Speaker 1: Welcome Behind the Bastards, the podcast about crimes against humanity.
Speaker 1: I'm legally distinct from that mouse. I had to do it.
Speaker 1: I hated it when you did it off, Mike and
Speaker 1: you were just like making a joke to proper about
Speaker 1: news we need it. I really hated it. And like,
Speaker 1: I don't think you sound like the mouse that you're
Speaker 1: trying to take. I think you sound like, uh, he
Speaker 1: sounds like Donald Glover in that episode of Atlanta when
Speaker 1: he when he's not Michael Jackson. Michael jacks Ye oh
Speaker 1: that was that was the episode of that show. Oh wait, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I need to go along with the bit.
Speaker 1: Oh god, are you are you doing kit? I'm a mouse?
Speaker 1: Would you like to talk about the starvation genocide of
Speaker 1: an island? Well, if we need to something that the
Speaker 1: creator of this mouse was probably broadly fine with. I
Speaker 1: hope both of you gett made fun of on the internet.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. I feel like our level of like
Speaker 1: cool can take this sort of hit. I feel like
Speaker 1: it were we we can't be canceled for making Mickey
Speaker 1: Mouse supportive of a genocide. And and I mean Kerman
Speaker 1: is one of the most beloved frogs he is, he's
Speaker 1: a meme. He drinks tea and everyone permit, would never
Speaker 1: support a genocide, not not at all. I mean maybe
Speaker 1: tacit Lee with his tax dollars because he's not really
Speaker 1: a fighter. But we all do right now, and then
Speaker 1: it's not really a bit. It's more of like a
Speaker 1: mediation about the necessity of supporting terrible things just because
Speaker 1: you exist within a society where you don't have total
Speaker 1: control over cannot help the ocean. You can't help the
Speaker 1: ocean from being saltwater. Yeah, those just is Yep, it
Speaker 1: just is. It just doesn't tell you. Yeah, speaking of
Speaker 1: alt water, are you ready to get salty? My god?
Speaker 1: I mean just call me sodium chloride baby. At the
Speaker 1: end of last episode, we talked about Lord Hatesberry, who
Speaker 1: was like, I don't think we know if his famine
Speaker 1: thing is going to be a real problem yet, let's
Speaker 1: she pulled off name on the nose. Now we're gonna
Speaker 1: have another guy with a really horrible name. But he's
Speaker 1: he's he's actually kind of chill, kind of cool. He's
Speaker 1: not one of the real problems here, um, because there are,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting. While overwhelmingly the English government allowed this
Speaker 1: to happen and in many cases directly enabled the deaths
Speaker 1: that are coming. Uh. There were people who were had
Speaker 1: prominence in the government, like O'Connell that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: but also folks who were English who tried very hard
Speaker 1: to do something, and one of them was the unfortunately
Speaker 1: named Sir Edward pine Coffin. Um, it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: the kind of guy who's going to try to help,
Speaker 1: but Pine Coffin Edward pinecof And it spelled like, Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: we're in a simulation. Bro, I'm Jina corps box. That's
Speaker 1: his American cousin. Yeah, we're in a simulation because like
Speaker 1: somebody wrote that script this well, yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: fun things is actually in terms of coffins. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons you would want to go to like
Speaker 1: a workhouse, and we'll talk about these more later, but
Speaker 1: these are like the places poor people go well during
Speaker 1: the worst parts of the famine is that when you die,
Speaker 1: you get a coffin, which you can't you can't afford
Speaker 1: otherwise right there, you can't get that. That's good, so
Speaker 1: you get a box, but also you don't because they
Speaker 1: just put you in the common in the coffin long
Speaker 1: enough to take you to the mass grave and then
Speaker 1: they dump you in. Oh my god, they yo that
Speaker 1: steering wheel just jerk to them. You got me in.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well at least you get a
Speaker 1: oh wait near man. And one of the things. So
Speaker 1: with these mass graves, a decent number of people get
Speaker 1: buried alive, which is the thing that always happens in
Speaker 1: mass graves. You find a lot of stories like that
Speaker 1: from the Holocaust. One of the differences in when they
Speaker 1: realize someone is alive in the mass grave here they
Speaker 1: do try to rescue, trying to get him out, as
Speaker 1: opposed to like just shooting them more, which is what
Speaker 1: the Nazis did. So I guess that's a marketing British Empires. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Yeah, um so. Edward Pinecoffin is the Deputy
Speaker 1: uh Commissioner of the government relief agency responsible for Ireland.
Speaker 1: Scotland's potato crop had failed. Because again, this potato failure,
Speaker 1: this is part of why people again reject calling it
Speaker 1: the potato famine. There are failures of potato crops all
Speaker 1: throughout Europe. It happens everywhere. The starvation happens in Ireland.
Speaker 1: Um So, when Scotland's potato crop fails, Pine Coffin commandeers
Speaker 1: a warship, fills it with food uh and sails around
Speaker 1: the coast of Scotland, distributing it in starving villages. And
Speaker 1: he tries to do the same thing in Ireland, but
Speaker 1: Trevillian stops him because Travillion is the guy who controls
Speaker 1: the purse drinks. So pine Coffin can't spend the money
Speaker 1: he needs to fill these boats up with food without
Speaker 1: Travali and say ahead. And while everybody's fine with that
Speaker 1: food with money getting spent on the Scottish uh, Travillians
Speaker 1: like not these people? Though not these what's the difference?
Speaker 1: So pine Coffin has to watch helpless and pretty enraged
Speaker 1: as like he's unable to take ships and food to Ireland.
Speaker 1: But he keeps watching these ships filled with food depart
Speaker 1: and increasingly starved island. Um So people begin dying heavily
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six, But before they a lot of
Speaker 1: them are forced to make the decision do we spend
Speaker 1: because we did have crops right which we can either
Speaker 1: sell to pay our rent or we can eat. But
Speaker 1: if we eat the food, that we have, then we
Speaker 1: can't pay rent and we will get evicted right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this. Bet Ireland prop
Speaker 1: pretty wet. They're warm, not a warm part of the world,
Speaker 1: not famous for its balmy weather. Um. Even in the summer,
Speaker 1: it can be quite rough at night for people like it,
Speaker 1: and especially during the fall and winter it gets very
Speaker 1: cold and it's very wet. And by the way, these
Speaker 1: people are so poor they don't have like like they
Speaker 1: don't own jackets. Oftentimes they have sold basically there are
Speaker 1: people sold everything, partly naked because they have sold anything
Speaker 1: they have that could possibly be a value to try
Speaker 1: to feed their children. So not without being indoors, people
Speaker 1: will die UM. And if they don't sell their food
Speaker 1: and turn it into rent money, they're gonna get kicked
Speaker 1: out and be in just like wandering the countryside and
Speaker 1: they will starve to death or die of of um exposure. UM.
Speaker 1: Being evicted is basically a death sentence for a lot
Speaker 1: of people UM and this happens on a massive scale.
Speaker 1: Whole villages are depopulated and sent just wandering muddy pathways
Speaker 1: in the countryside, begging for help that often did not come,
Speaker 1: and people begin to die in their thousands. Entire communities starve,
Speaker 1: basically like kicked out of their homes. Um. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the few options for sucker were the so called workhouses.
Speaker 1: These were operated by local landlords. And again we've been
Speaker 1: talking again. This is one of those situations where broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: the landlords are the problem. There are individual landlords who
Speaker 1: do do things like don't you don't have to pay rent?
Speaker 1: You know, and you can find I would spend more
Speaker 1: time reading their stories, but I'm worried it would kind
Speaker 1: of take away from the people who are monsters. But
Speaker 1: there are and and to his credit, Um Coogan, who's
Speaker 1: the historian that's the major source for this, goes into
Speaker 1: some detail. There are individual like landlords who do take
Speaker 1: very reasonable steps to preserve life and put their profits.
Speaker 1: And that is a thing that happens. And Um, it's
Speaker 1: worth acknowledging that, not partly because it condemns the people
Speaker 1: who don't do that. More it is not like every
Speaker 1: landlord doesn't do the same thing. Some of them help,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, And it's one of those things. Also
Speaker 1: in terms of things we can criticize Peel for um,
Speaker 1: even though he is probably the best politician of his
Speaker 1: day in terms of famine relief, who has any power?
Speaker 1: Peel is adamant that local landlord should be the ones
Speaker 1: dealing with the famine problem. It should be up to them,
Speaker 1: right um. And this quote from Coogan's book makes it
Speaker 1: clear how badly the situation tended to work, because you
Speaker 1: have these kind of local landlords who are managing these workhouses. Quote.
Speaker 1: A workhouse was built on the Martin estate at Clifton
Speaker 1: and County Galway. Martin was an eccentric figure known for
Speaker 1: his gambling, for his fearsome prowess as a duellist, and
Speaker 1: for his kindness to animals, which led him to found
Speaker 1: the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Speaker 1: and to be nicknamed Humanity Dick. Oh my god, hold
Speaker 1: onto that for a second, Martin. Listen, we're in a simulation.
Speaker 1: Somebody like you got a problem with humanity Dick. I
Speaker 1: I don't, I just I again this story we really
Speaker 1: need to go back to like the editor names, keep
Speaker 1: telling the story. Both your names are spoiler alerts, like okay,
Speaker 1: Sanity Dick. Humanity Dick lived in splendor at Balinahinch Castle
Speaker 1: on a huge estate, comprising some two hundred thousand acres
Speaker 1: and including parts of Mayo and most of Connemara, that
Speaker 1: incredibly beautiful but barren area of County Galway, stretching westward
Speaker 1: from Galway City along Galway Bay, skirting the coastline until
Speaker 1: it reaches the open Atlantic. A workhouse was built on
Speaker 1: the estate at Clifton, even though it was notorious for
Speaker 1: being crippled by debts, mainly through Martin's gambling. The King
Speaker 1: of Kunamara, as he was referred to in Ireland, had
Speaker 1: had to flee the country several years earlier upon losing
Speaker 1: his parliamentary immunity. On his death in eighteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: his son Thomas became his heir. During the famine, Thomas
Speaker 1: died from a fever contracted while inspecting the awful conditions
Speaker 1: in the overcrowded workhouse, which could not cope with the
Speaker 1: demands placed upon it. The workhouse went bankrupt and had
Speaker 1: to close, with catastrophic results for its inmates, Clifton and
Speaker 1: its environs. The Martin estate was subsequently put up for auction,
Speaker 1: and one of its principal attractions, as cited by the auctioneers,
Speaker 1: was the fact that none of the tenants who had
Speaker 1: lived on the estate before the famine lived there any
Speaker 1: long grew. Given the population density peraker at the time,
Speaker 1: this could have indicated a death toll of some two
Speaker 1: thousand people. So because this family of rich people goes bankrupt,
Speaker 1: there is no help and potentially two people starved to death.
Speaker 1: And what's this area alone? What do you do in
Speaker 1: a workhouse? Is it like it's just called workhouse? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you there, there's basically you receive a small
Speaker 1: amount of food, um, and you do you work like.
Speaker 1: There's different kind of things they have you do. Some
Speaker 1: of these people are like the ones who are digging,
Speaker 1: these who are building these roads to nowhere and ship like.
Speaker 1: There's a variety of things that they might have you do.
Speaker 1: But they're also not A ton of people can fit
Speaker 1: in these workhouses. They are the difference between life and
Speaker 1: death for some people. But the fact that they are
Speaker 1: they're not funded by the imperial government and out of
Speaker 1: by these local landlords, which means if your landlords doing good,
Speaker 1: and if he's someone who's financially responsible, maybe your workhouse
Speaker 1: is a lifeline. But in amara this family are because
Speaker 1: of their gambling debts, like loses everything, and that means
Speaker 1: there's just there's no fucking help for these people. And yeah,
Speaker 1: like two people starved to death. Um, yeah, it's a problem.
Speaker 1: That's not good. That's that's a lot of people to
Speaker 1: starve to death. Um. Maybe the biggest consequence of a
Speaker 1: gambling addiction that we've run across on this show. Pretty
Speaker 1: up there, it's pretty up there. Yeah, humanity dick. If
Speaker 1: only he'd had some help, Um, humanity dick. So this
Speaker 1: brings what an incredible name, And this brings us to
Speaker 1: a particularly horrifying fact, which is, again, the failure of
Speaker 1: the potato crop was not the biggest part of the famine.
Speaker 1: The massivevictions of Irish tenants by landlords killed most like
Speaker 1: at least as many people, if not many more people. Um.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing we've been focusing mostly on, Like,
Speaker 1: because the crops fail, like they have to either buy
Speaker 1: food or they can't pay their rent, Like a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of things happened. Ship gets too expensive, they can't
Speaker 1: afford their rent, and they get have died. Right, that's
Speaker 1: the most obvious way for this to happen. That's not
Speaker 1: the only reason evictions happen. So you know how Instagram
Speaker 1: works in what way you know, how like there's there's
Speaker 1: someone will like decide to paint their nails in like
Speaker 1: a certain very elaborate way and do a video on it,
Speaker 1: and suddenly that will go huge, and then like there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of videos like that. You know that that
Speaker 1: kind of thing works like trends, you know, such just Instagram,
Speaker 1: but like things get popular and then everybody wants to
Speaker 1: do a version of that same thing. Well, that kind
Speaker 1: of happens with rich landlords and a thing called high farming.
Speaker 1: High farming, yeah, which is basically like clearing areas of
Speaker 1: agriculture in the way that it had been done in
Speaker 1: order to make more room for to gray sheep in
Speaker 1: order to like raise a bunch of sheep. Basically, so
Speaker 1: all these landlords their friends start doing this um and
Speaker 1: the problem is that, like, if you want to clear
Speaker 1: all of your land to gray sheep, to to be
Speaker 1: hip and cool and get into this neat new farming
Speaker 1: thing that all your friends are doing, well, there's like
Speaker 1: there's like people there, right, there's people that live on
Speaker 1: his land. There's like there's like tens of thousands, maybe
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people living on that land, but
Speaker 1: it is your land and you have the right to
Speaker 1: evict him at any moment. So you wanna get up
Speaker 1: on this trend, what do you do? Victim people? You
Speaker 1: give victim all. This is what happens because it's not
Speaker 1: like we can grow crops, well, no, you want to
Speaker 1: you it's time for sheep. She was gonna say, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like, that's so, that's so we've done crops. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's last. Everybody does crops. I want to do sheet.
Speaker 1: So Lord Lord Luken evicts four hundred families and his
Speaker 1: mayo estates during like the rising peak of the famine
Speaker 1: in order to clear get grazing area for sheep um.
Speaker 1: And again this is because this has gotten like really
Speaker 1: popular from the aristocraphy, from the aristocracy, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of these rich people start getting into sheep farming
Speaker 1: and evicting whole village. These are ethnic cleansings. They are
Speaker 1: cleansing an area of its indigenous population. Where do they
Speaker 1: and where do you expect them to go? They're just
Speaker 1: gonna yeah, not, why would it be your problem. It's
Speaker 1: your land. You can have them leave if you want,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't like. That's not that's not on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah cost him. There's more money and because and even you,
Speaker 1: you can't feed yourself anymore. So yeah, so I might
Speaker 1: as well kick you off and try this new thing,
Speaker 1: and that way I can be cool like my friends.
Speaker 1: So it is proper hard to exaggerate how enraging some
Speaker 1: of these stories can be. Oh my god. The village
Speaker 1: of balin Glass was a fairly rare find in Ireland.
Speaker 1: The people there had been allowed by their landlady to
Speaker 1: improve their land um, and they had created a very
Speaker 1: prosperous community. Um. So prosperous in fact that they all
Speaker 1: lived in stone houses, which was very rare at the time.
Speaker 1: I think there were sixty one families, so a few
Speaker 1: hundred people. So after years of clearing bog land and
Speaker 1: improving their land in order to make it more productive,
Speaker 1: improvements which probably would have allowed them to survive the
Speaker 1: famine because they've done it, they've been able to do
Speaker 1: a really good job of improving things. Suddenly their landlady,
Speaker 1: Miss Gerard, decides she wants to get into high farming,
Speaker 1: so she evicts them all um kicks him ride out,
Speaker 1: kicks him ride out and I'm gonna quote from the
Speaker 1: Famine plot here. On the morning of March forty six,
Speaker 1: an attachment of troops and police showed up to eject
Speaker 1: the people from their homes. Their belongings were thrown out
Speaker 1: and the roofs of their houses tumbled. It was made
Speaker 1: clear to the people in surrounding areas that if they
Speaker 1: took in the e vict s, they would suffer the
Speaker 1: same fate, and so the evicted people passed from door
Speaker 1: to door vainly seeking shelter. In desperation, they erected temporary
Speaker 1: shelters and ditches, or constructed what would become a common
Speaker 1: sight that year across the Irish countryside scalps. These considered
Speaker 1: consisted either of poles covered by sods that were stretched
Speaker 1: across a ditch, or, if the ditches were filled with water,
Speaker 1: as they frequently were, they simply dug a hole in
Speaker 1: the ground or in the shelter end of a gable
Speaker 1: and their tumbled house, and covered this with sticks and sods,
Speaker 1: but in balin glasses elsewhere. The bailiffs returned in the
Speaker 1: days following the evictions to destroy the scalps and move
Speaker 1: people out of the landlord's land. So again when they
Speaker 1: say tumbling, they in order to stop anyone from reoccupying
Speaker 1: a house, they destroy the roof, just the roof, that's all.
Speaker 1: Then then it'll rain in there and people can't stay,
Speaker 1: can't keep a fire going, I won't keep you warm, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're so you're so efficient at evil, but like
Speaker 1: you're all thumbs on doing anything decent like that is
Speaker 1: like you just saying, well, you said there're stone houses,
Speaker 1: so it would be a lot more effort or work,
Speaker 1: so it's more efficient to just let the rain do
Speaker 1: the work. I'll just knock the roof down. So so
Speaker 1: you can think, yeah, that's that is that is in
Speaker 1: the most perverse way, the shortest distance between two points,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: And if y'all could not figure out how to not
Speaker 1: have how to not have your people start are okay? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot reading this about. I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time because Portland has a substantial
Speaker 1: population of unhoused people in and around just as part
Speaker 1: of my daily life. Encampments and a lot of them
Speaker 1: sound very familiar in that because it's also very rainy here,
Speaker 1: you will have people who will like kind of set
Speaker 1: up lean to type structures that are partly in ditches
Speaker 1: because it provides some shelter from the wind. But then
Speaker 1: when it rains, they flood right. Um, And no matter
Speaker 1: what people do, the cops are going to come by
Speaker 1: periodically and sweep them out. And so oftentimes they'll do
Speaker 1: it right before a storm or right before you know,
Speaker 1: the temperature drops and ship. Um you know that. I
Speaker 1: mean they're literally sending cops to kick people out of there,
Speaker 1: like crumbled down houses and knocked down with little shelters
Speaker 1: they've been able to make. Um yo, it's not even
Speaker 1: a house. Yeah, Like, come on, guys, this is an
Speaker 1: eviction genocide, which I don't know that I've heard about before.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening here. So back in Merry Old angel And,
Speaker 1: the suffering of the Irish was often caused for mockery
Speaker 1: in the press. That same year, the economist magazine Yeah
Speaker 1: that one, the one that's still around, alleged that Irish
Speaker 1: suffering had been quote brought on by their own wickedness
Speaker 1: and folly. The Times, Yeah baby, yeah, the economist there
Speaker 1: it is good job economists. Hey, don't worry, there's other
Speaker 1: people we know who we're talking In this period of time,
Speaker 1: The Times of London, which also exists today, published articles
Speaker 1: on Ireland every single day. Its message was dizzying Lee
Speaker 1: consistent the Imperial Government should not spend money on Irish
Speaker 1: relief and I'm gonna quote from RTE here. The worst
Speaker 1: famine in a century was depicted as an extension of normal,
Speaker 1: recurring events, and the newspaper consistently complained about the financial
Speaker 1: burdens forced on British workers for the sake of the
Speaker 1: starving Irish. On fifteen September eighteen forty six, it's editorial declared,
Speaker 1: it appears to us at the very first important to
Speaker 1: all classes of Irish society is to impress on them
Speaker 1: that there is nothing really so peculiar, so exceptional in
Speaker 1: the condition which they look upon as the pit of
Speaker 1: utter despair. It continued, is the English laborer to compensate
Speaker 1: the Irish peasant for the loss of potatoes and secure
Speaker 1: him a regular employer for this next twelve month? Why
Speaker 1: the English laborer isn't just the same case? They were not?
Speaker 1: They were not, They were not? They weren't they sure weren't.
Speaker 1: Um Now, The Times argued that Ireland should pay for
Speaker 1: its own improvement, which you might say, shipping six of
Speaker 1: the food they're out to England in other places is
Speaker 1: paying for y'all either not hearing yourself or know what
Speaker 1: the hell you say it? Well the times his argument
Speaker 1: is that because people were suffering, and because suffering only
Speaker 1: really happens when you are not willing to work to
Speaker 1: make your life better, the fact that things were desperate
Speaker 1: in Ireland, it was an example of quote a case
Speaker 1: of permanent and inveterate national degradation. Yeah, yep, yeah, I
Speaker 1: just like I can't I can't st s enough. How
Speaker 1: in how the same artists it's the like, that's the same,
Speaker 1: it's the same argument. It's the same argument now, and
Speaker 1: and it just and like I'm like, but we can
Speaker 1: all look back at the same we can all rewind
Speaker 1: the tape to the same moment and can see how
Speaker 1: wrong they are for saying that, Like you can see
Speaker 1: that that's not there, that that's your fault, that they
Speaker 1: can't eat you can So how are people still making
Speaker 1: the same argument now about poverty? Yeah, it is the same,
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing. It's not it's what always happens,
Speaker 1: you know, It's this it must be their own fault,
Speaker 1: because if it's not their own fault, and perhaps number one,
Speaker 1: I would have to account for the fact that maybe
Speaker 1: my success and my the things that I enjoy not
Speaker 1: due to me doing anything to earn it. But also
Speaker 1: then perhaps if it's not their fault at all, and
Speaker 1: maybe it is the fault of a system that I
Speaker 1: benefit from, then it is incumbent upon me to make
Speaker 1: some changes. Um. Yes, and there is way harder than
Speaker 1: just writing a column for the Economist, which is why
Speaker 1: people still write so many columns for the Economists. Absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: But you're you're nailing on something that I think is like,
Speaker 1: I know, whenever I'm asked to do any sort of
Speaker 1: like d I training, it's that. It's that because if
Speaker 1: you admit that there was somebody suffering from this system unfairly,
Speaker 1: then that means you are unfairly being benefited for you
Speaker 1: And there's nothing special about your little nose you that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not going to be popular to the people who
Speaker 1: read the Times of London, but you know it is
Speaker 1: popular to the people who read the Times of London.
Speaker 1: Every last one of these problems and services massive thing,
Speaker 1: big followings in Europe, you guys may not know about
Speaker 1: it really big, so check it out. Ah, and we're bachman,
Speaker 1: we're back man. So in the winter of eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: after this is like the third successive failure of the
Speaker 1: potato crop. Right. The famine had already killed hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people. Culture, art, music had all come to
Speaker 1: a sudden, horrid halt in Ireland as it was gripped
Speaker 1: by unimaginable suffering. Just before Christmas, a landlord named Walsh
Speaker 1: in Mayo personally led the eviction of three villages. Local
Speaker 1: clergy had begged him to at least wait until after
Speaker 1: the holiday, but he refused. Homes were destroyed and everyone
Speaker 1: was forced out. One Quaker engaged in relief efforts later
Speaker 1: wrote quote, the people were all turned out of doors
Speaker 1: and the roofs of their houses pulled down. That night
Speaker 1: they made a tinterer shelter of wooden straw, but however,
Speaker 1: the drivers the bailiffs threw them down and drove them
Speaker 1: from the place. It would have pitied the sun to
Speaker 1: look at them, as they had to go headfirst into
Speaker 1: the storm. It was a night of high window and storm,
Speaker 1: and whaling could be heard at a great distance. They
Speaker 1: implored the drivers to allow them to remain a short
Speaker 1: time as it was so near the time of festival Christmas,
Speaker 1: but they would not. Previously a hundred and two families
Speaker 1: had lived in the area, but after the eviction only
Speaker 1: the walls of three houses remained. And it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. These evictions are being carried out by both
Speaker 1: local law enforcement and by English soldiers UM like soldiers
Speaker 1: of the occupation, and a lot of these guys are
Speaker 1: shocked by the cruelty of the landlords that they're enforcing
Speaker 1: evictions for UM. There are cases of officers asked to
Speaker 1: use their troops to enforce evictions who found reasons to
Speaker 1: deny the requests. UM. In one case in particular, Scottish
Speaker 1: soldiers lodged protests against being forced to evict families and
Speaker 1: even took up collections to give money to the people
Speaker 1: they were evicting. Now the evictions continued, so this maybe
Speaker 1: perhaps we should as we acknowledge the fact that people
Speaker 1: felt horrible about this. That didn't stop anything as a
Speaker 1: general rule, UM, and these small acts of kindness did
Speaker 1: nothing to alleviate suffering on a broader scale. I want
Speaker 1: to quote now from another write up in our te
Speaker 1: By eighteen forty seven, the sheer scale of eviction across
Speaker 1: Ireland prompted newspapers to employ special correspondents who visited the
Speaker 1: scene of clearances. Among the reporters in the field was
Speaker 1: James McCarthy, proprietor of the Limerick Examiner, who led the
Speaker 1: way in reporting on the scenes of havoc and despair.
Speaker 1: McCarthy had no shortage of material to report on, particularly
Speaker 1: in Counties Claire and Tipporary reporters like McCarthy were successful
Speaker 1: in harnessing public opinion and in some instances preventing eviction.
Speaker 1: It was often a perilous task, and McCarthy was assailed
Speaker 1: and insulted in the discharge of his duty by some
Speaker 1: of the disgruntled wretches who were employed in leveling the
Speaker 1: houses of the evicted tenants. Yet he was undeterred in
Speaker 1: reporting eviction, including at the Walter estate in Limerick, where
Speaker 1: he described the evicted being left to burrow into the
Speaker 1: earth for shelter. The so called exterminators were frequently challenged
Speaker 1: by the local press, who were quick to report on
Speaker 1: the sensational aspects of eviction, especially where women and young
Speaker 1: children were rejected. Follow evictions at the Westrip estate and Claire,
Speaker 1: it was reported that the body of a young boy
Speaker 1: had been found dead and eaten by dogs. Likewise, when
Speaker 1: Arthur Keeley Usher cleared over seven hundred people at bally
Speaker 1: sagart More Waterford was bally saggart More Waterford, it was
Speaker 1: reported that groups of famished women and crying children hovered
Speaker 1: the ruins where they clung for refuge beneath the crumbling chimneys.
Speaker 1: And again when we talk about like what kills people,
Speaker 1: some people do starve to death, some people die of exposure.
Speaker 1: A lot of people buy of disease because disease spreads rampantly.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you're kicking people out, you're forcing
Speaker 1: them into workhouses, You're you're they're just spending nights out.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't have access to shelter, which makes
Speaker 1: their immune systems where it's also the potatoes they were
Speaker 1: eating were high invitement c so the fact that they
Speaker 1: don't have vitamin Like there's a number of things that
Speaker 1: are happening. We talked about like what's killing people, but
Speaker 1: as much as anything, this is an eviction genocide. That's
Speaker 1: a big part of what is occurring in Ireland. Um,
Speaker 1: there was no organized resistance on a mass scale to
Speaker 1: a vis within the country. Uh, there were scattered murders
Speaker 1: and assaults on mayors and landlords, often from these kind
Speaker 1: of secret society groups we talked about in part of
Speaker 1: the victors were not just absentee landlords and members of
Speaker 1: the aristocracy. Many of them were members of the growing
Speaker 1: English and Irish middle class who had purchased land prior
Speaker 1: to the famine or during its early days when people
Speaker 1: were forced to flee their homes and so long I
Speaker 1: went up for cheap um. And it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: the largest landholder in Ireland during the famine UM, and
Speaker 1: as a result one of the largest victors was Trinity
Speaker 1: College in Dublin, UM which yeah, yeah, they were one
Speaker 1: of these. So this is not I can see the
Speaker 1: leadership is coming kind of from the UK, but the
Speaker 1: plenty of Irish people are part of this, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another tale as old as time, and I get, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's like, yeah, you can see it, like
Speaker 1: if you can, just if you don't think of it
Speaker 1: as like you know, old timey stuff and just think
Speaker 1: of it as just like you're just playing the numbers,
Speaker 1: and especially especially talking about this like rising middle crap
Speaker 1: middle class, they're like, yo, we ain't gotta we gotta
Speaker 1: nest egg Like there's we don't. We don't come from
Speaker 1: all that. We were barely getting this piece of land,
Speaker 1: and the only way for us to keep this land
Speaker 1: is we gotta pivot. I can't be having y'all on
Speaker 1: my land. I'm just gonna lose it, Like Lord, Lord
Speaker 1: forbid me become one of you again, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So if you're playing a numbers game, you know,
Speaker 1: forgetting the humanity, it's like it's it's it's again, no
Speaker 1: different than than the world we're living in now during
Speaker 1: like I said, our plague, but people being like I
Speaker 1: still have to pay the mortgage, so like I can't rent,
Speaker 1: I can't not collect rent. So it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, like I sucks, but
Speaker 1: I have to evict you, or maybe it don't suck
Speaker 1: because you just like why have I mean I can't
Speaker 1: I have to st Yeah, none of these landlords, I
Speaker 1: mean some of them are these just cartoonishly out of
Speaker 1: touch rich people who are like, well, I would like
Speaker 1: to have the you know, I went to graze sheep.
Speaker 1: Now let's get them off the land. But most people
Speaker 1: don't like to feel like monsters. Like as a general rule,
Speaker 1: the people who are a part of this eviction genocide
Speaker 1: are not being like you know, they're finding ways to
Speaker 1: be like, well, this is just what oftentimes it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still pretty dire because they're saying that, like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm a Malthusian and I believe that you know, overpopulation
Speaker 1: the only thing that happens when there's overpopulation, that that's
Speaker 1: what causes famine. Right, Rather than famine being a thing
Speaker 1: that happens and kills people, famine is caused by people
Speaker 1: breeding out of control. And so the real problem is
Speaker 1: that they bread and it's sad and it's tragic. But
Speaker 1: if we just feed them, then they're only going to
Speaker 1: breed more and that's just gonna cause more of a Right,
Speaker 1: people find ways to justify it, to feel like it's
Speaker 1: not they're not complicit in something nightmarish, as they always do, right,
Speaker 1: as everybody who's implicit in something nightmarish is done throughout history. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that some of these evictions mirrored acts
Speaker 1: of genocide committed by the US government. One of the
Speaker 1: most striking was the Dulo Lake incident. This occurred between
Speaker 1: March thirty and thirty first, eighteen forty nine. A number
Speaker 1: of starving famine victims were ordered to show up at
Speaker 1: Louisbourg and be checked to see if they deserved relief tickets. Now,
Speaker 1: this is what it sounds like. This is again. Eventually
Speaker 1: there get some like plans implanted where people can get
Speaker 1: tickets that will entitle them to like some food and
Speaker 1: supplies and whatnot. Um So, these people who are all
Speaker 1: actively starving to death and often homeless, they assemble, they
Speaker 1: all go to Louisbourg and in some cases means while starving,
Speaker 1: they have to walk miles to get there. Um So
Speaker 1: they show up at this place to try to get
Speaker 1: tickets that will give them the food they need to
Speaker 1: not starve to death. And they are told when they arrive, oh,
Speaker 1: there's been a mistake, and the people who can evaluate
Speaker 1: you are actually sixteen kilometers away at this hunting So
Speaker 1: you've got to go walk there now, right, um So,
Speaker 1: four to six hundred people, maybe more like a thousand,
Speaker 1: it's really not exactly known, spend the night sleeping out
Speaker 1: in the freezing rain, because what else are they going
Speaker 1: to do? And then they march sixteen kilometers to this lodge,
Speaker 1: and when they arrive, the relief commissioners like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: actually eating right now, and we can't bother people while
Speaker 1: they're having their lunch, so you're going to have to
Speaker 1: wait until people finish eating. So the crowd, who does
Speaker 1: not provided with food, of course, sits around starving after
Speaker 1: their long walk while these commissioners eat. And then when
Speaker 1: the commissioners finished eating, they're able to meet with them,
Speaker 1: and the commissioners are saying, oh, I'm so sorry, but
Speaker 1: you don't qualify for relief. Actually we don't have any
Speaker 1: food for you. There's nothing here. I'm so sorry. Brittis
Speaker 1: is your British is pretty uh, pretty spot on right
Speaker 1: now and really in the moment, maybe it's just because
Speaker 1: I'm so furious that these people, while wiping flavorless, flavorless grades,
Speaker 1: seasoned season off your job being like, oh we have
Speaker 1: nothing for you. My God, get some guards. So these
Speaker 1: folks have their guards drive this horde of starving people
Speaker 1: away and forced them to march miles back in the
Speaker 1: frigid rain, where a bunch of them die. The bodies
Speaker 1: of at least seven people are found by the side
Speaker 1: of Dulo Lake, having starved on the way back. Other
Speaker 1: people are swept into the lake by a mud side
Speaker 1: and slide and drown. And this is this whole situation
Speaker 1: is like fucked up, And shall Darius say, Terry gilliamy enough,
Speaker 1: this is really some like Brazil ship. Yeah, yeah, that it.
Speaker 1: It becomes pretty significant news internationally, and it gets back
Speaker 1: to the United States and some of the people who
Speaker 1: read about what happens at Dulo Lake are Choctaw people,
Speaker 1: indigenous Americans. Now, eight years earlier, the Choctaw had been
Speaker 1: forced on a death march from Mississippi to Oklahoma by
Speaker 1: the United States government. And so eight years not a
Speaker 1: long time, still dealing very much with the effects of
Speaker 1: this fucking death march. The Choctaw here about what has
Speaker 1: happened to these Irish people, and despite being desperately impoverished,
Speaker 1: they take up a collection and get there's seven dollars
Speaker 1: worth of money, which is a lot at the time,
Speaker 1: and send it to Ireland for relief. Um wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh that is still very much remembered by the
Speaker 1: Irish people today. There's a monument to the Choctaw. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure in Ireland as like there are people who
Speaker 1: give more, but there's no one who gives more and
Speaker 1: has less than the child exactly. You know, um that
Speaker 1: this is something that that has never been forgotten to
Speaker 1: this day, speaking of that, speaking of that unread Bible
Speaker 1: like yet another, yet another story Jesus talked about. We've
Speaker 1: we've talked about how there's a lot of solidarity in
Speaker 1: Ireland with the Palestinian cause because they recognize and there
Speaker 1: that's the same thing the chocolate. They are looking at
Speaker 1: this and being like, oh, ship, no, we know what
Speaker 1: that's like. Yes, suffering like to be type like suffering
Speaker 1: like nice people. It's like a type of empathy. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, where you just like why I
Speaker 1: have the capacity to understand and to have a heartbreaking
Speaker 1: for the people of Ukraine and and the people of Yemen,
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm saying, the people of the
Speaker 1: Tigray region in Ethiopia. You know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: I have capacity for all that because I've suffered in the
Speaker 1: the fact that you're trying to make a choice between
Speaker 1: which one of these things I need to care about
Speaker 1: is so indicative of exactly what these these people did
Speaker 1: in this incident. It is my job to judge whether
Speaker 1: you're worthy of my mercy. It's I think when when
Speaker 1: I have had conversations with Irish people about the Great Hunger,
Speaker 1: this is the story that probably gets brought up more
Speaker 1: than any other. Is the Choctaw donation. I think just incredible,
Speaker 1: such an emotionally affecting story. So throughout all of this,
Speaker 1: Travillion and the other public officials and politicians are adamant
Speaker 1: that landlords cannot be forced to keep tenants on their land,
Speaker 1: nor could they forcibly reduce rent. Right. That's a violation
Speaker 1: of the landlords right if you put any kind of
Speaker 1: rent control, and we can't do that. Um. But the
Speaker 1: scale of suffering was titanic enough by the late eighteen
Speaker 1: forties that the Eight and Good felt a need to donate.
Speaker 1: Sir Charles Wood Travillions Boss donated two hundred pounds sterling
Speaker 1: to famine relief. Queen Victoria gives two thousand pounds. That's
Speaker 1: very nice. That's got to be a significant chunk of
Speaker 1: her She probably doesn't have much more than two thousand pounds, right.
Speaker 1: The Queen Queen Doria, that's all she could afford. Um.
Speaker 1: The Pope gives a thousand The Pope, you know in Rome,
Speaker 1: gives a thousand pounds in an aid. You want to
Speaker 1: guess how much Chucky Trevillian gives. I'm gonna peas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you fucking give you? You mean just that's literally, that
Speaker 1: is an amount to just be able to say I donated, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: fuck yourself all day and twice on Sunday. I want
Speaker 1: telling me the oldest you. I didn't know this play
Speaker 1: was this old for rich people to just donate to
Speaker 1: a charity. I didn't know that that play was that play.
Speaker 1: It has stood the test of time. So rather than
Speaker 1: understanding that you are the problem and you could easily
Speaker 1: solve it, just donate to a cause, like I am impressed.
Speaker 1: Did rich people have figured out how to do it?
Speaker 1: Is Travalion is the one that's easiest to make fun
Speaker 1: of here. I think the Queen and the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: should actually get more ship. And I'm going to read
Speaker 1: a quote here from Tim pat Coogan about why so
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with the pope. The people of Rome
Speaker 1: contributed generously to Irish relief as did a few cardinals,
Speaker 1: but no masterpieces from the Vatican's art collection were removed
Speaker 1: for sale to help supplement the appeal, and it is
Speaker 1: likely that the amount of money that was collected came
Speaker 1: mainly not as a result of the Pope's letter, but
Speaker 1: from the generosity of the Irish Catholic diaspora, particularly from America.
Speaker 1: In fact, that the height of the famine, it was
Speaker 1: the Irish who sent money to the pope. In eighteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, the Pope was on the run because Republican
Speaker 1: forces had temporarily driven him from the Vatican. The Wish
Speaker 1: bishops were ordered to take up a colleption collection to
Speaker 1: help defray papal expenses. To judge from a letter to
Speaker 1: the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray, this appeal much of
Speaker 1: must have realized much more than the Pope's gift of
Speaker 1: a thousand pounds, so the Irish, while starving, donate more
Speaker 1: money in the pope anyway funds, and again this is
Speaker 1: This is not to say one of the most effective
Speaker 1: forces for relief is the Catholic churches in Ireland, which
Speaker 1: are supported financially by the Irish people, not by the
Speaker 1: Church in Rome. Right not to not to cut them
Speaker 1: out of this, because there's a lot of Catholic clergy
Speaker 1: who do a ton during this period, just not the
Speaker 1: fucking pope. Just not him, you know. Um. One of
Speaker 1: the more interesting donors is Sultan Abdul Messid of Turkey. Right,
Speaker 1: he's the Ottoman leader. He wants to give he's very
Speaker 1: moved by the suffering of the Irish people. He wants
Speaker 1: to donate ten tho pounds, right, That is a ton
Speaker 1: of money back in the day, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But when he says he goes to the British bastards
Speaker 1: like I've got I'm gonna give. I want to give
Speaker 1: ten thousand pounds to relieve, to try to help these people,
Speaker 1: And the British ambassador says, well, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: very nice gift, sir, But you see the Queen's given
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds and you can't you can't say her gift.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be quite improper. You know what
Speaker 1: people thinking about her clouds fucking Queen Victoria. Yeah, my gosh, now, okay,
Speaker 1: it is worth noting to the Sultan's credit. When he's like,
Speaker 1: all right, well, I can't donate as much cash as
Speaker 1: I want to. He fills five boats with grain and
Speaker 1: he sends them to Ireland at his own expense to
Speaker 1: feed the starving Turkish soldiers. It's said have to unload
Speaker 1: the grain in secret at night in order to avoid
Speaker 1: embarrassing the royal family. Oh my god, day that petty.
Speaker 1: That family been petty for that long. Okay, and yeah,
Speaker 1: the Turkeys. So it's like, if you talk, you already
Speaker 1: an empire. So you I mean, it's not like you
Speaker 1: don't empathize. It's like the Sultan's not like out, you know,
Speaker 1: he's hurtin. Yeah. I was like, he's a sultan. Yes
Speaker 1: he's fine, but at least that's not nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a meaningful that's a meaningful attempt to relieve stuff,
Speaker 1: like his little piece of like understanding of like, well,
Speaker 1: of course I don't want to upstate the queen. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assaulted. I wouldn't want to be upstage either.
Speaker 1: So it is what we're gonna do. We're gonna slide
Speaker 1: this in there because y'all trip in. But I get it.
Speaker 1: You don't just like slide this in there under the Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I just wonder if you're a Turk your soldier
Speaker 1: if you're just like, man, what hi, alright, alright, I
Speaker 1: guess okay, you know. Yeah, there's a line in Tim
Speaker 1: pat Coogan's book that I found interesting. I can't vouch
Speaker 1: for it because I'm not Irish, but he points out that,
Speaker 1: like obviously you know, in World War One, Irish soldiers
Speaker 1: are a major part of the effort at the Battle
Speaker 1: of Gallipoli, which is this shipload because the British Empires
Speaker 1: forces get their asses handed to them by the turkicle.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not to say that it's an easy
Speaker 1: it's a nightmare. It's one of the battles there's been
Speaker 1: in the history of warfare. And Tim past glibly Glippoli,
Speaker 1: Tim tie Hugan makes a point that like at today,
Speaker 1: there's no more ill will from the Irish towards the
Speaker 1: Turks for the casualties at the Battle of Gallipoli, but
Speaker 1: there are still monuments to the Turkish soldiers who came
Speaker 1: and like handed out delivered fo Yeah you really do,
Speaker 1: I mean you remember friends, Yeah, yeah, you remember whose
Speaker 1: graces to you? Yea? So Charles travallion Um issued copies
Speaker 1: of Adam Smith's books to his employees carrying out relief
Speaker 1: operations in Ireland. He told them that they should be
Speaker 1: used as guides and handling how to feed the starving. Now,
Speaker 1: this does not mean that Trevillion did nothing that was capable.
Speaker 1: In fact, he helped to organize a network of soup
Speaker 1: kitchens from late eighty seven, which were a fairly effective
Speaker 1: relief effort and helped stop several significant number of people
Speaker 1: from dying. That said, it's not like the soup kitchens
Speaker 1: were his idea. You know, he was just like the
Speaker 1: guy who wound up helping to organize them. Um, and
Speaker 1: he was one of the people. A lot of folks
Speaker 1: did see them as dangerous, as bad for the Irish spirit,
Speaker 1: because it would encourage indolence. Travellian typified the feelings of
Speaker 1: many English civil servants when he said, the judgment of
Speaker 1: God sent the calamity to teach the Irish lesson that
Speaker 1: calamity must not be too much mitigated. The real evil
Speaker 1: with which we have to contend is not the physical
Speaker 1: evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish,
Speaker 1: perverse and turbulent character of the people. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's just God sent the famine to Ireland to teach
Speaker 1: the Irish something, and so we can't help them too much.
Speaker 1: We can't save too many lives because that would piss
Speaker 1: God off. Piss God God and Adam Smith, who are
Speaker 1: basically the same to Chucky Truth, Chuckiele Clearly you're just
Speaker 1: like we it's already happening to him, and we all
Speaker 1: already know you to cause of it. Let that be
Speaker 1: enough for you to have to keep giving these speeches
Speaker 1: like this somehow my fault is. I'm just like that's
Speaker 1: where I'm just like, now you're now you're pissing on
Speaker 1: my grave. Okay, Like if you could at least just
Speaker 1: yeah to me, like that's the salt in the would
Speaker 1: that you keep that y'all keep saying that this is
Speaker 1: God's will because this is all fault. Like that's when
Speaker 1: you when when it's just when you're just ready to
Speaker 1: throw a chair, it's like, I feel like it's that feeling.
Speaker 1: Well it's not as bad, but it's that feeling when
Speaker 1: somebody when a politician get on the especially like a
Speaker 1: like a like a white boy get on the stage
Speaker 1: and be like, well, if Martin Luther King was alive today,
Speaker 1: he would say, I'm like I'm gonna throw a chair
Speaker 1: at you. I'm like, that's like, I just want to
Speaker 1: throw a chair. Like there's a thousand chick Dr King's
Speaker 1: name out your fucking mouth. I mean, yeah, there's that's
Speaker 1: one thing. Like the guy said a lot, like you
Speaker 1: don't have to put words in his mouth and spoke
Speaker 1: on a bunch of stuff. Actually spokes a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are relevant to this story. Yes, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure happening the story we talked about right now. He
Speaker 1: had a number of opinions on free market economics. Actually,
Speaker 1: I tell you what, you don't have to invent things anyway.
Speaker 1: You do if you want him to sound like he
Speaker 1: agrees with something else, because you know, there's Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: and then there's Martin Luther King. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: the media Martin Luther King. That is easy for anybody
Speaker 1: to turn into a guy on their side while they're
Speaker 1: giving a speech about whatever. Um I marched with King? Yeah, alright, buddy,
Speaker 1: um so potato. The famine plot goes into greater detail
Speaker 1: about how Travalian personally intervened to exacerbate the famine in
Speaker 1: the name of his precious fre market principles. Quote one
Speaker 1: of his first actions on Peel's departure in June six
Speaker 1: Because Peel, you know, Russell takes over for Peel, right
Speaker 1: he eventually leaves being Prime Minister symbolizes the attitude he
Speaker 1: was to adopt throughout the famine. He canceled a shipment
Speaker 1: of grain on its way to Ireland. He wrote to
Speaker 1: Thomas Bearing on July eighteen forty six, who's the head
Speaker 1: of the bank. The cargo of food is not wanted.
Speaker 1: Her owners must dispose of it as they think proper.
Speaker 1: Bearing replied, congratulating him on the termination of your feeding operations.
Speaker 1: When the complexity and the time consuming nature of the
Speaker 1: corn processing was brought to his attention, Travillion made two
Speaker 1: decisive interventions. First, he wrote to the Bearing to bear
Speaker 1: it to the Bearings, temporarily cutting back on the corn
Speaker 1: supply by fifty and asking that henceforth, whenever possible, Indian
Speaker 1: corn meal should be sent rather than unprocessed grain. Second,
Speaker 1: he decreed that there was no need for the Indian
Speaker 1: corn to be ground. Twice, in a letter to Ruth,
Speaker 1: he summed up his attitude towards Relief. It was that
Speaker 1: of the workhouse we must not aim at giving more
Speaker 1: than a wholesome food. I cannot believe it would be
Speaker 1: necessary to grindto the Indian corn twice. Dependence on charity
Speaker 1: is not to be made an agreeable mode of life.
Speaker 1: In Ireland in early eighty six, there was very little
Speaker 1: danger that the poorest classes would find dependence on Peel's
Speaker 1: Yellow meal agreeable. The milling deficiencies and the fact that
Speaker 1: through hunger, many of the recipients did not give it
Speaker 1: sufficient cooking time made for severe and widespread bowel complaints,
Speaker 1: particularly among children. Hence the meal quickly became known as
Speaker 1: Peel's brimstone. Why would they need it milled twice? Well,
Speaker 1: if I have to mill it, let's send half as much.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't want them to get lazy because
Speaker 1: we're doing all of this work. Yeah, there's that. Sounds
Speaker 1: like there's that thing again. We can't help you because
Speaker 1: if we help you, then that means you'll never do
Speaker 1: anything for yourself. Yeah. Now you know who isn't lazy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's not lazy. Yeah. Yeah, these amazing absolutely
Speaker 1: now they know how to work for themselves. You know,
Speaker 1: these these products, they really they're not like you are,
Speaker 1: not indolent. I tell you what, they're more kinzy. They
Speaker 1: don't need to grind their corn more than once. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they just eat it raw. Just hardcore law. Baby, and
Speaker 1: we're back. Uh boy, howdy. Um So, the famine brought
Speaker 1: through a series of changes in what we're known as
Speaker 1: Ireland's poor laws. Uh And for this, I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote from a write up by Virginia Corpsman of Oxford
Speaker 1: Brooks University. Prior to the Great Famine, relief was only
Speaker 1: available within the workhouse. Under the pressure of mass starvation
Speaker 1: and with many workhouses full to overflowing, the system was
Speaker 1: extended in eighteen forty seven to allow poor law boards
Speaker 1: to grant outdoor relief to the sick and disabled and
Speaker 1: two widows with two and two widows with two or
Speaker 1: more legitimate children. Outdoor relief could only be granted to
Speaker 1: the able bodied if the workhouse was full or a
Speaker 1: sight of infection. Anyone occupying more than one quarter of
Speaker 1: an acre of land, however, was excluded from receiving relief.
Speaker 1: The effect of this provision, when combined with falling rent
Speaker 1: rolls and the liability of landlords to pay the poor
Speaker 1: rates on holdings worth less than four pounds per annum
Speaker 1: was to encourage landlords to evict their smallest tenants. Workhouse
Speaker 1: occupancy rose from around four hundred and seventeen thousand and
Speaker 1: eighteen forty seven to around nine hundred and thirty two
Speaker 1: thousands by the end of eighteen forty nine. So one
Speaker 1: of the things they do is they make an advantageous
Speaker 1: financially to evict people um for the landlords, because it
Speaker 1: makes for a better tax situation because then you don't
Speaker 1: have to pay as much and we gotta pay for it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's and the idea of like, if you own what
Speaker 1: was it, one quarter a quarter acre? Not not even Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I was like, wait, not even Oh, you just
Speaker 1: gotta live on it. So if you got you got
Speaker 1: a little well, I don't know, man, you got a
Speaker 1: quarter you cool? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I guess I
Speaker 1: could if I had that little quarter of an acre,
Speaker 1: I guess I could plant some foods. Yeah, theoretically, right,
Speaker 1: theoretically a quarter acre, by the way, not a ton
Speaker 1: of space to grow enough food both to pay your
Speaker 1: mint and keep a family. Of course, that of course
Speaker 1: the food I would I would grow to eat I
Speaker 1: have to pay and also it doesn't grow right now,
Speaker 1: a lot of the food that I would eat. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but people are really edged out of many options here. Yes,
Speaker 1: So the poor laws effectively put the burden too caring
Speaker 1: for starving Irish masses on Irish landowners and business owners.
Speaker 1: One thing this did was make it clear to the
Speaker 1: that the United Kingdom that Ireland had been made to
Speaker 1: join an eight hundred that like that this this idea
Speaker 1: of the UK doesn't exist for the Irish right because
Speaker 1: none of the funding for this is coming from outside
Speaker 1: of Ireland. Ireland like, they stopped that immediately. Menlike Travalian
Speaker 1: didn't see this as England abandoning Ireland. They saw this
Speaker 1: as England crafting laws to change the Irish into something
Speaker 1: else that would make them better people. Right, that's the
Speaker 1: reasoning behind all this. There's a lot of intent in
Speaker 1: the terrible things they're doing. These aren't just like random
Speaker 1: bad laws. They want to fundamentally alter an and get
Speaker 1: rid of a lot of Irish people in order to
Speaker 1: make them better. You know it's that Yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: like that, like kill the Indians, save the man. In
Speaker 1: a letter he wrote to Edward Twistleton, the Chief Poor
Speaker 1: Law Commissioner of Ireland travel In said, we must not
Speaker 1: complain of what we really want to obtain. If small
Speaker 1: farmers go and their landlords are reduced to sell portions
Speaker 1: of their estates to persons who will invest capital, we
Speaker 1: shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement
Speaker 1: of the country. Yeah, this is again that he's well,
Speaker 1: they just die off. Yeah, it's an ethnic cleansing for
Speaker 1: economic purposes. That's what he's discussing with A very convenient,
Speaker 1: A convenient uh fungus. Yeah, yeah, this fungus convenient. It
Speaker 1: helps out now. The famine also provided an opportunity for
Speaker 1: the crown and its servants to rid Ireland of some
Speaker 1: of its pesky and rebellious young men. Crime, which during
Speaker 1: the famine often meant simply stealing food, was punished, often
Speaker 1: by transportation. This was the FOURT expulsion of a criminal
Speaker 1: to somewhere like Australia. John Mitchell, leader of a nationalist
Speaker 1: group named Young Ireland, was transported in eighteen forty eight
Speaker 1: to Australia. He later called the famine quote an artificial famine.
Speaker 1: Potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe, yet there
Speaker 1: was no famine save in Ireland. The Almighty indeed sent
Speaker 1: the potato blight, but the English created the famine. Si nailed.
Speaker 1: Time has proven his words very correct. The potato again
Speaker 1: did fail for years, but only in Ireland was their
Speaker 1: famine and death on an industrial scale. Huge numbers of
Speaker 1: Irish people fled their homeland in this period, many of
Speaker 1: whom wound up in the United States. Right, this is
Speaker 1: when we really get our big waves of Irish immigration.
Speaker 1: This is pretty well known to most Americans, so I
Speaker 1: prefer to focus on the fact that a ton of
Speaker 1: Irish folks also go to England. Right, it is you
Speaker 1: know a bit closer. Yeah. Uh. Tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: famine victims flee to the seat of the Imperial government,
Speaker 1: hoping for a chance to survive. This, of course, does
Speaker 1: not make English people very In eighteen fifty, the Liverpool
Speaker 1: Mercury wrote that the lamentable excess of crime in that
Speaker 1: city has been caused entirely by Irish refugees. This constant
Speaker 1: influx of Irish misery and crime is almost impossible to restrain,
Speaker 1: and of course there are huge surges in the number
Speaker 1: of people arrested and charged with crimes, most of whom
Speaker 1: are Irish because guess who the cops are focused on. Man, Listen,
Speaker 1: I don't look listen, I'm I'm making a retroactive plead
Speaker 1: to the Irish, like man, when when whiteness comes knock
Speaker 1: it like you don't don't don't answer that called man,
Speaker 1: come to with us? You see, how doing you just
Speaker 1: be with us? Because yeah, I mean there's an unfortunate
Speaker 1: story of like how a lot of these famine victims
Speaker 1: come to the United States and many wind up becoming police.
Speaker 1: And it's a whole tale. Yeah, it's a whole tale.
Speaker 1: It's a whole thing. Yeah, yeah, that's why I was
Speaker 1: just like, man, listen, why do y'all doing this? Like
Speaker 1: you know what they do to you? They did, they
Speaker 1: did they do to you, They're doing to us what
Speaker 1: they did to you. Like, come all, guys, No, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's it's not a book that we're
Speaker 1: reading through here. Isn't the playbook because it doesn't work exactly,
Speaker 1: It's works because good it works pretty well. You want
Speaker 1: to be It's like, at the end of the day, man,
Speaker 1: like you want to be the hunter or the hunter,
Speaker 1: and if you have a chance to become the hunter,
Speaker 1: ten out of ten times you just do that it's
Speaker 1: rather than rather than that being eight, and it just
Speaker 1: and it's like it just sucks. But it is what
Speaker 1: it is. It is what it is. So it's also
Speaker 1: worth emphasizing that many, many foreigners did travel to Ireland
Speaker 1: during her time of need to try and help Quakers,
Speaker 1: in particular, probably like the group that came in and
Speaker 1: did the most good, like huge amount of life saved
Speaker 1: by Quakers who operated soup kitchens and engaged another very
Speaker 1: compassionate aid work, like really incredible ship. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when you go through like English newspapers in this period
Speaker 1: that are like people who are publishing columns and letters
Speaker 1: of anti Ira bigotry, you will also find Quakers writing
Speaker 1: and to be like shut the funk up, you know,
Speaker 1: but basically because yeah, they're not. They're they're a little
Speaker 1: nicer about Yeah. Many Americans also traveled to the island
Speaker 1: to help. One American philanthropist at the time wrote of
Speaker 1: Irish famine victims, I could scarcely believe that these creatures
Speaker 1: were my fellow beings. Never have I seen slaves so degraded.
Speaker 1: And here I learned that there are many pages in
Speaker 1: the volume of slavery, and that every branch of it
Speaker 1: proceeds from one and the same route, that it assumes
Speaker 1: different shapes. These poor creatures are in his virtual bondage
Speaker 1: to their landlords and superiors, as it is possible for
Speaker 1: mind or body to be. They cannot work unless they
Speaker 1: bid them, they cannot eat unless they feed them, and
Speaker 1: they cannot get away unless they help them. Wow. Yeah, yep, yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of truth, man. There are many pages
Speaker 1: in the volume of slavery, and that every branch it
Speaker 1: proceeds from one and the same route. It's the same room. Yes,
Speaker 1: So no sympathy at all was to be found in
Speaker 1: the heart of the regent, Queen Victoria, who came to
Speaker 1: be known as the Famine Queen for her government's utter failure.
Speaker 1: And this is something that happens really after the famine,
Speaker 1: but there's still a push in Ireland out to call
Speaker 1: her the family King. Yeah. Historian Christine keen Kinney, director
Speaker 1: of the Great Hunger Institute, sums it up thus Lee
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that she had any real compassion
Speaker 1: for the Irish people in any way. When she visited
Speaker 1: Ireland for the first time in eighteen forty nine. Near
Speaker 1: the end of the famine, huge numbers of soldiers were
Speaker 1: needed to keep the streets clear and ensure that she
Speaker 1: saw no real sign of the suffering her agents had permitted.
Speaker 1: We could go on and on about different policies, how
Speaker 1: they failed or succeeded, which other individuals played roles in
Speaker 1: the famine. Eventually it ended, but only after tremendous suffering.
Speaker 1: At least one million people starved to death. Modern scholars
Speaker 1: suspect the real number was closer to two million one
Speaker 1: point nine millions something like that. Millions more left the island,
Speaker 1: either due to forced transportation or immigration and hope of
Speaker 1: a better life or just survival from a pre famine
Speaker 1: population of almost nine million. Ireland's population post famine was
Speaker 1: less than five million um, and it did not exceed
Speaker 1: five million again until last year. So for a an
Speaker 1: idea of the scale of how this famine compares to
Speaker 1: modern famines, the famine and Yemen right now is probably
Speaker 1: the number one humanitarian crisis on the globe. At the moment,
Speaker 1: at least a hundred thousand people have already starved to death.
Speaker 1: Experts warn that four hundred thousand's children under the age
Speaker 1: of five could die in the near future without sufficient intervention. Um,
Speaker 1: it is a Titanic problem. That is a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dead so far out of a population of thirty million.
Speaker 1: The faminine Darfur was probably the most prominent twenty first
Speaker 1: century famine before yomen. It killed around a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people out of a population of twenty seven million. Now,
Speaker 1: both of these are Titanic tragedies, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: minimize that in any way, But two million dead out
Speaker 1: of nine million for an example of like the scale
Speaker 1: Yeah of this U Yeah, like it's uh, that's yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just and like adding the like roll that weather
Speaker 1: plays that like yeah, it's it's just it was a
Speaker 1: it's a perfect storm. You know when in the history
Speaker 1: of time and you know, understanding of how viruses and
Speaker 1: bacteria work, like when this happened is the perfect storm
Speaker 1: of being like, yeah, it's gonna wipe you all out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yep. And and there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have a vested interest in allowing you to be wiped out.
Speaker 1: Um yep. Anyway, because because we're gonna graze this We're
Speaker 1: gonna graze this land with these these hipster to get
Speaker 1: some sheep. You know I'm gonna get some sheep. So
Speaker 1: fuck Charles Trevillion. That's that's all day, every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely don't like that. I found an article that interviews
Speaker 1: his great great great granddaughter who was a BBC reporter,
Speaker 1: Laura Trevillion Um and she she got she got sent
Speaker 1: for an idea of like, maybe how out of touch
Speaker 1: the BBC can be. They have Charles Trevillian's great great
Speaker 1: great granddaughter and in the mid nineties, when like ship's
Speaker 1: going off in northern Ireland, they send her as a correspondent.
Speaker 1: Let's go, so she says, quote, I was interviewing a
Speaker 1: member of the Republican Shinfei and in southern Arma, and
Speaker 1: she asked if I was related to Charles Travallion. I
Speaker 1: said I was, And she asked me how I could
Speaker 1: live in Ireland when I had the blood of the
Speaker 1: Irish on my hands. She wasn't joking. I was constantly
Speaker 1: surprised by the number of people who knew about Charles
Speaker 1: Trevalian and the impact that the famine has in Ireland
Speaker 1: more than a hundred fifty years later. Yet I felt
Speaker 1: ashamed that I didn't know all that much about him.
Speaker 1: And she wrote writes a book because of this, called
Speaker 1: a Very British Family about the Trevillian family. And he
Speaker 1: like heard just being cute, like like, hey, are you
Speaker 1: related to Yeah, that's like my great great granddad, you
Speaker 1: know him. You're like, uh hum, that's a chair throw
Speaker 1: that's another yeah, Like I'm happy that lady didn't throw
Speaker 1: the chair again. Real real uh real restraint on behalf
Speaker 1: of the Irish Republicans there there is, I know that
Speaker 1: can be a spicy crowd. I'm surprissed. Um, So she
Speaker 1: writes this fucking book. Uh, and she says of it,
Speaker 1: I'm not defending him or endorsing some of his actions,
Speaker 1: but I want to show he was more humane than
Speaker 1: has been portrayed. He did work very hard to try
Speaker 1: and improve the situation in Ireland and had a genuine
Speaker 1: concern for the welfare of the people. It's all right,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, look listen, there's your grand
Speaker 1: your granddaddy, a piece of ship. It's just we have it.
Speaker 1: There's some fucking incredible quotes from this lady. Um. He
Speaker 1: is vilified in Ireland, and not wrongly because the policy
Speaker 1: enacted by the government at the time is impossible to
Speaker 1: defend a policy of effectively withholding relief and allowing market
Speaker 1: forces to take their courses brutal. However, what I'm taking
Speaker 1: what I'm taking issue with, is the portrayal of him
Speaker 1: as someone who wanted the Irish to die. Yes, he
Speaker 1: was a providentialist who felt the famine had been the
Speaker 1: will of God. But that's not the same as saying
Speaker 1: he wanted the Irish to die. Kind of man, it's
Speaker 1: this a little bit that kind of is And unless
Speaker 1: you're being like God wants these people to die, but
Speaker 1: fuck him, I'm gonna fight him, you know. But that's
Speaker 1: not what Charles Valiant was saying. No, No, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I listen, I don't know man. I'm just listen. Your
Speaker 1: granddaddy piece. I think your granddad just gonna have to
Speaker 1: live with it. You know what I'm saying, Just live
Speaker 1: with it. They don't mean you a piece it. They
Speaker 1: don't mean that. Okay, there, listen, we all you can't
Speaker 1: go and hired. You can't go into nobody's family tree
Speaker 1: and not find a piece of Yeah. Absolutely, it's just
Speaker 1: there in all of our families. Look like, what do
Speaker 1: you want me to say? He was a piece of ship.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of blood on his hands. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: probably can't go into anyone's background and not find somebody
Speaker 1: who helped do with genocide at some point. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of bodies that we've done, a lot of
Speaker 1: them as a species, a lot of them. It happen
Speaker 1: you were, Yes, you were later in that line, you've
Speaker 1: got somebody like and it's fine because people aren't responsible
Speaker 1: for their ancestors. Just don't write what do you get about?
Speaker 1: How what you what makes you responsible? Is you trying
Speaker 1: to justify it rather than being like the rest of us,
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, you know, yeah it's cool, it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. Uh not write no book. One of them dead,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean he didn't like them, you know, say,
Speaker 1: I just figure I won't feed him because this principle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't mean I want them to die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a shame they're dying. I wish I could do
Speaker 1: something about it. As the guy responsible for the relief efforts,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're trying to find the guide who did this.
Speaker 1: As Charles Travallion in the banana costume, well a potato costume.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go to potato costume. But Doug, this is glorious, man,
Speaker 1: just man, don't write a book about the end of
Speaker 1: the story, this book about him. I'm sure there's there's
Speaker 1: a valid case for like, well, we have this family archives,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to write a book revealing like what
Speaker 1: made him the kind of man who would do this,
Speaker 1: and like take a hard note that that. That's fine.
Speaker 1: There's some survive there's some like descendants of Nazis who
Speaker 1: have written some very good things about grappling with the
Speaker 1: fact that like, yeah, my grandpa did some ship, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that. That's a really valuable thing to do. Actually,
Speaker 1: because it's a species, you could stand a better at that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or I'm like again, like we said, people are two
Speaker 1: opposite things can be true at the same time. Surely,
Speaker 1: surely your murderous grandfather was a very cuddly person who
Speaker 1: could read you a bedtime story, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: who really loved you know, nice strolls, you know, and
Speaker 1: got your grandma daisies every Sunday. Yes, and also is
Speaker 1: a bloodthirsty murder. They're they're both true. So even if
Speaker 1: you're gonna defend your Granddaddy like, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: he was really nice to my mom then late and
Speaker 1: just talk about that part I this is. Don't try
Speaker 1: to like the piece of ship stuff is just piece
Speaker 1: of ship stuff. So just let it be what it is.
Speaker 1: People like things to be clear cut, and I think
Speaker 1: there's not enough of an understanding that probably most of
Speaker 1: the people who have personally participated in genocide throughout history
Speaker 1: have been perfectly pleasant human beings outside of that moment.
Speaker 1: And probably most of the people who owned slaves were
Speaker 1: lovely to their wife and children. They were just fine
Speaker 1: at ignoring the humanity of certain other people, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You could be two things. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, well my like well not Big Daddy, Greig
Speaker 1: big Daddy. You know, well, I do declare. I'd go
Speaker 1: hang out at Big Daddy's house and we'd sit on
Speaker 1: the pot and we drink our lemonade and he would
Speaker 1: play tea with us the whole Big Daddy was so
Speaker 1: love Yeah, yes, Big Daddy was very loving to you. Yep,
Speaker 1: it's awesome. That was my Southern Bell. How did I
Speaker 1: do as good as your fine? I mean, my cotillion,
Speaker 1: We really I can't deal with this, I've caught the vapors.
Speaker 1: I would like some alabaster columns, plantation, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't have a good I don't have a good Southern bell. Ready.
Speaker 1: I apologize, No, I apologize. I like. I like pulling
Speaker 1: alabaster out. I do. It's one of my favorite words.
Speaker 1: You really sound white when you say alabaster. There's no
Speaker 1: other reason to say that. Less Again, you're the strongest
Speaker 1: one reading a gospel in your But besides that, why
Speaker 1: would you ever say alabasas? It's a fun stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the story of the Great Hunger, Great Hunger, the
Speaker 1: potato plight, the Unnecessary Family. Yeah, the British Famine, the
Speaker 1: British Family. It would be so up if in like Ireland,
Speaker 1: their books were called The Unnecessary Famine. Yeah, the Unnecessary
Speaker 1: I mean, the famine plot is a good one. Coogan
Speaker 1: frames it very much, is like, yeah, it was like
Speaker 1: people meant for this ship to go down. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: famine plot. Y'all did this, which is cool. Um, it's
Speaker 1: not cool, but it's good to talk about things accurately.
Speaker 1: Prop you want to plug anything before we roll out
Speaker 1: in a hail of I Do podcast, I do I UM.
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called After the Revolution. You can
Speaker 1: google a v what if I did? What if I?
Speaker 1: What if I did write it? And I just accidentally
Speaker 1: just told on us that that I just I just
Speaker 1: stole your book. Yeah. I was like wait. I was like, yeah, Robert,
Speaker 1: I waited till this whole time to tell you I
Speaker 1: want my book prop hip. Hop. I did write a book.
Speaker 1: It's called Terraform. It's um poetry in short story. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I I haven't won any awards for it. It's okay.
Speaker 1: You know who else didn't win any awards? Well? You
Speaker 1: know who want actually a lot of awards is Charles Travalion.
Speaker 1: He got like Knighted and ship You want to bunch
Speaker 1: want any of that? Yeah? Maybe maybe awards aren't really
Speaker 1: worth anything. Maybe you're not wor Yeah. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well that's the podcast. All right, dude, go out and
Speaker 1: again find uh property of the British royal family and
Speaker 1: damage it. Yeah, and find yourself, find yourself, uh somebody
Speaker 1: in the military and uninvite them into your home. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: invite a soldier into your house and be like, you
Speaker 1: know what gets the funk out you don't get to
Speaker 1: be in my house. Third Amendment motherfucker by