's helpful. So it looks like there's an export-over-import surplus. (approx. 450 000 tonnes, which is 1/3 of consumption.)
That comes down to a carrying capacity, assuming it copies across the island, of... right about 8.5 million, though that's using modern technology of course.
 
That Ottoman sultan piece has been removed from wikipedia I note, the only place I've ever seen it. But even taking that as a given a small amount of money given just to one up the queen, refused by the queen herself....not really representative of government general policy.

Obviously it depends what we mean here by 'French aid'. If we're talking French navy ships landing food and handing it out then yeah, the British government would probably refuse, that is very dangerous foreign meddling. But France having a campaign to raise money to help the Irish like happened in the UK...you're more likely to see the Irish refusing that than the English. I don't see what the government could do to stop it even if they wanted to.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/ne...nd-during-the-famine-156681255-237507681.html
 
More aid from any source would have meant more people living. How many more is open to debate. But even one life can produce immense butterflies.

It's not more complicated than that.
 
Huh?

It is claimed that Ireland did export vast amounts of food during the famine, although numbers seem uncertain, and it is a contested issue.

It is also claimed that during an earlier famine the government acted differently:
http://www.usbornefamilytree.com/irishfoodexports.htm

People selling crops that they own is a very different thing to 'the English' taking Ireland's food.
Its really not that big a deal. Some parts of Ireland weren't so badly effected. Wheat and beef farmers weren't hit at all.
In those days the vast majority of transport was done by water, as it has been throughout most of history. It was just as easy to get goods from England to western Ireland as from eastern Ireland to western Ireland. And considering the aid pot wasn't bottomless it is just good sense to spend the money in the most efficient way possible rather than getting worked up about buying Irish.
 
<P>Well, except in this case, the land was owned by British (protestant) landlords and the Irish were basically reduced to being indentured servants, so they didn't really have a choice as to whether they should sell or not.</P><P>So saying it was taken by the English is not that far fetched</P>
 
<P>Well, except in this case, the land was owned by British (protestant) landlords and the Irish were basically reduced to being indentured servants, so they didn't really have a choice as to whether they should sell or not.</P><P>So saying it was taken by the English is not that far fetched</P>


Weren't most of the landlords Irish by birth - sometimes of many generations standing? Or do you not count as Irish unless you are Catholic?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Weren't most of the landlords Irish by birth - sometimes of many generations standing? Or do you not count as Irish unless you are Catholic?

It's actually definitionally HARD to be Irish and not British in this time period - because, well, Ireland Is Part Of Britain at this point. Specifically, in addition to being physically located in the British Isles, it's also legally part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - for which the adjective is "British".

So you can be a British Protestant Irish Landlord.
You can also be a British Protestant English Landlord.

I think that referring to the former as "English" is wrong, while referring to the latter as "English" is right. It would be correct to say that the Ascendancy is the result of the policy of the English crown in previous centuries, but it's almost as correct to say that the Castillian crown's policy towards Galicia and Aragon is responsible for modern opinion in the region. Or that the situation in Ossetia is the Tsar's fault.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikestone8
Weren't most of the landlords Irish by birth - sometimes of many generations standing? Or do you not count as Irish unless you are Catholic?

It's actually definitionally HARD to be Irish and not British in this time period - because, well, Ireland Is Part Of Britain at this point. Specifically, in addition to being physically located in the British Isles, it's also legally part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - for which the adjective is "British".
Indeed, I apologise, I was not precise enough. I spent a bit of time in Ireland and, well, the landlords of the time are not considered Irish but the locals^^

Anyway, yes, technically they were Irish and the peasants were British, in the same way black people in African colonies were French or British. They had very little representation, their culture was quashed (forbidden to use gaelic...), they didn't own their lands and protestant landlords had all the power over them.

Or do you not count as Irish unless you are Catholic?

That's a big, and quite sensitive question. Basically, at least in this period, no. Even now, Belfast (not in the Republic of Ireland but still in Ireland) is massively segregated by religion. It's not religion itself, it's that religion in this case is a marker of origin. Like in French Algery, Muslims were second class citizen.
 
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Indeed, I apologise, I was not precise enough. I spent a bit of time in rs and, well, the landlords of the time are not considered Irish but the locals.


On what basis, if they and many generations of their ancestors were born in Ireland?

Does that mean that landowners in England are not English if they are descended at umpteen removes from a Norman, or that white folk in the US are not American unless they are descended from Pocahontas or Sitting Bull?
 
On the basis of that's what most of the Irish I have seen are saying. I agree it's not a scientific study or anything but the protestant landowners of the XIXth century are not considered part of the Irish culture and of the Irish people.

From the impression I got (again, partial, personal bias, whatever), Irish culture (in the Republic, cannot stress that enough) is catholic and celtic, both things the authority tried to suppress after the battle of the Boyne.

Protestant is seen as coming from the colonisator, the English while Catholic is the religion of the locals.

I am not making a judgement about any other country or time period or situation, I am just describing the feeling I got from me living in the Republic of Ireland as a foreigner.


Almost more than anywhere else, history is, oh so, political in Ireland :)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
On the basis of that's what most of the Irish I have seen are saying. I agree it's not a scientific study or anything but the protestant landowners of the XIXth century are not considered part of the Irish culture and of the Irish people.

From the impression I got (again, partial, personal bias, whatever), Irish culture (in the Republic, cannot stress that enough) is catholic and celtic, both things the authority tried to suppress after the battle of the Boyne.

Protestant is seen as coming from the colonisator, the English while Catholic is the religion of the locals.

I am not making a judgement about any other country or time period or situation, I am just describing the feeling I got from me living in the Republic of Ireland as a foreigner.


Almost more than anywhere else, history is, oh so, political in Ireland :)
Weirdly, the original justification for English colonization of Ireland was actually catholic - it came direct from the Pope!
(The only English Pope there's ever been... which is suggestive in itself.)
 
Ah, funny I had no idea! Thanks for sharing that. Those silly normans. They took over England but they just couldn't let go of the fun times.
 
The basis of being educated in and taking cultural, social and political cues from England, mostly

Well there were enough Irish Catholic Landowners to elect some Irish Catholic Members of Parliament ... which would require them to be the majority in some Boroughs.
And people were still starving in those!!!
 
And UKIP is in the British Parliament, yet UK is still part of the EU, what's your point? :)

That one district had a catholic landowner does not mean the whole island is starving. It would be like saying Birmingham couldn't have known the recession of the recent years because the mayor was whatever party you want it to be :)

This was a macro economical problem linked to an agricultural problem. By acting just like they did in Benghal in 1770, the Protestants merchants aggravated the existing problem. If the national supply is destroyed due to mold, the little what's left is exported/traded and there's no real relief effort from the other parts of the productive country, it's a recipe for disaster. Laissez-faire might not have been the solution here


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770
 
Well there were enough Irish Catholic Landowners to elect some Irish Catholic Members of Parliament ... which would require them to be the majority in some Boroughs.
And people were still starving in those!!!

Wouldn't those be the districts west of the Shannon, where the confiscations never happened on the scale of the east (the famous 'Hell or Connaught' of Cromwell)? Areas that were anyway rockier, boggier and worse for agriculture than those areas thought suitable for English use. Those would have been largely descendants of the Gaelic aristocracy.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what your point is.
 
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