We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A NATIONAL COMMEMORATION day to remember the Great Irish Famine is set to be held on the third weekend in May every year.
A Sinn Féin Bill which aims to hold a Famine memorial day on the same day each year is due to be opposed by government this week.
This is due to Fine Gael’s Colm Brophy making a similar proposal last year and it being further advanced.
The day put forward by Brophy was the second Sunday in May every year, however, it is now understood the government is investigating what would be the “ideal date”.
It is believed it will now be held over the third weekend in May to ensure it does not clash with any other events.
The first memorial day is due to be held next year.
“We have a fixed date to commemorate Easter 1916 and one to commemorate all those who died in other wars on behalf of our county. However, when it comes to what is, perhaps, our country’s greatest tragedy; it is somehow deemed not important enough to be marked by a permanent date in our calendar. This is no longer acceptable,” said Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy said when he launched his Bill last year.
We need a fixed date for a number of reasons. It will allow everyone to work towards the commemoration, on a yearly basis, and allows schools to make it part of the school curriculum.
Over one million people died of hunger and related diseases during the famine, while two million fled the country.
The day will not be classed as a bank holiday. The Sinn Féin Bill, put forward by Peadar Tóibín, will be debated in the Seanad today.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
The true history here http://www.irishholocaust.org/
If ever there was a lesson for us to be self sufficient and not dependent on multinationals for our most essential basic needs
@Ranty McCrank: thanks for sharing
@Ranty McCrank:
Yes because working for a good salary for a diverse range of multinationals is exactly like having to eat grass during the British mis-rule of Ireland. What an intellectual giant of a man you are.
@Ranty McCrank: http://www.jerrymulvihill.com The Truth Behind The Irish famine
@Fred Jonsen:@Fred Jonsen: think before you type lad will ya, the landlord’s owned the property back then and evicted people left right and centre. Same things happening now just different landlord’s.
@Ranty McCrank: Thanks for the link.
THE FAMINE YEAR
Weary men, what reap ye? “Golden corn for the Stranger.”
What sow ye? “Human corpses that await for the Avenger.”
Fainting forms, all hunger-stricken, what see you in the offing?
“Stately ships to bear our food away amid the stranger’s scoffing.”
There’s a proud array of soldiers what do they round your door?
“They guard our masters’ granaries from the thin hands of the poor.”
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? “Would to God that we were dead”
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread!”
“We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,
But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.
Now is your hour of pleasure, bask ye in the world’s caress;
But our whitening bones against ye will arise as witnesses,
From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffined masses,
For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.
A ghastly, spectral army before God we’ll stand
And arraign ye as our murderers, O spoilers of our land!”
@Fred Jonsen: and if the multinationals our because another couple try offers a cheaper tax rate what are we left with? At least we have our own soveirgn food and manufacturing supply. Actually no we’ve given that all away for convenience.
Regarding your sarcastic ridicule attempt “intellectual giant” comment – being an @sshole because you don’t agree with someone shows your inability to control your childish emotions.
Why is it not illegal to call it a famine, why are Irish people denying what happened, why is the government adding insult to the memories of those lost and why do we accept this at all. For instance in Germany and other countries it is a serious offence to deny the Holocaust so why is it not an offence here to deny the great hunger that they conveniently call the famine when the facts clearly demonstrate it was genocide.
@Brian: Freedom of speech that’s why. If I want to deny the famine ever happened I should be allowed to do so. It’s a bit like flat earthers. You can’t stop people from saying stupid things, especially by law.
@Brian: I kinda get your point but the german’s built the gas chamber’s the famine was all over Europe ,we lived on potatoes and the money men do what they do and the government follow suit ,just like modern times
@Brian: Taught history is not at all clear on issues surrounding the famine and its causes, firstly the potato blight was not unique to Ireland, more people, and secondly more people during that period died from the effects of ill health such as typhus and cholera than those who actually starved to death. In the area where I live we could pin some of the blame on poor sanitation and dirty drinking water, landlords also must share some of the blame for their greed, a bit like todays landlords. The great flue epidemic in 1919 actually killed more people than all of those lost during WW1.
@Chris Kirk: there was plenty of food in Ireland. The English exported it under armed guard. You really should inform yourself.
@FlopFlipU: there was plenty of food in Ireland at the time, we were exporting food .
There was no Famine it was Gort Mòr (great hunger) The British government had coffin ships …
@Rex Facer: in fact the Dublin merchants that exported the food were Irish themselves
@Brian: The Ukrainian famine is called a famine even though it was man made, the same goes for several African famines.
@Gus Sheridan: They were Anglo Irish exporters… facilitated, protected and aided by the British government of the time..Other nations in Europe, also hit by the potato blight, closed their borders to exports of vital food stocks..In Ireland though, a deliberate Government to starve the people off the land existed. British soldiers were sent over to guard food convoys making their way to the ports…any starving person or group that tried to grab a morsel were bayoneted to death….They called it a ‘Famine’ afterwards, and hoped the world would believe it, and sadly they did…even the Irish themselves fell for the great lie..
@Christopher Doyle: were you there and seen it
@Daniel Donovan: yes at a time of record food export. To england. It’s all in black and white.
Can we please stop calling it a ‘famine’, famine is an event that’s caused by lack of food, what happened here was caused by UK Government Policy and the belief Irish people, especially Irish Catholics were less human than those on the Island of Britain. It was NOT a famine, it was a deliberate starving of a populace by the ruling classes and bodies.
@Tony O’Regan: 100% correct.
@Tony O’Regan: https://www.joe.ie/news/belfast-councillor-criticised-following-grossly-offensive-tweet-624803. Just posted today!!
@Tony O’Regan:
Totally agree it was genocide no doubt about it. Calling it famine is an insult to the victims
It’s is only right and proper that we commemorate the Genocide that took place .
There was no shortage of food in Ireland in the 1840′s . Ship loads of food was exported out of the country during the height of the famine.
@Niallers: Exactly. I remember mcaleese calling it Ireland’s shame when she should have referred to it as England’s shame.
@Niallers: the people in power are West Brits that’s why
@Bobby Byrne: why England’s shame? Did the people of Devon, Cornwall, Lancashire, Yorkshire and many other places also suffer? The famine happened right across Europe it was just exacerbated by the ascendancy and its rules. Its a people who were in power at the time shame….
@Niallers: they done same during Bengal famine of 1943 in India
@Alan Walter Gallagher: How do you explain the regiments of solders sent over to guard our food on it’s way to the ports?
@Pádraig Ó Braonáin: there were plenty of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh in the forces at that time – just like there is today. Its all very well having a rosy republican revised history but its not the absolute truth!
@Alan Walter Gallagher: that’s not correct at all. Starvation of the population, jail or Australia and the systematic eviction of families from their small patcheselection of land was a specific policy designed to get rid of the thousands of small plots families lived on in order to create large scale farming to produce food for the English population. There are some very detailed history books written about this subject. Famine is the completely wrong word for what happened.
Needs to be a bank holiday to show proper respect otherwise it will go under the radar.
@Starburst: will the bank be paying for it
There was NEVER a famine in Ireland. Referring to the mass genocide that was inflicted on Irish people, by the British, is nothing more than a crass, cowardly incorrect revisionism that harbors no historical truth whatsoever.
Perhaps our country’s greatest tragedy?! That is putting it mildly.
@Enda Reynolds: Tragedies tend to be accidental. Preventing native Irish people from hunting rabbits and shipping boatloads of grain and farm animals out of Ireland to the UK under military guard was a deliberate genocide.
Do we need to repeat it a million time’s.
Genocide Genocide Genocide………..
It is interesting (and a little ironic) that the same government that no longer requires Junior Certificate students to study history as a core subject, now wants to commemorate, arguably the most important historical event to ever happen this country.
Of course, that this event has never been commemorated before now is equally ridiculous.
@Gerard McDermott: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0430/959147-history-of-ireland/
At this rate we’ll be having a national Thierry Henry hand ball commemoration day
@League of shadows: you are a pathetic individual…
Perhaps Ireland should have an annual Emigration Day to commemorate the millions who have had to emigrate since the Famine. With the exception of the Celtic Tiger period, Ireland has pumped out economic migrants to the rest of the world and now denies expats who are still Irish citizens the vote. While the English colonial regime was
responsible for the Famine, the Irish Free State-Eire-Republic of Ireland is responsible
for all Irish emigrants since 1922.
Commemorating the Famine is fine but commenting emigration since 1922 reminds the
State how it has failed millions of its citizens and, to add insult to injury, the State now denies its citizens who live outside Ireland the vote.
I guess its easier hanging the donkey’s tail on a British regime for events that happened
170 years ago rather than manning-up to its State responsibilities of today.
It was genocide ,and nothing short of a national public holiday will suffice .its a thundering disgrace that it has been ignored for so long .
Genocide.
What’s hard to believe is the British are still here and as arrogant as ever if they had there way they would cause another one .It should be a holiday to honor all those whose were starved to death by the British
@Donal Carey: Jeeze. What a load of vitreolic crap. Aren’t you an enlightened individual representing modern Irish society.
@wattsed: What modern about this Country there are none so blind as those that can see .The Nationalists in the North of Ire are still being treated as second class citizens .
Make it May 1st, or is there an ideological difficulty in recognising International Workers Day as an annual commemoration event?
@Jarlath Murphy: we already have a bank holiday to commemorate international worker’s day. It’s this weekend
@Anne Parsons Dunne: It was actually on Tuesday, 1st of May.
History being made today.
Now to right the wrong of there being no exhibition or record in the National Museum of Ireland
@Olivia Blanch: the Casement exhibition was very good and the famine museum in stephens green shopping centre is quite good. But you’re right, it should be at the centre of our national museums. There are not many artifacts because the people were so poor but maybe their rosary beads and little clay pipes say enough. It would be good to increase the general public understanding of colonialism.
Tír gan teanga, tír gan ama.
Will we be marking a day for the present day tragedies
Genocide
Famine ha
what I’ve learnt in school is that the potatoes and vegetables all got infected with blight and the rich people(most likely british) had all the fresh food. why are people saying there was “no famine” when clearly there was a really bad infection of blight in the crops? yes I know the british didn’t care and stole most of the good food, but the real answer is there was both a famine and hunger
@James O Carroll: Because there was no famine, just a failure of the potato crop. Food was plentiful in Ireland, but exported under armed guard to the UK. The native Irish were allowed to starve in what seems to be a understood policy.
Potatoes me hole. There was other crops,
Dont mention the wild salmon, trout, goats, rabbits, chickens, geese Deer etc etc etc , they had some of the most fertile land in the world yet millions of people starved and the cause is blamed on the lack of one crop ……. nah, theres more that story.
It should be a bank holiday , like Anzac Day here in Australia.. The Irish government need to wake up and realise it was a famine , that could easily could have been avoided .. Facts are facts …
It was genocide no doubt about it. Calling it a famine is an insult to the victims.
What was grate about it
@Theodora Lament: It still grates…
have your say