After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Great Irish Famine: Coffin Ships & the Dark Truth (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

1847 was the darkest year in the spiralling horror of the Great Irish Famine. It is known in Ireland as 'Black '47'. The British Government withdrew its support, leaving famine and disease to stalk the land. Those who could leave Ireland did, sailing on board 'Coffin Ships'.Today Anthony concludes his two-part history of the Great Irish Famine with the help of special guest Professor Christine Kinealy, Director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University.Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long and Freddy Chick.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here.

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I'm Maddy. And I'm Anthony. And today we're returning to our special history of Angartham War, the Great Irish Famine. If you haven't listened to the first episode yet, go back and check that one out now. Last week, we heard about how a fungal blight had spread from North America to Belgium and arrived in Ireland in the late autumn and winter of 1845. This set in motion a chain of natural tragedies and political ineptitudes that, through 1846, saw the Irish people searching the fields near their homes looking for scraps to eat. But that was nothing compared to what was about to unfold in 1847, a date known in Irish retellings of this history as Black 47. Over to

Anthony. Once again, I am so lucky to be joined by Professor Christine Keneally, who will be helping me to tell this history. Following the spiraling horrors of 1845 and 1846, it is unimaginable to say that worse was still to come. And yet, by 1847, that is exactly what unfolded across the island of Ireland. It has become known as the worst year of the famine, as Black 47. In 1847, and we do call it Black 47, the British government brought to an end the system of public works. People were dying in their thousands, but from the British perspective, they were expensive to maintain because there was such a massive bureaucracy attached to them.

So they were closed and actually closed very summarily, mostly in March 1847, a decision by a civil servant, Charles Trevelyan, who believed that Ireland needed to change and that the famine was a punishment of God. And they actually said, what God has deemed, we shouldn't intervene too much. In the summer of 1847, the British government introduced soup kitchens as a form of interim relief. The soup kitchen episode is fascinating for many reasons. They brought a French chef, Alexis Sawyer, over from London. He worked at the famous reform club. And he devised 10 to 12 recipes that he said should be fed to the Irish

and would be nutritious. And he actually devised a famous soup kitchen where people could come in, drink their soup and leave very, very quickly. By July 1847, over 3 million people, 40% of the Irish population were receiving soup and bread from these so-called soup kitchens. And that is a tremendous logistical exercise. And what it shows, and I think conclusively, is that the British government had the logistic and the administrative ability to feed the Irish people.

But for political and ideological reasons, they chose not to. And so in August 1847, the soup kitchens were closed and instead the poor law, based on the workhouse system, became the main mechanism for providing relief. From the British government's perspective the benefit of closing the soup kitchens and changing to a poor law system of relief was that the whole financial burden would now fall upon the Irish taxpayer. And so very much at this stage, the British government is saying, despite the United

Kingdom, you are on your own from this point onwards. And the poor law and the increase in taxation that it entailed because of this transfer to relief actually put a burden on Irish landlords. And even Irish landlords who had been pretty sympathetic to their tenants up to that point said, we can no longer afford to pay this taxation while we are not receiving any rents. And so post 1847, there was a massive amount of evictions. And after that, homelessness became as much of a problem as hunger in Ireland. as much of a problem as hunger in Ireland. A wave of evictions now saw small holding tenant farmers ejected from their homes.

Irish constabulary forces, along with teams of ex-military men armed with machinery and weaponry, would routinely descend on a cottage behind a pack of snarling dogs and drag entire families into the open fields. snarling dogs and drag entire families into the open fields. Then, for the rise, the constabulary and their hired militia would smash the cottage, burn its roof and allow the home they once knew to become nothing more than rubble and dust. In one such instance in County Clare, when a man named Thomas Walters, along with his wife and 10 children, were unceremoniously evicted from their cottage.

Their parish priest, Martin Meehan, denounced the actions as they were turned out immediately before the joyous festival of Christmas. Their rents paid up. There was no crime against them. We think after 1847, maybe as many as 800,000 evictions, which is a tremendous amount of evictions. And when people were evicted, and sometimes quite brutally evicted, they were not allowed to return to their homes. And for those who lived in better quality accommodation, and they had the thatched roof, the roof was actually set on fire or it was destroyed to ensure people could not come back into their homes.

Now evicted, Manny had no option but to starve and perish on the roadside. They took shelter where they could. The January 18th edition of the London Times, for instance, reproduced a report from the Cork Examiner in 1847, which showed the Irish had taken to living amongst the animals. Yesterday, a man was discovered half-concealed in a pigsty, in such a revolting condition that humanity would shrink at a description of the body. It was rapidly decomposing, but no neighbour had yet offered his services to cover the loathsome remains. Death has taken forcible possession of every cabin.

Poor Coughlin of the Board of Works was crawling home a few nights ago when hunger and exhaustion seized him within a few yards of his house, where he was found the following morning a frightening example of road mortality. where he was found the following morning a frightening example of road mortality. Amidst these degrading and dehumanising conditions, and to spare their shame, neighbours forsook one another where once they had come together. As the novelist Paul Lynch has commented, survivors of the Great Irish Famine could not afford to be heroes in the face of such brutality.

Lynch says that to survive people had to connive, to lie and steal. You might have had to turn a blind eye to your neighbour. You might have taken food from your children. You might have had to kill. Cannibalism, documented in every famine on human record, is something the Irish still do not want to address. is something the Irish still do not want to address. Such was their unparalleled suffering that people did resort to cannibalism, as the Rector of Ballinrobe recalled. In a neighbouring union, a shipwrecked human body was cast on shore. A starving man extracted the heart and liver,

and that was the maddening feast on which he regaled himself and his perishing family. Cannibalism is a taboo area. And so it's not something that's going to be written about or talked about or part of famine memory necessarily. But it seems inevitable that when people are starving, they would do desperate things. And again, it raises all sorts of moral dilemmas. If you or your family are starving, what would you do? And I think none of us know what we are capable of because we are not in that situation. I think from my own research, I've come across maybe two or three cases where cannibalism is talked about in newspapers. But again, it is such a strong taboo area, both then and still today. In terms of looking for evidence of it, it's very hard to find.

But when we look at other situations where people are starving, it's something they do. So why would our ancestors not have done that? Despite these hellish scenes, evictions continued. And in 1847, the journalist James McCarthy was tasked with attending them and recording the events that unfolded. McCarthy did not close his eyes to the sorrow that came with his task, the human tragedy and cruelty that one man in power might exert on another man in need. In the aftermath of such domestic violences, McCarthy documented that families were often left to borrow into the earth for shelter. The more evictions that occurred,

more apathy developed amongst the exhausted Irish themselves, and in time, resistance just disappeared. There were even accounts from some areas that evictees had helped the Constabulary to dismantle their former homes themselves. With no food in their bellies, no fight in their heart and no strength in their bones, what more could they do but acquiesce as the rain poured down about them? Each drop on their skin served as an intermittent reminder that they were indeed alive, that this was not just some nightmarish realm. Thus left to the wilderness and their hunger,

it was recorded that these poor creatures wandered the desolate landscape, gaunt and miserable, being hunted there as wolves by the bloodhounds of the unchristian, that diabolical system which had turned many into desert wastes and howling wilderness. In this hopeless land, incidents of cruelty piled on top of one another

until they all came to be part of the same horrible violation. By now, the Cork Examiner, along with the people of Ireland, had lost all hope. What cares this English official for the starving people? What sympathy could he have for their misery? What fellow feeling in their distress is a heartless mockery, this creating Englishmen and Scotchmen into viceroys, giving them jurisdiction and sway over a warm-hearted people in whose elevation they take no interest,

for whose prosperity they are not proud, and for whose afflictions they do not grieve. Faced with such desolation and inhumanity, it is no wonder that emigration became an intrinsic part of the Irish identity and their drive to survive. We spread across the globe between 1845 to 1849 and, of course, thereafter. Most notably, we left for North America aboard ships which later became known as coffin ships, disease-ridden, unsanitary vessels which threatened to end the lives of those who were sufficiently desperate to sail in them. It has been estimated by curators at the Dunbrodie Famine Ship in County Wexford

that somewhere between 20 to 50% of those who travelled on board these coffin ships perished due to the inhumane conditions on board. Robert White, a passenger on one of these coffin ships, described these conditions in the diary he kept while he braved the Atlantic Ocean. He remembered, A few convalescents appeared on deck. The appearance of the poor creatures was miserable in the extreme. We now had fifty sick, being nearly one half of the whole number of passengers. Some entire families, being prostrated, were dependent on the charity of their neighbours.

The brother of the two men who died on the sixth instant followed them today. The old sails all being used up, his remains were placed in two meal sacks. White's account highlights the hardships that passengers faced on coffin ships, as almost half of the ship's passengers were sick and so many had died that the old sails were used up by burying people at sea. By 1849, the worst of the famine, it seemed, had mercifully passed. Across a blackened landscape and under a navy sky, a glimmer of light burned in the distance. But as this light grew, Ireland would emerge ever altered. Over the past two episodes, we have been trying to explain Ireland's darkest chapter. Now,

we began this journey because of an email we received from a listener called Charlotte, and I think it's only right that we end with one of her direct questions. She asked us, I'm curious as to what Queen Victoria was doing and thinking during that terrible time that caused so many deaths. So just to put it in context, Queen Victoria at the time of the Great Hunger was a relatively young woman. She was still in her twenties, but she'd been monarch since she was 18. We know she had very little interest in Ireland. I know there have been a lot of TV shows and some Hollywood films that try and show her in a very sympathetic light, but I think it's really not evidence-based.

I've been through her diaries, which are based in Windsor Castle. Really, she had very little sympathy for the Irish. In 1847, a landlord in County Roscommon, Major Dennis Mahon, was assassinated. She wrote in her diary, oh, these awful Irish people. She really saw them through the prism of them being troublesome and violent. And so very little sympathy, I would say, from Queen Victoria. But what did she do during the famine? Well, she did make a number of donations.

she do during the famine? Well, she did make a number of donations and her first one was made 1st of January 1847 to a group that had formed especially to provide relief. And it was a remarkable group in many ways. They raised over 15,000 individual donations. In the currency of the time, they raised almost half a million pounds. But the Prime Minister persuaded Queen Victoria that as head of state, she should be the first person to give money. And that correspondence still survives. It's in the National Library in Ireland. And we know her first donation was £1,000. She was told that was not enough. So she raised it to £2,000 with a promise to give more if necessary. But outside those donations, she really did very little for Ireland. In 1849, the Queen did decide to visit her subjects in Ireland at last. It was felt that seeing their young, vibrant, well-fed monarch

might enliven the people, now that the worst had passed for most of them. It was the first time the Queen had set foot in Ireland, despite having been on the throne for over a decade, and given the events of the previous four years, and the civil unrest across Ireland during the 50 years prior, one might have expected this royal visit to have been an utter disaster. But when she arrived at Cove Harbour, Her Majesty was greeted with cheering and whooping and hollering and celebration. She hadn't visited Ireland,

and like her relationship with Scotland, which was very dear and very close, she had no interest in going to Ireland, and she was persuaded to go in 1849 for the first time. Visit was really part of a propaganda exercise by the British government to say, the famine is over, you can come and invest in Ireland now because there's lots of land being sold very cheaply.

She stayed just for a few days. She travelled around by yacht and she only went three more times during her very long reign. Their queen had come at last. Now she walked amongst them. All was well, or so the official record ran as workhouses continued to overflow with those displaced and disregarded

during the acute starvation of the preceding years. The British government in Ireland had declared the crisis over, but the Irish had not forgotten what they had lost. Their land, their food, their families and friends, and perhaps most precious of all, their dignity. It's hard to know when the famine ended. Most historians sort of say 1852, because by 1852, good harvest had returned to Ireland. There was more stability in terms of the economy. But in terms of actual poverty, if you look at people in the workhouse,

throughout the 1850s, it's far higher than it was before 1845. So in that sense, it hadn't stabilised. The historian Professor Terry Eagleton has called the Great Irish Famine, quote, Professor Terry Eagleton has called the Great Irish Famine, quote, the greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe, an event with something of the characteristics of a low-level nuclear attack. During and in the aftermath of the famine, starvation and disease had ended 1.1 million lives, while another 2 million people had left Ireland's shores,

establishing proud dynasties across the world. In terms of emigration, emigration peaks 1854. I think one million people emigrated in that year alone and it maintains its high level throughout the 19th century. Population continues to fall in a shocking, shocking manner. 1841, about eight and a half million. 1861, about six and a half million. 1901, about 8.5 million. 1861, about 6.5 million. 1901, about 4.5 million people. And as we know to this day, the population of the island of Ireland has not reached the number it was in 1841. In 1997, to mark the 150th anniversary of Black 47, British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement which was delivered to a large television audience by the Irish actor Gabriel

Byrne. Blair admitted that, quote, those who governed in London at the time failed their people by standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy. It was reported at the time by some Irish media outlets that this, finally, was a formal apology for the role the British administration had played in worsening the famine and conditions for the Irish in the mid-19th century. The British government, however, and governments since, have backpedalled and insisted it was no such thing. Subsequently, briefing documents from Blair's Foreign Office have acknowledged that the role the British played in the Irish famine was, quote, a difficult issue in presentational terms. It was made more difficult, this document

commented, by the insistence of some Irish people and some North American people of Irish descent who were, quote, determined to vilify the actions of the British government. Rather than tackle these accusations head on, it was felt the Blair government ought to avoid them at all costs, for as they saw it, quote, this is not a battle we can win. I don't have the language, and I know people who witness the famine just don't have the language to really describe how awful this is and how awful it is.

I think especially when considering the context of Ireland being part of the United Kingdom and being part of the very resource rich British Empire, this famine should not have happened. Culturally, we know it had a massive impact in terms of the decline of the Irish language. There was a very famous quote by a famine survivor who said, music, poetry and dancing died. These things never returned as they had been. And then one fairly new piece of research is based on epigenetics, which looks at the DNA of people. And by studying people who've undergone severe and sustained malnutrition or trauma, it actually embeds in the DNA of men and women for five generations. So my generation is still part of that generation where the famine is in our DNA, quite literally.

Whether our ancestors stayed on these shores or left, Angortha Mhór, the great Irish famine, has perhaps defined us in ways we ought never to have been defined. It still casts a distant but darkening cloud when we remember the plight of those from whom we have descended, from whose emaciated shadows we stepped forth into a brighter future. Then again, it has positioned us uniquely across the world. The legacy of the great Irish famine has cast us to the four winds. Thus blown asunder, we have taken root wherever we were offered rest. Once rested, then, we went on to build and govern the very nations that were once alien and foreign to us.

To call them home. Today, Ireland remembers those who felt compelled to help us when we were not allowed to help ourselves. We are also forced to recall those who did not offer a neighbourly hand. And yet, since our hard-won, and as some would see it, incomplete independence, we now enjoy the privileges of our clemency and compassion. Clemency for those who turned a blind eye when we were in need, and compassion for others across the world who demand our attention today, just as our fellow Irishmen and women did in the 1840s. As I said at the outset, this is an Irish history, without doubt. But it is also a British history. I hope that

this is clear now. Further, of course, it is an American history. It is a world history. We have all been shaped by Angartha Moore, for better or worse. This history, if we are brave enough to stare it down, tells us who we were, who we are, and who we hope to be. Thank you. Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr. Six wives, six lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII, who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Before the break, I ended by saying that this history is a British history, an American history,

a world history, as well as possibly the more obvious Irish history. So now we're going to broaden the scope a little bit. And Maddy has joined us back again. Christine is still with us. And we're going to discuss some of the big questions and I guess some of the what might seem like really obvious questions to me and maybe to Christine who have grown up with this history, but maybe not to some of the listeners who might not know that much about the Irish famine other than something got to do with potatoes. And on that note, and this is just a beginning thing, I suppose, nothing irks me more than to hear the Irish famine, or Angorthamore, as we say in Ireland, called the potato famine. It belittles it a little bit. I was wondering what you think about that, Christine. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think calling it potato famine reduces it to one single thing.

And potatoes were important. We know they were the subsistence food of perhaps 40% of the population. And the potato crop failure triggered what became known as the Great Famine. But to suggest it was a potato failure alone that led to mass starvation and mass emigration is really misleading. Maddy, this is where we bring you in and get you to represent the whole of the British nation. What did you know about the Irish famine growing up in the English education system? Not a huge amount, to be honest. I don't even remember doing it at school. And certainly if it was mentioned, it would have been in passing. And the word potato would absolutely have been in the headline of that conversation. In more recent years, you know,

there's been, I can think of a handful of examples of public history in this country. I'm thinking about documentaries that maybe are looking at British and Irish history, for example, that have covered it. And so I have a slightly better understanding of this time period, the complex unfolding of these events and the relationship between Britain and Ireland. But still, I don't think it's something that's in our British public consciousness. It's not something that I covered at university even. It's a real blind spot in my knowledge of Irish history. And one thing that I would like to get out of this conversation is really a question about where people like me who maybe haven't come to this topic before, where we can access that information, where we can find out more. What museums can we go

to? What collections can we look at? What books can we read? What documentaries can we watch that's going to give us an insight into this? Yeah, thanks, Maddy. And I think what you say is really interesting and not surprising. I also spent time in the English education system, both as a student and as a teacher, so University Liverpool. So I sort of understand exactly what you're saying and the absence of knowledge about Irish history, which given Britain's closest neighbour, given the historic relationship, is in some ways shocking, but not surprising. But what's really interesting is that before 1995, there were many silences.

There was really very little literature written about the Great Famine. There were only two major history books, which took very divergent interpretations. The first one, which was published in 1956, was saying, well, we shouldn't really blame the British. We mustn't get too emotional. And let's not talk about death because that's a bit unpleasant. So a very sanitized view of the famine. The other book, which was published in 1962 by a woman, Cecil Wooden Smith, who some people think she was a man, she was a woman, who had Irish ancestry. People sometimes thought it was too emotional, but it's an incredible, evocative, powerful narrative of the famine and in its various manifestations.

So even though it's 1962, it really has stood the test of time in some ways. time in some ways. But what's really interesting, 1995, when Ireland was changing, the Celtic Tiger, cultural renaissance, the start of the peace process, and suddenly people seemed to feel comfortable with looking in Ireland, at looking back, this very uncomfortable aspect of our history. And so there was a great outpouring of books. I was part of that outpouring. My first book came out at the very end of 1994, and people wanted to know more about the famine. So particularly in 1995, which was the 150th anniversary of the first appearance of blight, there was great curiosity about the famine. And really, and to my amazement, and actually I'm delighted, that curiosity in Ireland has not really diminished because even to this day in May, we'll be celebrating the annual famine commemoration, which is again quite recent.

Only last year they put up a famine statue in Glasgow. And so people are still interested in the famine. In fact, the famine commemoration is going to mark the start of a famine walk, which is a recreation of people who evicted from Strokestown in 1847, 1,490 people who walked from Strokestown in Roscommon, 100 miles along the canal. From Dublin, they went to Liverpool, and from Liverpool, they went to Canada, and about a third of them perished on the way. And that led to the assassination of the landlord, Dennis Mahon. But that route has actually been commemorated with the National Famine Way. And that walk will take place again in May this year. And this year,

they're extending it to Liverpool. So Britain is going to be part of this National Famine Way, and then it's going to be extended to Canada. So I think if we think of Britain, Liverpool is one of the few places in England, Scotland is different, that has remembered the history of the famine and commemorated it. But for the rest of England, the famine has not been remembered. And to me, I'm still shocked that there is no famine memorial in London. And I think that really is a sad reflection on still remaining attitudes towards Ireland. What strikes me about the events or the ways that it's been commemorated so far is that they're quite ephemeral, they're quite related to the landscape, but they seem to require the involvement and performance by other people.

require the involvement and performance by other people. And I wonder how, thinking about the lack of a permanent memorial in London, do you think there's still room for something more permanent? Or is the ephemerality and the immersiveness of some of those events the thing? Is that what's so important and powerful about them? So memorials come in, I think, many, about them. So memorials come in, I think, many, many different forms. And I think I like that creativity and that imagination and that sense of place and space that many memorials bring with them. One of my favourites, I don't know if you've seen it, the National Famine Memorial underneath Crowpatrick in County Mayo near Westport is by John Behan, a local artist. He's done a few based on this theme. I'm on this outside the United Nations, but it's a ship. And when you look at it, it's just a ship and it seems very

sparse. But as you get closer, the ship is actually made up of skeleton figures and it's very, very eerie. And again, I think that tells a story about the famine and about emigration. So I think in London, what is appropriate to London, given it was the seat of political power, both for the United Kingdom and for the British Empire? But I think some acknowledgement of the involvement of the British government would really be important. Do you think, Christine, that an apology, a formal apology, we've had this conversation, haven't we, in terms of 1997, when the Blair government did slash didn't issue an apology. There was, Maddy, there was this thought that the Blair government...

Well, it was read by Gabriel Byrne, but that he had said that the British administration at the time were inadequate the way they had responded. And in Ireland, this was very much picked up as a formal apology. But very quickly afterwards, the Blair government was like, no, no, that's not what we were saying. We weren't giving a formal apology. Is it pie in the sky stuff to talk about formal apologies? I think apologies are good. I think they're cathartic. They release a lot of tension. So I remember the Blair apology pretty well. It was very controversial. Some

newspapers, the right wing newspapers in London, the Telegraph, if I may call them that, said he's gone too far. He's pandering to Republican nationalism. He shouldn't do this. Some unionists in the north of Ireland were outraged that, again, a British politician was not representing them in saying this. Some nationalists felt he hadn't gone far enough because, as you know, he did not use the word sorry. But again, at the time, and having lived through that period when there was such silence, such denial, I saw it as being cathartic, therapeutic, and positive. It wasn't totally done for altruistic reasons, I would say. We know that now. We know that, in fact, Tony Blair probably wasn't even aware that his civil servants were creating this apology.

But whatever, I do think it served a purpose at the time. So I am a fan of apologies. That is very personal to me. Another apology, I don't know if it's necessary, but I think an acknowledgement that, yes, as you say, his words were, we failed the Irish people. We could have done more. I think some sort of memorial, a lasting memorial, would be powerful. And I think, again, Maddy, to come back to your question, for people to come, and I think statues to say, well, what does that mean? Why is that there? I think if it starts people thinking and a debate, and then maybe even thinking about food

security today, I think it's positive. So I am in favour of apologies and I'm in favour of memorials. I know there will be some people potentially listening to this. And if they've listened this far, then fair play. If they've felt a little bit affronted maybe by some of the narrative that I have said in terms of, I mean, one of the first things I opened the first episode was saying, if you feel a little bit affronted by some of the things that are said here, especially if you're not Irish, then just pause for a second and try and take it in. And I've also talked about giving this history back to Britain to do something with themselves, because this is their history too. It's not just an Irish history.

What do you think makes people beyond Ireland a little affronted by some of this sometimes? What do you think makes them uncomfortable about this history? I really don't think people should be affronted. And if I'm critical, let me just say I'm critical of the British government. And this was a British government that did not represent the vast majority of people in Britain at the time. Britain was not a democracy as we understand it. I think one in seven people, I think one in seven men, if I can qualify that, had the vote. So when I talk and I criticise the actions of the British government, I very much mean the British government. I do not mean the British people. This was a government that was mostly landed, largely aristocratic,

and very remote from the people, and had very little sympathy with people who were poor in Britain. You only have to read Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, 1834, I think, to understand what was going on in Britain. So I honestly don't think people in general should be affronted. But what I would say to them is, look at the world we're living in today. Issues like the famine, when we understand the famine, that did not have to happen. A lot of the poverty, displacement that exists in the world today does not have to happen. And I think it's a challenge. How do we address these issues and do it in a way that brings humanity and dignity to the people? And again, I think

that's a lesson we can learn from the great Irish famine. Something that really struck me, Christine, while you were talking about some of the planned events that are going to happen, including events in Liverpool actually, was just how that distance that separates, the geographical distance that separates Britain from Ireland, has I think meant for a lot of Brits, the legacies in the landscape that I'm thinking in particular of the roads in Ireland, you know, they're so visible and now acknowledged as part of that legacy, that because that is invisible to people living in Britain, certainly in England, because it's been to a certain extent out of sight and out of mind

in the century and a half since this happened. If you think that that's one of the reasons why this period has been forgotten in terms of British history, how Brits tell their own history to each other. I think I would like to broaden this out to say it's not just Irish history that's invisible. I think Britain's role as a coloniser is largely invisible. And I think I would like to broaden it out to say it's not just Irish history that's invisible. I think Britain's role as a coloniser is largely invisible. And I think it's because it's unpleasant. There are so many unpleasant aspects of being a coloniser. But I think actually remembering and acknowledging and confronting these unpalatable aspects of our history is, again, I think it's healthy. I think it's good for us. And I think it's something we should know. I don't think people in Britain today

are to blame for the famine or to blame for Britain's history of colonisation. They are not. But it doesn't mean that they shouldn't understand what happened. And they shouldn't say, you know, they should say never again. But I think only by understanding that are you in that position to say never again. Obviously, the ways in which history is being disseminated is changing now. And you spoke about the books that were released around the 1995 mark and since, thankfully, that have been really instrumental. But one of the ways in which Irish people and people across the world are receiving their history now is on TikTok. And I post myself on TikTok every now and again. And one of the videos I posted about the Great Irish Famine is, I think, maybe the most watched, certainly the most engaged with video that I have. And a lot of the engagement is from younger Irish people in their maybe early 20s or whatever it might be. And a lot of the feedback to me was, call it what it is, call it

genocide. And I find this focus, and I think it's progressed to this, Christine, I'd be interested to know what you think. I don't think there's always been this focus on the famine, that it had to be a genocide to be horrendous, which it very clearly was horrendous and inhumane and all those things. But I just wonder what you make of that push now to categorise the great Irish famine as a genocide. Yeah, I think by just imposing a label on something, you're actually losing, as we talked about, the complexity, the nuances, and actually becomes a lazy way of describing something without, I think, understanding it. But I'm not a fan of using the term genocide in relation

to the Irish famine. Genocide, as you know, probably, the word was first used, I think, about 1944 during the terrible Holocaust, because there was no language to describe the awfulness of what was happening. In 1948, the United Nations actually codified what was genocide. So we have a very clear definition of what constitutes genocide, and it's a legal definition. So again, sometimes people use it very glibly, but in its origin, it is very legalistic. And in order to prove genocide, you have to prove intent. And I know in my lifetime, this was actually, I think, 2014 in New York, a famine tribunal of lawyers from both Ireland and America who actually examined that issue. And some of them tried very hard to prove it was genocide. But in legalistic terms, they couldn't.

They just couldn't. And as a historian, if I wanted to point to one or two or three documents that show intent that this is what the British government intended to do, I couldn't find them. So although I very strongly believe the British government was culpable, that the famine was not inevitable, I would not use the word genocide. Because again, genocide, I think we should respect what genocide is. And I don't think we should dilute it. what genocide is. And I don't think we should dilute it. And I think we should learn what actually happened and understand the nuances of what happened without just applying a label. I think if we jump too quickly into the genocide bracket, it means we miss things. It means we misunderstand. And look, what we want to make very clear is this, that does not mean it wasn't an absolutely horrendous

historical event that has real world repercussions now and is having, you know, other repercussions in other countries in terms of famine and in terms of the impact of famine for other nations now. But it does a disservice to the events that unfolded between 1845 and 1852, let's say. I think we miss things when we look at them in such simplistic terms. It's been such a pleasure, Christine, to hear you speak and to have these conversations with you. But I think it's only fitting

that we give the last word to you. So I'm just wondering if there's anything you think we should know, our listeners should know, people across the world should know that sometimes is too easily overlooked about the Great Irish Famine? Is there a thought, an idea, or something that you'd like to leave us with? I think when I think about the Irish Famine, and I think about many famines in the world today, they are not inevitable, they are man-made. And because they are man-made, I think we have the

resources to actually stop them happening. And if I take any pleasure from my understanding of the Great Famine, it is we can stop famines from happening in the world today, and we should. Well, thank you very much for listening to this episode and to our amazing guest, Christine. If you would like to get in contact with us to add your voice to the conversation in any way way we'd love to hear from you at after dark at historyhit.com that's after dark at historyhit.com welcome to true spies the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. You'll meet the people who live life undercover.

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