Ireland Park in Toronto, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Irish Potato Famine Decimates Population
In 1845 potatoes were more than a staple of the Irish diet, they were the sole crucial ingredient within an unbalanced agriculture. Created by lack of substantial farming land, reliance on such narrow agriculture threw the Irish into a deadly crisis when fungus from Mexico decimated Irish potato crops. Death criss-crossed Irish life leaving bodies everywhere and little hope. Survivors fled to Great Britain, Canada and the US. Around 1 million are estimated to have died and at least 1 million Irish left their homeland.
Government Inaction
Laissez-faire ideology dominated politics in Britain at the time. Government action as inaction prevailed. With Ireland plunged into chaos by the potato famine, British officials turned to free market surgeries to stop the bleeding. These attempts to solve the crisis had no effect other than worsening catastrophe and Ireland continued to bleed. Business was allowed to engage in a number of counter-productive practices including exporting food desperately needed by the poor at home. There was a widespread belief the market would find a way to meet demand. This belief failed because death and starvation had produced so much poverty there was little consumer market left to drive an economic recovery.
Famine memorial dublin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Through the lense of history, of course, laissez-faire ideology so popular then not only prevented government from acting to save Ireland, it also glazed over the subtext of intentional economic violence which was played off as a less intrusive system. The British seemed to favor any act, or lack of action, which would harm Ireland. It is the covert heavy handed governing created, ironically, by inaction that kept this famine bleeding Irish of life.
Hidden History Of Foreign Aid
There is new evidence other governments responded to the Great Potato Famine with action instead of laissez-faire policies. Once dismissed as myth, there is an increasing amount of evidence supporting accounts insisting Ottoman Sultan Abdul Madjd Khan sent three ships packed with food to the Irish.
In 2012, the Drogheda Independent shed new light on assistance from the Ottoman Empire:
During the week of May 10 to May 14, 1847, there is a reference in both the Drogheda Argus and the Drogheda Conservative newspapers to ‘foreign ships’ that docked at Drogheda that week. These included three ships from the Balkans, two of which arrived from the Ottoman Port of Thessalonica, which today is known as Salonika, while the third ship arrived at the same time from the port of Stettin. These three ships were carrying wheat and the ‘dreaded’ Indian Corn for local merchants in the Louth and Meath area.
Accounts have long suggested British turned away three ships of aid from the Ottoman Empire and that instead of returning home, the ships docked elsewhere in Ireland. Accounts tell stories of sailors from the Ottoman Empire sleeping overnight in Ireland before sailing home.
Historians are certain the Ottoman Sultan was focused on relieving Irish suffering during the famine. Records shows various donations to the Irish. With this record of charity in mind, it is easy to imagine three ships of foreign aid sent to Ireland. British negligence to remedy the problem is a part of the famine’s official history, making it easy to imagine records of foreign aid from the Ottoman Empire were erased from British and Irish history.
