There is no historical evidence whatever that there was intent on the part of the british government to kill the irish coma cani, come back to you. Janiside has a very different meaning in the context of the holycost and the horrors of what happened in the second world war. The 20 million pounds spent on plantation owners in the west indies who were bailed out by the government after the abolition of slavery act in 18 33. Little was spent thereafter. And then there is the issue that what the money was spent on was constrained in lots of ways - not con o saving life.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland. It is estimated that one million people died from disease or starvation after the blight and another two million left the country within the decade. There had been famines before, but not on this scale. What was it about the laws, attitudes and responses that made this one so devastating?
The image above is from The Illustrated London News, Dec. 29, 1849, showing a scalp or shelter, "a hole, surrounded by pools, and three sides of the scalp were dripping with water, which ran in small streams over the floor and out by the entrance. The poor inhabitants said they would be thankful if the landlord would leave them there, and the Almighty would spare their lives. Its principal tenant is Margaret Vaughan."
With
Cormac O'Grada
Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics at University College Dublin
Niamh Gallagher
University Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at the University of Cambridge
And
Enda Delaney
Professor of Modern History and School Director of Research at the University of Edinburgh
Producer: Simon Tillotson