Why the Irish hate the British

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Once, while surfing the Internet, I found photographs with a very strange sculptural composition. I would even emphasize - with a very SCARY composition. Some thin, emaciated people, dressed in rags, doomedly look in one direction. They are holding beggarly knapsacks in their hands. One man carries on his shoulders either a sick or a deceased child. Their mournful faces are terrible. The mouths are twisted, either crying or moaning. A hungry dog walks in their footsteps, which is just waiting for one of these tired people to fall. And then the dog will finally have lunch … Creepy sculptures, isn't it?

It turns out that this is a monument to the Great Famine. And it is installed in the Irish capital - in the city of Dublin. Have you ever heard of the Great Famine in Ireland? I foresee your answer: you know, against the background of the dark pages of OUR history, we somehow didn’t care about the Irish problems.

However, it was not just hunger! It was a real cold-blooded Holodomor and Genocide, perpetrated by Great Britain to its little neighbor. After him, tiny Ireland, which on a map the size of a thimble, by the most conservative estimates, lost about 3 million people. And this is one third of the country's population. Some Irish historians claim that their land is half depopulated. That Great Famine gave impetus to very important historical processes. It was followed by the Great Migration of the Irish to America. And they sailed across the Atlantic on "floating coffins." This is how the Irish gangs of New York, the car empire of the Irishman Henry Ford and the family political clan with Irish roots named Kennedy arose.

It was a small announcement. And now, about everything in order.

Have you seen Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York? If not yet, I highly recommend taking a look. The film is very realistic, heavy, bloody, and as people of the older generation say in such cases, it is a life film. It is based on real historical events. It is about how the beggar Irish "come in large numbers" in America, who had no work, no money, no knowledge of the language, were forced to fight for life with the "native" Americans. Their armed riots were the worst in US history. These bloody uprisings were brutally suppressed by the regular army at the cost of even more blood.

So why did the Irish end up in America? Why did 15,000 ragged Irish emigrants go ashore every week in New York Harbor? Moreover, these were those who survived on the road, who did not die on the way from disease and hunger. They sailed across the Atlantic in old, worn-out ships that once carried black slaves. These rotten shells were called "floating coffins" by the emigrants themselves. Because one in five died on board. Historical fact: in the middle of the 19th century, for a conditional registration of 6 years, 5000 ships with emigrants arrived in the New World from Old Lady Ireland. In total, just over a million people stepped onto the American coast. And if every fifth person died on the way, then you yourself can calculate how much IT is obtained from the arrived one million.

The most popular signs hanging on houses, offices and shops in American cities were "Irish people should not apply for work", and only in second place "Dogs are not allowed." Irish women were not even accepted into brothels because they were too exhausted for the job.

What was it that attracted the Irish to the States in the middle of the 19th century? Well, yes … of course, how did I forget !? After all, America is the Empire of Good, the Beacon of Democracy and the Country of Equal Opportunities for All! It is possible that after these words liberal-minded viewers will stop reading, watching and listening to me, but I will still tell you one figure about the Empire of Good - after finding a new homeland on the east coast of the United States of America, half a million Irish people died. That is, half of the arrivals. Once again, for the fans of Country of Equal Opportunity, 500,000 Irish people have died in America after being resettled from Europe. From poverty, hunger and disease.

Another question arises: if in the blessed States there were such harsh conditions, then why did the emigrants come there? The answer is simple - where they came from, it was even worse, and even hungrier.

The Irish fled to America from the Great Famine and Genocide, which they arranged for another Empire of Good - Great Britain.

The thing is that as a result of the long British colonization, the indigenous population of Ireland lost all their lands. The very fertile soil in the warm and humid climate on the cozy Green Island, which is heated all year round by the warm Gulf Stream, did not belong to the Celts, the ancient people of Ireland. All their land was in the hands of the English and Scottish landlords. Who rented it out to former owners at inflated rates. And what!? Everything is very honest and democratic: suppose a certain Mr. Johnson from London is the legal owner of Irish land, and has the right to set any rent for his property. You can't pay - either die, or go to Mr. McGregor, who is from Glasgow, his rent is cheaper - half a penny cheaper!

High rents for greedy British landowners led to widespread poverty. 85% of people lived below the poverty line. According to the words and observations of travelers from continental Europe, the then population of Ireland was the poorest in the world.

At the same time, the attitude of the British towards the Irish has been extremely arrogant for centuries. This is best demonstrated by the words of the Englishman Alfred Tennyson, the great British poet, by the way.

He said: “The Celts are all complete fools. They live on a terrible island and have no history worth mentioning. Why can't anyone blow up this nasty island with dynamite and scatter pieces of it in different directions?"

Only one thing saved the Celts from starvation. And his name is potatoes. In a favorable climate, it grew very well, and the Irish got the nickname of the most important potato-eaters in Europe. But in 1845, a terrible misfortune fell on the heads of the poor peasants - most of the plants were affected by a fungus - late blight rot - and the crop began to die right in the ground.

It would be fine if it was one such sad year. But there were four of them! For four years in a row, potatoes were mowed by a rotten attack. It is today that scientists found the cause of the disease and gave it a name - late blight, and in those years the Irish perceived it as the Heavenly Punishment. The Great Famine began throughout the country. Whole families and villages died. They died not only from hunger, but also from its inevitable companions - cholera, scurvy, typhus, and hypothermia. The dead, due to extreme exhaustion and lack of strength, were buried shallowly, so the remains were dug up by stray dogs and scattered throughout the area. Human bones scattered around villages were a common sight at the time.

Now remember and understand why the sculpture of a dog is present in the Dublin monument. At the same time, the desecration of graves by dogs is not the worst thing. There were even cases of cannibalism … Over the four hungry years, according to various estimates, from one million to one and a half million people died.

You may be wondering: what is the connection between potato fungus and genocide? If there is such an opportunity, then ask some Irishman about it. He will tell you taco-o-o-o-e! And he will explain that the events of the Great Potato Famine formed the basis of the traditional hatred of the Irish towards everything British. The seeds of this deepest hatred will eventually sprout in bloody shoots. Including in Northern Ireland.

So, what does Britain have to do with it !? And despite the fact that the British owners of the Celtic land during the famine could cancel, or at least reduce the rent. They could, but they didn't. Not canceled or downgraded. Moreover, they have this lease! And for non-payment of rent, they began to evict peasants from their homes. It is a known fact that Count Lucan, in County Mayo, evicted 40,000 peasants from the hovels.

The greedy English landlords continued to squeeze all the juices out of the emerald land. Whole herds of livestock, barges of oats, wheat and rye were sent daily from the starving population to England. The Irish writer and speaker John Mitchell wrote about it this way: "Countless herds of cows, sheep and pigs, with the frequency of ebb and flow, left all 13 seaports in Ireland …"

The British government could significantly reduce the number of casualties. To do this, it was necessary to make a strong-willed decision - to appease the appetites of greedy landowners, completely ban the export of food from Ireland and increase humanitarian aid. But this was not done …

The Turkish Sultan Abdul-Majid, when he learned about the scale of the disaster, wanted to donate 10 thousand pounds sterling (by today's standards, it is almost 2 million pounds), but Queen Victoria proudly refused to help. And then Abdul-Majid secretly sent three ships with provisions to the shores of Ireland, and with great difficulty they made their way through the blockade of the Royal Navy …

Lord John Russell's speech at his address in the House of Lords read: “We have made Ireland … the most backward and most disadvantaged country in the world. The whole world brands us with shame, but we are equally indifferent to our dishonor and to the results of our inept management. This speech was drowned in the indifference of pompous lords, noble sirs and peers who joined them.

Many historians believe that the disaster was by no means natural, but very artificial. They call it a deliberate genocide of the Irish. The country has not yet recovered from its demographic consequences. Just think about the following figures: 170 years ago before the Great Famine, the population of Ireland was more than 8 million people, and nowadays - only 4 and a half. Until now, half as much.

Well, yes, in the States, Canada and Australia there are a lot of people with Irish blood - these are the descendants of those same ragamuffins who sailed on "floating coffins". Many of them have become people. The most prominent examples are car tycoon Henry Ford and 35th President of America John F. Kennedy, as well as his entire influential Celtic clan. Rumor has it that a swarthy 44th President of the United States named Barack Obama also has a speck of Irish blood in his blood. His maternal grandmother was (allegedly) Irish.

When I first learned about the Great Potato Famine, I thought about this … I drew a parallel with Russia of that time period.

Mid-19th century, serfdom has not yet been abolished in Russia. But according to the law, in the event of a famine, the landowners were obliged to find reserves, feed their peasants and not leave them to their fate, as the noble sirs from foggy Albion did. I don’t remember any examples of Russian noblemen increasing their rent during a famine or driving out peasants from their plots by tens of thousands. Our country, which was (and still is) in very harsh climatic conditions, in the zone of risky agriculture (not like emerald Ireland with its velvet climate) did not know such catastrophic shocks.

The twentieth century does not count. It has a completely different story. Yes, in times of poor harvests, in years of severe frosts or droughts, there was famine. But he did not mow down one third of the country's population. And the people did not sail away in millions on rotten boats in search of a better fate. The government made loans, both cash and grain. All forces were rushed to eliminate hunger and its consequences.

It's another matter in enlightened Europe! Yes, this is not serfdom in bastard Russia. This, you know, is the capitalist model, where everything is absolutely according to the law. Tens of thousands of beggars, ragged and landless peasants hunched over one legitimate owner, who, absolutely honestly, first ruined them, and then completely transparently bought up all their land. Everything is extremely honest and democratic! You don’t want to hump on Mr. Johnson, your right, go work hard on Mr. McGregor. Or die. Or sail across the ocean. If you get there, you will definitely become Ford, Kennedy or even Obama.

So that's it. Let me summarize. If the British, these noble Anglo-Saxons, did THIS with their neighbors and almost relatives, then one can understand why they did not particularly stand on ceremony with all sorts of Bushmen, pygmies, Indians, Indians and Chinese.