Your mention of the forced monoculture reminded me of a recent discussion on what will be the most lasting negative impact on Ireland from that period of history. While the social problems may one day be solved, the loss of ancient forest in Ireland is one that is unrecoverable.
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Hm⌠I donât know much about environmental history, do you know any books on the topic?
Thatâs the thing about bombing campaigns. They rarely make sense.
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Iâve found several nice articles but not much in the way of books. Not that there arenât any, just none Iâve found. There may be an opportunity here for someone.
Check out The Lost Woods of Killarney : In search of Irelandâs last primeval forest - by Rebecca Solnit
And this official short history of forests in Ireland by the Forest Service
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
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Iâve heard the the topic brought up many, many times. Both the vent about the inequities of Irish history (both via the English/Britain and our position in American society), and to argue a deeper connection and solidarity between the Irish (and Irish Americans) and Blacks/Jews/Gays/insert hated minority here than exists between the ethnically Irish and generically âwhiteâ people (or such a connection should be fostered). But increasingly, especially but not exclusively in media and on line, its being presented as what youâre seeing here. A deliberate misrepresentation of the facts of history to excuse or diminish the oppression of other groups. Iâm increasingly seeing it pushed by white supremacists groups. Including the KKK (who in their earlier incarnations at least, target the Irish and Catholics as well as Blacks and Jews). It increasingly seems that people who are not Irish under any conception of the idea are coopting Irish history to justify their own racists bullshit, and that deeply offends me. However Iâve also all my life commonly seen a more limited and less insanely counter factual version of the argument used by casually racist (Irish American) family members and acquaintances used to be dismissive of African American discontent, civil rights action etc. Its an old argument. Its increasing in popularity, strangeness and pervasiveness. And while in the past it seemed to be a lingering effect of deeply embedded racism in the Irish American community (piling on against blacks was no small part of how we got invited to the white people party), its rapidly becoming the default argument from this part of history and its increasingly being used by all racists to counter whatever the hell they want.
Additionally Iâm not exactly comfortable with your characterization of hating the English as something deeply driving in Irish or Irish immigrant cultures. There are certainly deep seated resentments there. And movements deeply committed to the idea of hating the English. But in my experience thereâs very little in the way of actually actively, pervasively, despising and attacking the English in Ireland today. Certainly in the Republic, and its far less of a factor in the North than most Americans assume. In terms of the Irish American community? Its always struck me as a lazy and crude signifier of Irishness. Iâm louder about the English sucking than you are so Iâm more Irish! BLARGH DRINK AND FIGHT.
Frankly your making assumptions about entire groups of people. Both the English and your various sorts of Irish people. Based on your limited experience. Assumptions that play into hurtful stereotypes about the Irish. And frankly thereâs enough of that running around this time of year. Usually dressed like a leprechaun, piss drunk, toasting the IRA and waving their fists at the English, while arguing over whoâs roommateâs sisterâs cousin-in-lawâs dog was more 3/5ths Irish on her lawnmowerâs side.
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I did not say that the irish hate the English, nor did I express any such feelings about the EnglishâŚ
Itâs also my ethnic group, actually, as my family came over during the lesser famine. Iâve at no time blamed the Irish as a group, or made any sort of assumptions about them as a group. But to imagine that the Irish in America did not benefit from racism and their whiteness is to ignore the facts. You could actually read what i wrote instead of making assumptions about what I"m saying and assuming itâs lazy Irish stereotyping.
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I disagree. Enough people, online and off, believe the myth of âIrish slaveryâ and the attendant claim that it justifies blaming todayâs black Americans for their relative lack of success as a group that it clearly does need specific exposure.
I donât know. My understanding of the article cited on the BB post is that it addresses Irish American deployment of the myth.
I donât what you mean in this context by âexposition,â but if youâre still directly addressing me here, I donât recall my labeling anyone in this thread a racist or a bigot. I focus mainly on actions and their effects, not on whatever or whoever the person doing them appears to be.
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OK, notice that response was to Anotherone not to you. You and Milliefink got mentions because you might be interested, and your arguments played directly into mine.
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So, uh, whatcha guys been talkinâ about while Iâve been away?
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Wait⌠what? OH, I thought you were claiming we were saying that! Iâll leave the response as a monument to my stupidity! 
Carry on, then! Iâll just be over here hiding my head!
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If any thread needed a list of vocabulary words and definitions itâs this one.
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So George III (ethnically German though he be) was not the King of England? And no English troups were in the American colonies during that whole thing? Just Hessians? Also you guys didnât invade the US a few decades later? The Great Famine was the first and only famine to strike Ireland? Rather than the largest in a series? And English policy never had anything to do with exacerbating or causing those famines? Only people of Scottish decent were land lords? And they were acting as landed gentry under the Scottish crown? And that land lord structure wasnât contingent on the British lord/estate system? And imposed from the outside by an English controlled, British monarchy?
Youâre ignoring the very real, very violent history of Protestant-Catholic warfare and violence in the British Isles. History that began with the creation of the Anglican Church. The expansion of that sort of ethno-religious strife to the British Isles was very real, and conflicts between the various nations and peoples there were directly tied to it. But England was an active participant. And Anglicanism was the protestant faith and England was the Protestant side of that particular part of history. And it wasnât limited to Englandâs relations with Scotland and Ireland. It actively existed within England itself. It wasnât a âproxyâ for outside Protestant powers. With England sitting as some sort of middle road, moderate, third way.
I get what your saying. And its not that I donât agree, in principal. But your bending over backwards and mutating history to absolve England of its involvement in events it was often the prime driver of.
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This talk of Irish heritage has got me thinking, how did I get here? I know the county my Irish fatherâs side came from, and the city my motherâs Scottish side came from. And Iâm reasonably sure they didnât arrive in coffin ships.
Iâm gonna go find out this weekend.
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You are absolutely correct. I was making an assumption based on my life experience and should be called out for that. You may well be correct that the English are not the single group most often used as the goat among the Irish. In the modern era it is likely that the case is now one of the Irish forgiving the English and all is happy in the land.
Perhaps I didnât get my tone across as well as I had hoped. Itâs my contention that all prejudice towards peoples are misplaced and come from a place of misinformation and not that I or anyone I speak with hate the English. What I did say, was that when Iâve heard the subject of Irish slavery brought up by Irish people it has largely been in the context of how the English have historically treated the Irish people. i.e The English are the worst so to speak.
Your no true Irish argument is compelling.[quote=âmilliefink, post:107, topic:74747â]
I donât what you mean in this context by âexposition,â but if youâre still directly addressing me here, I donât recall my labeling anyone in this thread a racist or a bigot
[/quote]
I was recalling your point about exposing the myth as a lie. I simply feel that exposing caries with it the âAh ha! Caught you being racistâ tone with it and I think itâs better to be gentle and educate rather than try to expose something. My central point remains that kindness and education are more civil tools than calling people racists due to their ignorance. Are some people who repeat the slavery myth racist? Sure. Of course. Knowing that, what do we do about it? You have my opinion.
So George III (ethnically German though he be) was not the King of England?
Nope.
From 1760 to 1801:
George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth
From 1801 to 1820:
George the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith.
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Thatâs not my point at all. The English most probably are the single most often abused group among the Irish globally. In Ireland Iâd probably argue that resentment to Travellers and Eastern block immigrants is much higher these days. My point was that on the whole the Irish, particularly in The Republic of Ireland (the North is sort of its own fucked up little story) arenât all that actively invested in using anyone as a âgoatâ. The concept that they do plays directly into stereotypes of the Irish as resentful, angry, violent, and obsessed with the past. And Iâm extremely displease by the idea of such things as a sort of marker for Irish identity.
Defeated by the technicalities of language! DAMN IT ALL.
Iâve been doing some reading (in Hospital w/ time on my hands) and Iâve found some interesting reading on the state of agriculture at the time, the politics in the UK at the time of the blight - specifically Peel and the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 along with the agricultural impact the blight had, in not only the destructive effects of famine, but in redistribution of wealth (by way of land ownership) and how the Irish Cotter pretty much disappeared in the years following the onset of the blight via such lovely mechanisms as the Congested Districts Board.
In reading this, it keeps bringing me back to a central question that is every bit as applicable today: why is it when wealth flows from poor to rich, itâs a good thing (usually done under the guise to âhelpingâ), but when it flows from rich to poor itâs a bad thing⌠and why the rich can inherit immeasurable sums of wealth for doing nothing and thatâs not only not bad itâs ânormalâ and yet investing that wealth back into society as a whole itâs - whoa, hands of my stack ya commie!
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I was not aware that the police in the USA were more likely to stop-and-frisk if you were red-haired and wearing a Boston Celtics or Notre Dame shirt.
Seems like the notion of âIrish slavesâ was created as a way to justify not caring about current racism towards others. Even if there were Irish slaves, the fact that they overcame it has nothing to do with their heritage or the nature of slavery, and everything to do with their pale skin in a society where the pale-skinned have always dominated.
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Iâm not so sure I ever painted a general attitude towards the English as an active investment in hatred. If I did, then it was not my intent to do so. I was using it as a context under which the discussion of Irish slavery and the events in Barbados often takes place in a discussion about how prejudice is born of ignorance and misinformation.
In other words, the discussion often follows the familiar pattern of âthey even made slaves of usâ and is then followed by a demonstration of ignorance and misinformation.
This is not to say such discussions are commonplace at all. But rather the context under which Iâve personally heard (as apposed to internet fuckary) the subject broached. Your resentment at the characterization of Irish as resentful notwithstanding.
