The potato Famine

I recently heard about this interesting piece of history from an Irish friend. I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss.

You mean like "let's pretend we're gay Irishmen during the potato famine"? Begorrah, Seamus, I've not swallowed a blessed thing since I cottaged in the bog near Dublin Castle a fortnight ago.
OP, you had never heard of the potato famine until recently?
Are you 12 years old, OP?
Gayling thread.
OP has a book report due Monday.
R4 was applying nail polish to his bunions when he came up with that witty remark.
The%20Rest%20Is%20History
The Great Famine is an excellent lesson on diversification. The Irish put all their eggs in one basket -- developing their agriculture industry entirely around the potato. When the blight hit, Ireland was doomed.
Well, if I had been there, my Irish family wouldn't have gone hungry. I would have cooked a huge soupe for them
Mark Whalberg
R6, it was simply a reflection of the hundreds of "eldergay thread" posts made by your Middle School peers. That shouldn't have been so difficult for you. Perhaps when you've gained a little more experience, you'll be able to understand these things without adult assistance.
Did you just capitalize 'Middle School', R9? If you need help with the rules of capitalization, let us know. We're here to help you, unsightly liver spots notwithstanding.
Lol at r8
I fuckin hate it when jizz comes out like tatty water.
R4, another wanna be funny asswipe.
They all left Ireland and came to Boston on the Titanic.
It was a simple editing oversight, R10. I had originally identified your specific campus as "Tyler Lautner Middle School, but then deleted the name out of concern for you. That last year book picture ... well ... how awful it must be for you to have the only parents in the district too poor to buy their suffering child a little Proactiv Acne Treatment.
This will not happen again. Not ever.
Au%20gratin%20potatoes%20in%20a%20box.
The Eldergay/Gayling dyad is he-lay-rious!
[quote] I recently heard about this interesting piece of history from an Irish friend. I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. Which bit did you want to discuss, OP. The adults and children who died in the streets and along the roadways, whose autopsies (when there was time to do one) showed no sign of food anywhere in their system? Or did you want to discuss the way in which people were evicted from their homes, with landlords burning the houses (hovels, really) to ensure that they didn't return?
Gone but not forgotten
Was 'Tyler Lautner' also an oversight, R15? I'm sure there are many oversights in your life... Alzheimer's is such a bitch, right?
Death%20To%20Eldergays
Could someone please give R6/10/19 a potato? Poor thing is so cranky without carbs.
It IS funny to see the little ones flipping out now now that the meme has shifted.
Fewer potato-related "accidents."
http://metro.co.uk/2008/10/31/vicar-hospitalised-with-potato-up-his-bum-95117/
Uh...why is half my thread derailed by the troll who keeps going gayling and eldergay on every thread. I find him/her exceedingly annoying and irritating. You can't force a term to take off. It just happens.
OP
I can't see how they relied so much on one food. So much so that when it wasn't available they starved. Potatoes don't have that much nutritional value. Cauliflower they are not.
R18 Any part. It's up to you.
OP
This thread is giving me carb face.
R24, they had no choice. The ruling English and Protestant class owned much of the land, and the poorer Irish Catholics, who made up 80% of the population, were their tenant farmers. The landowners appointed landlords and middlemen to collect rent from these farmers, and they in turn figured out that they could increase the rent profit and pocket the change by subdividing the land into smaller parcels and leasing them to even more farmers. The greedy landlords kept subdividing and subdividing until all that was left for a poor farmer was a small plot with poor soil, and the only crop they could grow in abundance was the potato.
There was no famine. All of the food: meat, fish, vegetables were shipped under armed guard to England while the Irish people starved. Then in the middle of all this they gave us money not to teach our children Irish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D-ZCe8Fw8vyM
Wow, the eldergays are really out of control. It's a good thing they'll all be dead soon.
Father%20Time%20and%20the%20Cancer%20Diagnoses
It was horrible! They pulled off my little top hat, peeled away my skinny legs, cut off my nose and ATE ME!
Mr. Potato Head
Yes, R29, the eldergays WILL die. And then you do you know what happens? You will be the eldergay. And then YOU will die. In fact, you're now closer to death than when you last posted. Oops! Now you're closer still. Closer again. And again! And yet again. See how that works now, lollypop?
DEATH%2C%20being%20helpful%20to%20the%20inexperienced.
I don't think I could have ever even come close to predicting how this thread would get from OP's initial post to r31. I just read the thread and I'm not entirely sure how it happened.
What are those little things that grow on potatoes? Why do they seem to grow after a few days of me buying a back bag of potatoes? Is it safe to eat a potatoe if you cut them off? I hate green potatoes. I haven't had much luck buying bags of them and having them last long.
"lollypop" Learn how to spell, R31. Thanks for the laughs, though... Your meltdown was priceless.
Death%20To%20Eldergays
[quote]The Irish put all their eggs in one basket -- developing their agriculture industry entirely around the potato. When the blight hit, Ireland was doomed. No. The IRISH didn't have much choice in what they COULD grow, the ENGLISH owned most all of the land, drove the Farmers into poverty, and gave them very little land to grow on and on the poorest of fucking soils. They relied on potatoes because they didn't have access to much else. Read a fucking history book.
Well, r16 just ruined my witty response.
But%20kudos%20to%20you%20Sir.%20Or%20Maam.
LOL at this thread.
OP, were you out sick the day they covered this in school?
Little known fact, During the blight, the Choctaw tribe from Oklahoma raised 170$ for Irish Famine relief.
R33, those things that grow on potatoes are roots. They grow from the so called "eyes" of the spud. The potato is trying to grow into a new potato plant. Commercial potatoes are treated with anti-sprouting chemicals to try to prevent the roots sprouting for awhile, but they don't work very long. Yes, you can cut off the sprouting roots (and the "eye" from which they are sprouting) if they haven't developed very much, and the rest of the spud still seems sound. The rest of the potato will still be fine. but if it has all gone on to the point that the roots are overdeveloped, and the rest of the spud is soft, toss it. The bigger concern is the green part. It means that the potato has been exposed to too much light. When that happens, the potato assumes that it is exposed to more insects and other small predators (no longer underground), and produces toxic compounds meant to kill those creatures. Eating enough of that green potato stuff will also kill humans, though it would take a lot of it.
They had potatoes, but they distilled them into liquor instead of cooking them and eating them. Typical addict behavior.
Englishman%20in%20New%20York
Thanks 40
[quote]v oh, dear. I see we have worse plagues now than potato(e) blight.
Well, couldn't they eat rice or beans instead?
Khloe%20Kardashian%2C%20Ph.D%20
[quote]Is it safe to eat a potatoe if you cut them off?
Couldn't they just go to the drive-thru at McDonald's and get fries?
Miss Teen South Carolina
R24, the potato is surprisingly full of nutritional value. While it should not be the mainstay of a diet, it is certainly a good thing to eat. Potatoes are rich in potassium, even more so than bananas. They contain a fuck load of iron and a tremendous amount of vitamin C. They're also high in fiber and protein. I used to think that potatoes were worthless, r24, until I had to increase my potassium intake. Potatoes are a nutritional wonder!
R34, "lollypop" is a dictionary accepted variant of "lollipop." A mature person would embrace such a common and harmless variant without question, and a GAY man should empathize. Deeply, deeply empathize. Children, of course, will require more experience to reach that elementary level of comprehension.
I had always been an anglophile until I read of the Potato Famine. The English landlords would take all the edible food and sell it and then when charity food was sent over to the Irish because they were dying in the streets it was corn on the cob that had been gound into a meal. The cobs were so hard on the digestion that it killed many more, especially the children. I am not an anglophobe but it did make me realize that mankind is the lowest form of life and deserves whatever crap happens. To not only let children die of hunger but participate makes me want to believe in a burning hell. I still don't but wish I could.
[quote]Learn how to spell, [R31]. Thanks for the laughs, though... Your meltdown was priceless. If you're going to fault another poster for their use of of the English language, R34, you should pay more attention to your own ... shall we say ... "execution" of the language. You've committed several errors in this one quoted passage, as brief as it was. Do you need assistance in identifying the transgressions?
the english had corn reserves that could have fed the starving irish after the potato crop blight. the english hoarded the corn and watched irish families die a lingering death.
Would you like fries with that?
My family came over During the potato famine. And they still hate the English for the most part and blame them.
Isn't it spelled potato? The plural is spelled potatoes. Well, at least that's how we spell it. Anyway - OP - the link is a fascinating read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
Australian.
Were they sending corn as in maize? Corn, at least in Britain at the time, was/is a generic term for cereal crops of grain such as barley, rye and wheat.
The potato famine turned Ireland into an insatiable bottom.
This OP is as repulsive as the "I just heard about AIDS and how many of your loved ones dropped dead from it?" asshole. Don't say anything, though. The little shits will spend all their energy saying how terrible people are here and how DARE anyone notice they are smug, stupid, uneducated asswipes.
[quote]If you're going to fault another poster for their use of of the English language Oh, dear. Apparently, age doesn't cure inbred illiteracy.
Elderling
I'm sorry but it's spelled P O T A T O E.
George
"The Irish put all their eggs in one basket" - is that supposed to be funny? If only we had eggs...
Angela%27s%20ashes
No one cares about that. It was relevant when Irish people were the main immigrants but that was WAY before WWII. No one cares about that and it shouldn't be taught. We now learn about Latino immigration, the black slavery movement and atrocities America committed against the Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese people.
[quote]I'm sorry but it's spelled P O T A T O E Are you serious? Did we not learn anything from Dan Quayle?
Google says no R59. Potato.
Plural form, you add an "e" before the "s." potato potatoes
[quote] No one cares about that and it shouldn't be taught. While we're at it, lets erase all evidence that the Greeks and Romans ever existed. Idiot.
R58 is correct. R48/R50 - the same butthurt poster with different IP addresses - should just pack up and quit. He's just giving the elderly a bad name.
It%27s%20%27Lollipop%27%20-%20Join%20The%2021st%20Century
'Lollypop' just shows how ancient that poster is. He probably looks back fondly on "I Love Lucy" and separate water fountains.
Unfortunately, the potato famine didn't rid us of a huge modern blight...the irish
Lauren%20van%20der%20Booben
The English not only took the food from the Irish, they also took the clothes from all the men, leaving them nothing except a towel. That's was the start of towel dancing. (Now you know the rest of the story.)
Paul Harvey
At one time this thread would have actually generated some interesting serious replies of people with a deep background in history and could offer details that go beyond the one paragraph to page we read in high school history. Now it seems like most threads get derailed by some tedious argument that has nothing to with the thread. DL seems to have gone from pointless bitchery to bitchery with the point of ruining the thread and insulting the other commentators.
[quote] The Irish put all their eggs in one basket You are breathtakingly wrong. The English owned the land. The plantation system in America was based on the first plantation system the English used -- Ireland. Irish land was confiscated in the 1500s and 1600s and Ireland was turned into a plantation. The English landowners dictated what crop was to be grown, not the Irish
Interesting fact -- Ireland was filled with large woods. The British cut down all the trees to make tenant farms for the plantation system and sold all the wood for shipbuilding. The rolling grassy Irish countryside you see today is part of an ecological disaster -- the deforestation of Ireland. There used to be plenty of game in those woods, as well as large animals Iike wolves. Those animals went extinct in Ireland. Ireland is lucky it escaped Haiti's fate.
This thread brought to you courtesy of the Ross sisters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjutuEhkSnCU
This entire thread was worth it just to see that video.
It amazes me how young people today, especially Americans, assume 1) if it didn't occur in their lifetime it's not relevant to their own interests 2) If it's not about America it's not relevant to anything - or anyone because surely everyone partaking in an online discussion in a forum is American, right? Why do people assume that slavery, and massive systematic oppression by powerful government only happened ONCE or twice in world history?
And OP if you don't want to be mocked for looking like a grade-schooler posting an "interesting topic" in future threads, try opening with a leading comment, question or snarky remark on the issue yourself.
Is that Hillary Clinton at R61?
[quote]It amazes me how young people today, especially Americans, assume 1) if it didn't occur in their lifetime it's not relevant to their own interests 2) If it's not about America it's not relevant to anything - or anyone because surely everyone partaking in an online discussion in a forum is American, right? Doesn't the fault for some of this go to our failed educational systems? I learned about the Irish potato famine in 6th grade. Is it mentioned in any U.S. schoolbook today?
Bingo, R70. This is an interesting topic that I would have liked to have learned more about. DL is a place where I've often found nuggets of information on topics that you don't usually find elsewhere, but instead of that I've been scrolling through countless posts about the correct spelling of "lollipop." How these tedious cunts even find their own arguments interesting is beyond me. I love the video R28 posted though.
Wow, I knew there was good reason to abhor the Enlish but I didn't actually know they were the reason for the Potato Famine. Why is it that the English, a small people from a remote island, have behaved so monstrously throughout history? It's a shame their language has become so widespread. I'd rather know how to speak Irish. So would the Irish, I'm sure.
You go to the DL to find information, R79? Wikipedia works nicely, as does college.
The%20Year%202013
[quote]and atrocities America committed against the Chinese, Such as?
R73 They're great, but no Peters Twins.
Let them eat latkes.
Queen%20Victoria
[quote]Such as? The LA Massacre of 1871, the Rock Spring Massacre of 1885, the Seattle Riot of 1886, the exclusion act prohibiting the Chinese from owning land....
Speaking of exaggerated death tolls, all the hysterical Marys on the AIDS thread, nobody beats the Irish for that.
Victoria%20Regina
We okay now r85! We you landlold!
It is P O T A T O with an "E" Potatoe.
D. Quayle
When I was in school we had to read Marita Conlon-McKenna's Children of the Famine trilogy of books. Great series that also shows how the people who left for America found work/were treated. Written for kids, but I'll never forget the first book, when the boy bleeds the neck of a horse to make a very crude black pudding mix for the younger children.
Considering the zit-pussed, unwanted virgins sharting themselves all over the DL acting as if they are viable young men are playing virtual-reality games to assuage their loneliness, I think it's fine that they attempt to fill in the craters in their educations by asking about things they are too stupid to Google. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the DL's potential, sure, but what else can they do with their time? The difference between the younger nasties and the older gays here is that the former comprise a generation of losers who cannot sustain themselves, and the latter have the experience not to be bothered with them in real life. Sure, on the DL the nitwits are irritating, but in the world we don't encounter them, since we don't spend time in the Arbys where they work.
R90 has stated her geriatric boundaries.
Wow r90, you really contributed to the conversation with your huge general statements. Cunt
Well, I did come up with a modest proposal in 1729 that would have prevented the whole problem, but no one ever bothered to implement it.
Jonathan%20S.
Nobody mentions those Irish bred like rabbits. What did they think was going to happen?
It's true that despite the failure of the potato crop, Ireland was exporting high numbers of other food staples to England. What I don't understand is why an island nation wouldn't turn to the sea - fish, seaweed, etc. can make a good meal. Why didn't they fish more? Or was that regulated by the English too?
Well I learned a few things from this thread. I didn't know Ireland was owned by England and they deforested it and turned it into a plantation. And then let them starve when the famine broke out.
Paul F. Tompkins has no compassion for his Irish forbears
http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/6y03bo/comedy-central-presents-picky-eaters
[quote]Well I learned a few things from this thread. I didn't know Ireland was owned by England and they deforested it and turned it into a plantation. And then let them starve when the famine broke out. I'm finding a lot of people know nothing about that stuff and have no idea what the whole Sybil-and-Tom subplot on Downton Abbey is all about.
R90 offers the world proof that there ARE embittered lonely old queens in the world.
100!
Girls, girls, you are both petty!
Bravo, R18!
The English sold some of the Irish into slavery. This was covered in an American history course when the professor covered the development of the plantation. I didn't learn about it in high school.
Ireland was a dumping ground for the English aristocracy's mentally ill relatives for centuries. They were happy to see them die out.
Potato/Potahto
Let%27s%20call%20the%20whole%20thing%20off
In 1996, New York's George Pataki signed into law a bill making it obligatory for all the schoolchildren in the state to be taught about the famine alongside the Holocaust and the slave trade in America. At the signing ceremony in Albany, Pataki claimed the lessons would show students "the great Irish hunger was not the result of a massive failure of the Irish potato crop but, rather, was the result of a deliberate campaign by the British to deny the Irish people the food they needed to survive". Apparently, Pataki's intent hasn't been appropriately enforced.
"What I don't understand is why an island nation wouldn't turn to the sea - fish, seaweed, etc. can make a good meal. " Well, R95, imagine you lost your job and your house, and the sea was 100 miles away, and you didn't have any experience at sea-fishing or any equipment (inland fishing was undoubtedly an upper-class perogative). Would you be able to get your family there, and feed them when you did? And as for buying seafood produced by fishermen... remember how large famines really work: There isn't a lack of food, it's that people don't have enough money to BUY food. Remember all those posts above about Ireland exporting food to England? No, if the Irish peasantry didn't have enough money to buy grain, they didn't have enough to buy seafood.
When, precisely, did DL become a haven for morons?
R106 reminded me that the US is all about "my genocide is more important than your genocide."
If they have no grain, let them eat seafood!
Marie%20Antoinette
r95, see r28 and r107. Are you really that thick? Why do people ask such inane questions? Where the fuck was a poverty stricken tenant farmer going to get money for a single fish - let alone a fucking boat and equipement to go fish for himself? You can't feed and entire island off the sea. NO island does that, actually.
In the 1840s approximately 3 times the amount of grain and cereal was sent TO Ireland than the amount exported. It's not such a fun pastime to find out the real facts about things, but true none the less. The famine was huge, and even if they had kept every bit of grain instead of selling it they would still not have had enough, even in conjunction with the food being sent FROM Britain. It's an emotive subject that is fraught with very highly colored, subjective viewpoints, but try to keep some perspective. There is no clear cut black and white here. It's just wrong, in every way, to say that the English owned everything and the Irish were serfs. It isn't factual and it isn't helping. Bear in mind that the Gaelic Irish political movement of the later 19th century were masters of propaganda - I particular, they demonised Cromwell. These are the precursors to the IRA, also very good at propaganda, particularly in the US where most of the money for bombs was raised. Read some Irish history from an unbiased source, like Tom Reilly ( who is actually Irish, not a plastic Paddy ) and learn something worthwhile. The famine was horrific, but it wasn't caused by some sort of Englsh chemical warfare.
Why do you believe such revisionist-history bullshit, R112?
British government monitors datalounge. Duh.
R113 Because I don't own a tin foil hat? Or because I'm well read and keep an open mind? Try reading some real history books, with real verifiable facts, you might sound less of an ignorant cunt.
The Irish famine is well researched because of the impact of eirish emigration to the USA. But there are also the XIXct Indian fammines caused by the british. Tens if not hundreds of millions died. And still today we have abnormal english imbeciles here pretending they had some sort of benevolent empire. Yuck.
Do you have any more sources to recommend r112?
In US schools it is taught the Brits were responsible for the deaths of 1 million Irish and the emigration of 1.5 million during the famine. What is taught in UK schools?
Certainly nothing by Tom Reilly, R117! R112 fails to point out that most credible critics reject Reilly's hypotheses. In, for example, "Rewriting Cromwell: A Case of Deafening Silences", by historian and President of the Cromwell Association, Professor John Morrill, Morrill opined that Reilly's work constituted an "attempt at [Cromwell's] rehabilitation ... this has been largely rejected by other scholars".
Also, some scientists say the horrible potato famine caused genetic alterations on the population and its most notable effect is the underdeveloped penis on Irish men today
The official British position on the Irish potato famine is essentially the same as the Turkish position on the Armenian genocide or the Japanese position on the atrocities in Manchuria: "Oh, come on, that never happened, and anyway you can't blame it on us."
Link please, R120.
Irish people looked potato-ish even before they had potatoes to eat.
I love all the morons asking "why didn't the Irish do this" or and "why did they do that"...hello? Do you know nothing about history? Ireland had been subjugated centuries earlier by England. They were an enslaved people ruled by occupying overlords from a foreign land. They had no power to make decisions for themselves. They didn't even own the land. It's like asking "why didn't African American slaves just leave the plantations, build some boats and sail back to Africa"? Or "Why didn't the Jews just impeach Hitler"? Morons, all of you.
[quote]I recently heard about this interesting piece of history from an Irish friend. I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. You were mistaken.
[quote]I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. Once the gayling garbage is over, it can be an interesting topic, OP. A lot of Irish men came to the U.S. and signed on with the Union Army. It got them a salary and citizenship. Meagher's Irish Brigade was one of the outstanding fighting units in the Civil War.
[quote]A lot of Irish men came to the U.S. and signed on with the Union Army. A lot of immigrants were drafted right off the boats.
Gen. Thomas Meagher is considered one of the nine immortals of Ireland - nine men, banished by Queen Victoria, who rose to fame in other nations. He was known for a speech he gave in NYC that inspired men to join his Irish brigade. The signed speech is supposed to be in the Library of Congress. I went there several times in the 80s and 90s to see the speech but it was always checked out to a member of Congress. My great-great grandfather heard that speech and joined the brigade.
Ireland is in the world news today with the claims about Catholic nuns turning women into slaves working in commercial laundries that were run by convents of nuns. The interviews on BBC tell of some real horrors.
And don't forget the work houses the children were kept it, r129. Christ, if they survived the famine, they were lucky enough to be led into slave labor.
OMG! I'm new to this thread. I just heard of this "potato Famine." Poor potatos are starving somewhere in this world? Someone needs to feed them. this is just not right!
Poor%20potatos.%20%3A-%28
[quote]Ireland is in the world news today with the claims about Catholic nuns turning women into slaves working in commercial laundries that were run by convents of nuns. The interviews on BBC tell of some real horrors. Uh... yeah. That's the topic of the Magdelene Sisters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DfdWdcwkhqpM
Do potatoes make you fat?
[quote] The official British position on the Irish potato famine is essentially the same as the Turkish position on the Armenian genocide or the Japanese position on the atrocities in Manchuria: "Oh, come on, that never happened, and anyway you can't blame it on us." Actually, Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised in 1997 (link below).
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/12/irish-famine
[quote] Poor potatos are starving somewhere in this world? Someone needs to feed them. this is just not right! R131 - You are cruel and shallow and not at all funny.