Talk:Great Famine (Ireland)

"British genocide" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect British genocide has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 13 § British genocide until a consensus is reached. DrKay (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect is at least balanced in it's talk on the matter. Whereas in this article 3 paragraphs are given to the Con side, and one paragraph to the Pro side.
That is hardly fair and balanced on what many consider a subjective issue.
For me it comes down to basic logic analysis. The logical conclusion is it was genocide.
If the intentional response was to result in as many deaths as possible of the Irish then this was an act of genocide. The government knew that Irish poor were dying due to the crop failure. The government knew, or should have known, that their response was inadequate. The government knew that more people would continue to die as a result of their response. The government knew from previous failures how to mitigate additional deaths, by their own words, and chose intentionally not to take such action. Therefore the government response for several years, with knowledge and intent, directly caused the deaths of more than 1,000,000 Irish. This was murder on a massive scale and is by definition a genocide.
It should be noted that O'Grada says that it is "neglect". Neglect of a person that results in death is a case of Manslaughter at best, and Murder-1 at worst. Intentional neglect resulting in death would certainly fall into the category of murder. Murder on a massive scale is pretty much the definition of genocide. O'Grada seems to fail in basic logic. Celtic hackr (talk) 17:13, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We go by sources, not personal analysis. The debate about the redirect is already concluded. If you wish to revisit the redirect discussion, you will need to open a new RfD at the appropriate venue. DrKay (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You still haven't proven intent or even motive. What motive did Britain have for trying to wipe out Irish people? And if that was what they were trying to do, why did they stop? Most genocides end because something stops them, whether internal or external (e.g. military defeat). There's no evidence of either in the case of the Irish Famine, so why didn't Britain finish the job? 2A0A:EF40:500:4C01:37A8:B65E:87FB:4E5D (talk) 10:38, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If "neglect" is genocide, then one could easily extend that understanding to include, say for example, the Trump administration's behavior during the covid pandemic, where they neglected the seriousness of the crisis for political reasons (where Trump even proposed the asinine suggestion that people inject bleach). Of course not even Trump's harshest critics toyed with this idea, because genocide is not just neglect.
Like all economic historians and virtually all other historians, O Grada does not believe British policies during the Famine amounted to genocide, and any attempt to twist his writings into something leaning in that direction would be a gross violation of several core editing policies. 74.47.230.12 (talk) 17:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to compare this to anything, I'd actually compare it more to the Covid-19 response.
Massive mismanagement, fake news, things being called fake news that wasn't, greed, pride, things getting split along political lines that never should have been, idealoges using the disaster as a chance to push their beliefs, and of course people trying to help. ~2025-31799-02 (talk) 05:51, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category

I noticed the removal of Category:Ireland–United Kingdom relations from the article. Could we discuss that here first please? John (talk) 12:28, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Ireland–United Kingdom relations is defined as a category for relations between two sovereign states not relations between one part of a sovereign state and its national government. DrKay (talk) 12:31, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Denisarona (talk) 15:46, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the category so defined? John (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Ireland–United Kingdom relations: "This category is for bilateral relations..." Bilateralism: "is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states." DrKay (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But right after that it says "... between Ireland and the United Kingdom." Ireland is not a sovereign state and has not been for a long time. Common-sense wise, this article belongs in this category because the event it describes, even though it was before Irish independence, still casts a shadow over UK-Irish relations. Categories are there to help the general reader to navigate and I believe this is a helpful link. John (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's because Template:Foo–Bar relations category assumes that the country is named correctly. DrKay (talk) 05:52, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's almost like Ireland is some sort of unusual edge case when it comes to countries. John (talk) 08:21, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Biased

This entry is incredibly biased against Irish people in general by only highlighting historians that consider the "famine" an administrative error instead of a blatant genocide borne from hundreds of years of racism and confiscation of land. Feignty (talk) 05:17, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because the view of the vast majority of historians who study the Irish famine is that it was not a genocide. Every objective, thorough analysis of the evidence has concluded that placing the blame for famine deaths and relief failures solely on the British government's doorstep is simplistic and inaccurate, and that there is no compelling evidence demonstrating genocidal intent at the policy level, which is the key, defining thing about genocide. The people who push this genocide pov do so mainly for political reasons. 74.47.230.12 (talk) 18:32, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the settler class that ruled over the Irish and exported their food from their country for centuries just have materialized from a foreign planet. What a joke. Feignty (talk) 19:00, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Educate yourself: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26986061 74.47.230.12 (talk) 20:14, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Studying Irish history led me to this incredibly simple conclusion. The facts are all there for anyone to see. Colonizers like you won't be able to silence the truth forever. Feignty (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

McGowan

McGowan (2017) says (in the abstract, which is the only part of the article not behind a paywall) "controversial journalist Tim Pat Coogan has argued that England's treatment of Ireland in this period can be considered genocide. Historical evidence suggests otherwise." That seems inconsistent with the claim that McGowan thinks it is a genocide. DrKay (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This source is available on JSTOR at [1]. As such, it should be available to most editors. It is a fascinating read, putting blame for the famine on a wide spread of people, from those tenant farmers with larger landholdings, Irish nationalists, Irish merchants and the ideology (free trade) of the British government. Please read it for yourself to see the complete version, rather than my summary. It quite categorically rules out the famine as being a case of genocide. The part of the article that says otherwise, citing McGowan, is incorrect. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 20:02, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consequently, I am undoing the recent addition. It is not possible for McGowan to "categorically rule[s] out the famine as being a case of genocide"[2] and at the same time "characterise [it] specifically ... as genocide"[3]. The two statements are mutually contradictory. As McGowan clearly states on page 100, "Tim Pat Coogan’s charges that the British actions during the Irish famine were tantamount to genocide do not stand up to historical scrutiny. Even if one should take the United Nations’ definition of genocide, the events of the Irish Famine and the British engagement in it do not pass muster in any of its categories." And again on page 101, "The Irish Famine was not genocide." The source has been misrepresented. McGowan does not think it was a genocide. DrKay (talk) 21:13, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry guys, I had the wrong source. Thanks for scrutinising it. This by King is the one that supports it saying

Today, Irish and British historians categorically reject the notion that British actions during the Great Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849) amounted to genocide. While the British Government may have been unresponsive to Irish suffering, they assert, its non-action was not a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Irish people. This essay, however, utilizing new research in genocide theory and a correspondingly complicated definition of genocide, argues that the relief efforts undertaken in Ireland by the Russell Administration from the winter of 1846 to 1849 did constitute genocide against the Irish people.

Kowal2701 (talk) 07:59, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can’t find anything about King online so don’t know her credentials Kowal2701 (talk) 08:10, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've readded it cited to King, and added McGowan to the list of refs for the prior sentence, as it was before Kowal2701 (talk) 20:37, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Still unsupported. McGowan doesn't think it is genocide and Tim Pat Coogan isn't a scholar. He's not even college-level educated, according to his article. DrKay (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For There have been later genocide scholars who support the description of the famine as a genocide the sources cited don't need to support the characterisation themselves, but after scanning through McGowan you're right he doesn't say anything close to this. Agreed Coogan is irrelevant here, and obv not a genocide scholar. I'll remove him from Genocides in history (1490 to 1914) as well where this content is duplicated Kowal2701 (talk) 20:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not enough finding a "genocide scholar" -you have to show that they are relevant in this area of research, enough to warrant the inclusion of views that contradict what's clearly a large and diverse consensus (ie historians of Ireland with different specializations, different political leanings, in different countries, who all seem to agree on this one point). The standards for including minority views are very, very high here, and I do agree that McGowan's work is a gold standard example of the type of nuance we'd expect of a mainstream encyclopedia.
Unfortunately the last paragraph in this section is quite the opposite of what we'd expect. They cite Neysa King, who is not even a professional academic, and "historian" Robbie McVeigh who seems to be more of a political activist than historian:
"Robbie McVeigh is a researcher and writer based in Edinburgh. He has published extensively, with a particular focus on race and equality. He has worked with statutory and community organizations across Ireland on issues of education, human rights and racism and sectarianism" [4]
I can't find a single independent source describing McVeigh as a historian, and there is no mention of him in any mainstream work of history.
Considering the entire last paragraph is sourced to authors like Mcveigh and King, a strong case could be made for removal on the grounds that the content fails the high qualitative standards of an encyclopedia. A good rule of thumb in these cases is to ask: "Do leading mainstream Famine researchers mention this person in their work?" If the answer is no, odds are their views are not worth including. Even a mention in high-quality sources does not by itself imply their views are respected, as we've seen with Coogan. The main problem with King and Mcveigh is that, unlike Coogan, they weren't even relevant enough to attract any rebuttals from experts, and thus whoever extended this section was able to present their views uncontested, as if they represent a significant shift in opinion. This is highly misleading and false. 74.47.230.12 (talk) 18:09, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Laissez-faire

This article criticises laissez-faire, but isn't the right to import grain and bread freely without tariffs and taxes - laissez-faire? Or isn't that good for famine prevention? — ~2025-31503-67 (talk) 06:56, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

People who have neither food nor money aren't an effective group of purchasers. The right to import isn't much use if you can't afford to import anything. Whereas the right to export the food produced in Ireland, and import it elsewhere, was a powerful support to famine causation. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:14, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{ping|Richard Keatinge} If you export you get the money. Not only the owners receive money, but also if there are more money in the economy, the owners compete for laborers and increase wages. If there are no money to buy foreign food, there are no money to buy domestic food as well. Anyway, it can be left in the article that export could have been a cause, but writing just "laissez-faire" is simply incomprehensive - people will not understand WHICH laissez-faire aspects are meant. --~2025-31503-67 (talk) 09:15, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You might like to consider which aspects of laissez-faire were meant at the time, why they didn't work in this case, and in what way the article could be made better. It seems clear enough to me at the moment, but no doubt it could be improved. Richard Keatinge (talk) 22:08, 17 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Famine_(Ireland)