Maggie's Farm

"This last trip, we returned two weeks ago, we heard several stories from the local Irish we spoke with about Catholics being forced to convert if they wanted to eat."

Souperism certainly did occur during the Famine, but it was by no means widespread. However, it has become yet one of those folk stories about the Famine that routinely get bandied about for sectarian purposes.

In fact, various Protestant denominations offered relief without regard to the religion of the recipient, most notably the Quakers, who are still regarded with considerable respect for their efforts by my family.

Sorry, missed a word there. Read the lines as:

"Souperism certainly did occur during the Famine, but it was by no means widespread. However, it has become yet one more of those folk stories about the Famine that routinely get bandied about for sectarian purposes."

By far the best book on the Famine is The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith (a female writer despite the name), which was first published in 1962. I highly recommend you give it a read.

It takes a hard look at the causes and effects of the Famine while neither pandering to Irish Nationalist mythology nor succumbing to the usual patronizing English stereotypes about the Irish.

The blight occurred at a time when the Penal Laws were already history - and Catholic Emancipation had largely been achieved by 1829 (irony of ironies: the depopulation of Ireland would benefit a rising Catholic middle class).

By the way, if you are going to make an analogy with African-Americans, then the Irish tenant farmers might be seen as the equivalent not of slaves, but rather post-Civil War black sharecroppers. And since we're making such analogies here, it might also be well to remember that African-Americans were still suffering under "Penal Laws" in your country as late as the 1960s.

The British government of the day can never be exculpated from failing to act resolutely to provide immediate relief. The potato blight was not limited to Ireland but struck a number of European countries too. But these countries took immediate action to secure relief. Indeed, when the British government did begin to order relief supplies (largely North American Indian meal) it often found such supplies already reserved and purchased by Prussia, the Low Countries and others.

The exodus of destitute Irish to America created a permanent - and eventually highly influential - Irish-American demographic seething with bitter enmity towards Great Britain and all things British.

That was one of the biggest legacies of the Famine.