which correlates with 822,681 imperial gallons (3,739,980
litres) of butter exported to England from Ireland during
nine months of the worst year of the Famine” (Commins
Michael. Northern Ireland-Britain’s Legacy, p. 34).
Not only did the British government not help the Irish but
in fact, turned a blind eye to their miseries. In support of
the wealthy English landowners and in spite of the suffering
of the Irish people, they resorted to the economics
of laisse-faire, refusing to interfere in the free market or
raising tariffs to discourage the exportation that would
eventually spell disaster for over a million souls. There is
no doubt that had they done so; the Great Hunger would
have been averted.
But the government was consistently turning a blind eye
to the plight of the Irish in other ways too. It refused to release
aid despite constant pleadings and remonstrances by
Lord Clarendon who was one of their own. On the ground,
he observed the mayhem as displaced families evicted by
landlords lay starving in ditches and on the sides of the
road. As on author explains, “Some died in the drainage
ditch that was their final shelter after the landlord, aided
by the bailiff and Her Majesty’s troops, burned down their
cottages and evicted them from their tiny farms for falling
behind in the rent. Others died along the road, too weak to
make it to the churchyard with the corpses of their children
already nibbled by dogs and rats--in their arms.”3
Lord Clarendon was horrified by the emaciated states and
the pitiable condition of the Irish. He sent repeated dispatches
to London and said, “I dread some calamity… some
hundreds dying all at once of starvation, which would not
only be shocking but bring disgrace on the government”
(Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger). In another dispatch,
he wrote, “It is enough to drive one mad, day after day,
to read the appeals that are made and meet them all with
a negative…” The response he received from Chancellor
George Wood, head of the exchequer: “There had been
exaggeration last year and there was probably exaggeration
now” (Bernstein, George L. “Liberals, the Irish Famine and
the Role of the State.” Irish Historical Studies, vol. 29, no.
116, 1995).
Lord Clarendon realized that the danger was not so much
in the famine but of British indifference to their own
starving neighbors. Disgusted, he wrote, “I do not think
there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard
such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly
persist in a policy of extermination” (Mullin, James, The
Great Irish Famine). When the Irish commissioner Edward
Twisleton resigned in disgust, Lord Clarendon, no less in
contempt of the barbarism of the English, wrote to the
Prime Minister Sir John Russell, “He Twisleton thinks that
the destitution here is so horrible, and the indifference of
the House of Commons is so manifest, that he is an unfit
agent of a policy which must be one of extermination”
(ibid).
‘A friend shall not be known in prosperity, and an enemy
shall not be hidden in adversity’, as the saying goes. As the
famine consumed lives, prejudices against the Irish manifested
in public policy. Sir Charles Trevelyan, the assistant
secretary of the treasury and the man who called all the
shots on state expenditure, stated his views rather bluntly.
He did not want to ‘put hurdles up’ against Divine Providence.
If the Irish were destined to starve, then let them
starve and face their fate with open hearts. He expressed
his dogma in these words: “The judgment of God sent the
calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not
be too much mitigated…The real evil with which we have
to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the
moral evil of the selfish, perverse, and turbulent character
of the people.” He also wrote an article in 1848, at the height
of the Famine, supporting the view that God was punishing
the Irish for their Catholicism. His withholding relief was
only facilitating God’s work. He might be forgiven if he was
religious and was trying to fulfill the tenets of his religion,
but his letter to Lord Monteagle of Brandon, a former
Chancellor of the Exchequer, indicates that his intentions
were actually malicious. He wrote that the famine was an
“effective mechanism for reducing surplus population.”4
To many Irish, they least expected such a cold affront in
the face of such misery and pain. John O’ Sullivan, a priest
in Kenmare, Ireland, maybe in denial, still tried to appeal
to his humanity and Trevelyan’s faith. The priest wrote,
“Would to God that you could stand for one five minutes in
our street, and see with what a troop of miserable, squalid,
starving creatures you would be instantaneously surrounded,
with tears in their eyes and misery in their faces. Whatever
be the cost or expense, or on whatever party it may
fall, every Christian must admit, that the people must not
be suffered to starve in the midst of plenty.” But they did,
because no aid or help from England was forthcoming, no
ban was placed on the exportation of Irish food, and since
Ireland was forced to join the Union, they had no power
to settle their domestic matters on their own. It would be
Trevelyan in whose hands their fate would be, and if he
would be in a genocidal mood, then nothing was going to
stop their annihilation.
3 Mulligan, H. (1995, September 03). Irish Potato Famine Colors
Politics, Attitudes... https://www.latimes.com/archives
4 10 Atrocities Committed by the British Empire that They Would
Like to Erase from History Books. (2018, March 17). https://
historycollection.com/10-atrocities-committed-by-the-britishempire
that-they-would-like-to-erase-from-history-books/7/
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