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hikemogan's review against another edition
4.0
Tim Pat Coogan's book on the Irish famine will enrage and prompt readers to study further. While he truly makes a case that a genocide was perpetrated on the Irish people under the pretext of hardcore laissez faire economics, what struck me are the parallels between what the British attempted in the 1840s and what many colonial powers throughout the world have done to their victims (native Americans at the hands of European and American powers; myriad African ethnic groups at the hands of European and then African regimes; Koreans at the hands of the Japanese; etc.). Famine is a complex tool of cold (and traditional) wars throughout history that allow the powerful to absolve themselves through rhetorical and economic slights of hand.
rwmccool's review
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Informative description of the way England failed to aide in the great hunger. As said in the book, "God sent the blight, but the English sent the famine."
madamegeneva's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 - this was an amazingly insightful look into the Irish Famine and the conditions leading up to it, especially where English politics are concerned. It was equal parts heartbreaking and detailed.
Given the topic and the amount of material covered, it did get quite dry in some parts, particularly with all of the key names and policies. But overall, it truly is a harrowing must-read, particularly for those of Irish descent, or those interested in the Famine era.
Given the topic and the amount of material covered, it did get quite dry in some parts, particularly with all of the key names and policies. But overall, it truly is a harrowing must-read, particularly for those of Irish descent, or those interested in the Famine era.
bontals's review
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Very sad and very informative. A stark and heartbreaking look into how so many Irish people ended up in Canada.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Classism, Death, Genocide, Religious bigotry, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism
unisonlibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
In 1841 the Irish census registered 8,175,124 people in the whole of Ireland. The true figure was probably much larger. There was a lack of infrastructure, particularly westward coupled with very primitive peasant housing which made accurate record keeping all but impossible. Overcrowded slums of the cities would have been equally challenging to a state bureaucracy. Historiographical problems notwithstanding, it is generally accepted that during the Famine period Ireland’s population fell to some six and a half million. The total given in the 1851 census was 6,552,365 – at the very least some 1.6million people died or migrated (forced and voluntary) during what we know as the Potato Famine.
This book however is not principally concerned with numbers. There are detailed accounts of the figures elsewhere, broken down into county and town and village, across different landlords and smallholdings. Tim Pat Coogan is about explaining why the famine happened, and who was to blame for those excess deaths. He argues convincingly that the famine was no accident; or rather the prolongation of the effects were no accident but active government policy of the United Kingdom, of which Ireland was of course a part at the time, if not an equal part.
While there are many failings on the part of British politicians to alleviate the effects of the famine, the key event was the election of Lord John Russell in 1847 which condemned the souls of so many Irishmen, women and children. The previous Prime Minister, Robert Peel, while by no means a lover of philanthropy and charity, did set up through his Tory administration a number of programs of assistance which demonstrably kept people alive through the first part of the years of blight. Upon the arrival of Russell’s Whig administration, such programs were abandoned, abolished or deliberately undermined. For those who believe the Whiggish propaganda about them being a more liberal administration than the Tories, they would do well to read this book for they all worshipped at the fountain of political economy, specifically the Malthusian element of laissez faire, going so far as to equate the law of the market with the law of God; the Famine was merely divine providence as far as the Whig government were concerned and a golden opportunity for the expansion of captial.
Much of the blame is placed squarely at the door of Sir Charles Trevelyan; a mere civil servant but in reality the man who pulled the purse strings of the government. He was an ardent free-marketeer and is still revered in Whitehall today as a great reformer who cut his teeth in the Indian Civil Service before bringing his ideas to the “Mother of Parliaments”. To the author, he is a genocidal maniac responsible for almost every poor decision that exacerbated the effects of the Famine. The case against him is compelling and he is very much cast successfully into the role of a Victorian Oliver Cromwell; destroying the Catholic surplus population under the will of God. One example which would be difficult for even the most ardent liberal to defend would be the halting of grain ships which were supplying food to the impoverished, but this is what Trevelyan did purely out of ideological malignancy saying to the Chancellor and Prime Minister “Whatever may be done hereafter these things should be stopped now, or you run the risk of paralysing all private enterprise and having this country on you for an indefinite number of years.” It’s fair to say that not only was this cruel, it was also wrong; otherwise England would have had very little to do with Ireland once the Famine was over, and I don’t think it’s too controversial to suggest there have been some involvement and entanglement in the previous 170 years. Also note the description of Ireland as a “country” here and not a full partner in the economic union of the UK; a colonial subject.
There are first hand accounts here of what happened in Ireland, with the Quakers playing a key role in distributing relief; even they became critical of the British government as the latter made all possible efforts to stifle the former in their activities. There are some darkly comic moments that wouldn’t be believed in a fictional narrative, for example the Deputy Commissioner of the official government relief agency was called Sir Edward Pine-Coffin; even Dickens wouldn’t have gotten away with that. The tales of woe and destitution and death are heartbreaking in the extreme, as are the stories of forced evictions and eventually migrations, be they forced or voluntary and whether to the violence of the Five Points area of New York, Boston or the misery and racism of the slums of Liverpool.
Much can be understood about the British colonial attitude from reading this book. The way the British viewed the Irish; white people, European and from very similar if not the same ancestral stock as us, were nought but fodder for the imperial capitalist machine. Charles Kingsley; cuddly writer of children’s fiction said of the Irish “I am daunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country. I don’t believe they are our fault. I believe that there are not only many more of them than of old, but that they are happier, better and more comfortably fed and lodged under our rules than they ever were. But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours.” While Thomas Carlyle, doughty defender of liberty put it “Ireland is a starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant: what is the elephant to do? Squelch it, by heaven! Squelch it!” Apparently not convinced that the squelching process would be sufficient, Carlyle also suggested that the best course for England in dealing with the Irish was to “lead them and put them over with the ni**ers.” - these extracts are taken from an excellent chapter on the media and propaganda, lead by the London Times which remains the British “paper of record” despite being on the wrong side of history on most large historical debates.
Tim Pat Coogan puts his case expertly and passionately. The Irish Famine began out of sheer bad luck, but its continuation was a result of British government policy. He ends by quoting the UN definition of Genocide and concludes “Certainly in the years 1846–1851 responsible Whig decision makers were complicit in genocide and did direct public incitement, as the columns of The Times sadly confirm only too well, toward furthering that end. Just as there are those who still attempt to deny man’s role in global warming, there are those who would still attempt to defend the Whigs’ role on the grounds that the UN Convention on Genocide stems from 1948, not 1848. To them I end by saying there is another, even older command on which the UN declaration draws, and it is not disputed: Thou shalt not kill.” The final word should go perhaps to John Mitchell who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land due to his political beliefs “The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine”.
This book however is not principally concerned with numbers. There are detailed accounts of the figures elsewhere, broken down into county and town and village, across different landlords and smallholdings. Tim Pat Coogan is about explaining why the famine happened, and who was to blame for those excess deaths. He argues convincingly that the famine was no accident; or rather the prolongation of the effects were no accident but active government policy of the United Kingdom, of which Ireland was of course a part at the time, if not an equal part.
While there are many failings on the part of British politicians to alleviate the effects of the famine, the key event was the election of Lord John Russell in 1847 which condemned the souls of so many Irishmen, women and children. The previous Prime Minister, Robert Peel, while by no means a lover of philanthropy and charity, did set up through his Tory administration a number of programs of assistance which demonstrably kept people alive through the first part of the years of blight. Upon the arrival of Russell’s Whig administration, such programs were abandoned, abolished or deliberately undermined. For those who believe the Whiggish propaganda about them being a more liberal administration than the Tories, they would do well to read this book for they all worshipped at the fountain of political economy, specifically the Malthusian element of laissez faire, going so far as to equate the law of the market with the law of God; the Famine was merely divine providence as far as the Whig government were concerned and a golden opportunity for the expansion of captial.
Much of the blame is placed squarely at the door of Sir Charles Trevelyan; a mere civil servant but in reality the man who pulled the purse strings of the government. He was an ardent free-marketeer and is still revered in Whitehall today as a great reformer who cut his teeth in the Indian Civil Service before bringing his ideas to the “Mother of Parliaments”. To the author, he is a genocidal maniac responsible for almost every poor decision that exacerbated the effects of the Famine. The case against him is compelling and he is very much cast successfully into the role of a Victorian Oliver Cromwell; destroying the Catholic surplus population under the will of God. One example which would be difficult for even the most ardent liberal to defend would be the halting of grain ships which were supplying food to the impoverished, but this is what Trevelyan did purely out of ideological malignancy saying to the Chancellor and Prime Minister “Whatever may be done hereafter these things should be stopped now, or you run the risk of paralysing all private enterprise and having this country on you for an indefinite number of years.” It’s fair to say that not only was this cruel, it was also wrong; otherwise England would have had very little to do with Ireland once the Famine was over, and I don’t think it’s too controversial to suggest there have been some involvement and entanglement in the previous 170 years. Also note the description of Ireland as a “country” here and not a full partner in the economic union of the UK; a colonial subject.
There are first hand accounts here of what happened in Ireland, with the Quakers playing a key role in distributing relief; even they became critical of the British government as the latter made all possible efforts to stifle the former in their activities. There are some darkly comic moments that wouldn’t be believed in a fictional narrative, for example the Deputy Commissioner of the official government relief agency was called Sir Edward Pine-Coffin; even Dickens wouldn’t have gotten away with that. The tales of woe and destitution and death are heartbreaking in the extreme, as are the stories of forced evictions and eventually migrations, be they forced or voluntary and whether to the violence of the Five Points area of New York, Boston or the misery and racism of the slums of Liverpool.
Much can be understood about the British colonial attitude from reading this book. The way the British viewed the Irish; white people, European and from very similar if not the same ancestral stock as us, were nought but fodder for the imperial capitalist machine. Charles Kingsley; cuddly writer of children’s fiction said of the Irish “I am daunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country. I don’t believe they are our fault. I believe that there are not only many more of them than of old, but that they are happier, better and more comfortably fed and lodged under our rules than they ever were. But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours.” While Thomas Carlyle, doughty defender of liberty put it “Ireland is a starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant: what is the elephant to do? Squelch it, by heaven! Squelch it!” Apparently not convinced that the squelching process would be sufficient, Carlyle also suggested that the best course for England in dealing with the Irish was to “lead them and put them over with the ni**ers.” - these extracts are taken from an excellent chapter on the media and propaganda, lead by the London Times which remains the British “paper of record” despite being on the wrong side of history on most large historical debates.
Tim Pat Coogan puts his case expertly and passionately. The Irish Famine began out of sheer bad luck, but its continuation was a result of British government policy. He ends by quoting the UN definition of Genocide and concludes “Certainly in the years 1846–1851 responsible Whig decision makers were complicit in genocide and did direct public incitement, as the columns of The Times sadly confirm only too well, toward furthering that end. Just as there are those who still attempt to deny man’s role in global warming, there are those who would still attempt to defend the Whigs’ role on the grounds that the UN Convention on Genocide stems from 1948, not 1848. To them I end by saying there is another, even older command on which the UN declaration draws, and it is not disputed: Thou shalt not kill.” The final word should go perhaps to John Mitchell who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land due to his political beliefs “The Almighty indeed sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine”.
shaykelliher's review
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Coogan really effectively brings to light the horrors inflicted on the Irish in this period. An incredibly important book, the severity and extensive nature of the famine is something that is not discussed as much as it should be.
The English will pay for their crimes with blood !!
The English will pay for their crimes with blood !!
annieca's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent driven thesis-based book. Coogan clearly has done extensive research and his recommendations and critiques on the historiography will definitely help me find future books to read. All in all, a must-read for those interested in the Famine or Anglo-Irish history or relations.