Shuffling off

[Walsingham]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm

 

Perhaps we could trade people with other countries?

[Gorth]

You really need to check the quality of your beer

 

I wonder if they count the population of Gibraltar as Britons living in Spain :D

[Walsingham]

You really need to check the quality of your beer 

 

I wonder if they count the population of Gibraltar as Britons living in Spain  :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Gibraltar ain't Spain, buddy. But it isn't the UK, so I guess it would qualify.

[metadigital]

I see it makes no distinction for the Irish, who have been a large emigrant population for centuries, thanks to the British yoke; I couldn't even guess at home many Irish settled in Australia and the USA to escape persecution.

[Blank]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm

 

Perhaps we could trade people with other countries?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm in.

[Kroney]

I see it makes no distinction for the Irish, who have been a large emigrant population for centuries, thanks to the British yoke; I couldn't even guess at home many Irish settled in Australia and the USA to escape persecution.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

lol

 

The Irish weren't persecuted. At least, not in the common sense of the word. British yoke, indeed.

 

I expect you're one of those people that sympathises with the IRA, right? Freedom fighters, not terrorists, eh?

 

As a matter of historical fact, the Irish were treated far worse in the US than they were in their native Ireland. It is amazing to think that with all the persecuting us dastardly Brits were doing of the poor, down-trodden Irish people, that Ireland *still* managed to become the most densely populated country in Europe.

 

Irish emigration

Edited December 12, 2006 by Kroney

[metadigital]

I see it makes no distinction for the Irish, who have been a large emigrant population for centuries, thanks to the British yoke; I couldn't even guess at home many Irish settled in Australia and the USA to escape persecution.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

lol

 

The Irish weren't persecuted. At least, not in the common sense of the word. British yoke, indeed.

 

I expect you're one of those people that sympathises with the IRA, right? Freedom fighters, not terrorists, eh?

 

As a matter of historical fact, the Irish were treated far worse in the US than they were in their native Ireland. It is amazing to think that with all the persecuting us dastardly Brits were doing of the poor, down-trodden Irish people, that Ireland *still* managed to become the most densely populated country in Europe.

 

Irish emigration

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure what dictionary you are using, so here's one for you:

persecute

n verb

1 subject to prolonged hostility and ill-treatment.

2 persistently harass or annoy.

 

DERIVATIVES

persecution noun

persecutor noun

persecutory adjective

 

ORIGIN

Middle English: from Old French persecuter, from Latin persecut-, persequi 'follow with hostility'.

 

The Irish WERE persecuted, their land was confiscated and they suffered for their religion.

 

From the primary school link you provided:

In October 1845 a serious blight began among the Irish potatoes, ruining about three-quarters of the country's crop. This was a disaster as over four million people in Ireland depended on the potato as their chief food. The blight returned in 1846 and over the next year an estimated 350,000 people died of starvation and an outbreak of typhus that ravaged a weaken population. Despite good potato crops over the next four years, people continued to die and in 1851 the Census Commissioners estimated that nearly a million people had died during the Irish Famine. The British administration and absentee landlords were blamed for this catastrophe by the Irish people.

From the wiki:

Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia (see the Irish Diaspora).

...

The Famine was the product of a number of complex problems which affected nineteenth-century Ireland. One of the most central was the nature of landholdings. ... Landholding was, however, fundamentally altered by the Plantation of Ulster and the consequences of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

What did Cromwell do? I'm glad you asked:

Cromwell defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country - bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. He passed a very harsh series of Penal laws against Catholics and confiscated almost all of their land.

Oh, and let's see those figures in context, shall we:

In addition, in excess of one million Irish emigrated to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, while more than one million emigrated over following decades; by 1911, a combination of emigration and an abnormally high number of unmarried men and women in the population, had reduced the population of Ireland to 4.4 million.

 

And, just because the emigrants were treated poorly in Ireland doesn't preclude them being treated as bad or worse in the countries to where they emigrated.

 

At no point did I sympathize with the IRA (nice deductive fallacy of the hasty generalization variety).

[Gorth]

You really need to check the quality of your beer 

 

I wonder if they count the population of Gibraltar as Britons living in Spain  :D

 

Gibraltar ain't Spain, buddy. But it isn't the UK, so I guess it would qualify.

Anybody else notice how he sidestepped the issue of the beer quality? :-"

[Oerwinde]

You really need to check the quality of your beer 

 

I wonder if they count the population of Gibraltar as Britons living in Spain  :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Gibraltar ain't Spain, buddy. But it isn't the UK, so I guess it would qualify.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anybody else notice how he sidestepped the issue of the beer quality? "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They need to at least chill the stuff. Warm beer. WTF.

[alanschu]

I declare meta the winner!

[Kroney]

The Irish WERE persecuted, their land was confiscated and they suffered for their religion.

 

Again. Ireland in the early nineteenth century was the most densely populated country in Europe. Secondly, the Irish had ALWAYS held their land in tenancy from nobles. When the English moved in, yes by conquest, they simply took over systems already in place.

 

 

In October 1845 a serious blight began among the Irish potatoes, ruining about three-quarters of the country's crop. This was a disaster as over four million people in Ireland depended on the potato as their chief food. The blight returned in 1846 and over the next year an estimated 350,000 people died of starvation and an outbreak of typhus that ravaged a weaken population. Despite good potato crops over the next four years, people continued to die and in 1851 the Census Commissioners estimated that nearly a million people had died during the Irish Famine. The British administration and absentee landlords were blamed for this catastrophe by the Irish people.

 

Yes of course the English were blamed for it. The response to the Famine was an absolute farce. That doesn't make it a persecution. It was Governmental stupidity and an unwillingness to disrupt the cash flow they were getting from Ireland's other food exports.

 

Incidentally, the Famine did kick-start a lot of the emigration, but you'll have noticed, I'm certain, that the emigration actually started several years *before* the Famine.

 

Secondly, the Irish, on reached the States were treated far, *far* worse than they were at home; leading some to wish they had never left. Odd idea when you're fleeing religious and social persecution, don't you think?

 

From the wiki:

Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia (see the Irish Diaspora).

...

The Famine was the product of a number of complex problems which affected nineteenth-century Ireland. One of the most central was the nature of landholdings. ... Landholding was, however, fundamentally altered by the Plantation of Ulster and the consequences of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.

 

ome two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain....

 

So the people whose lands were being stolen from them and were suffering under the yoke of religious persecution and imperialism fled to the very country that was perpetrated these crimes?

What did Cromwell do? I'm glad you asked:

Cromwell defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country - bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. He passed a very harsh series of Penal laws against Catholics and confiscated almost all of their land.

 

Since you're a history buff, you'll already know that King Charles I raised an army from Ireland in order to try and retake his kingdom. You'll also know that from as far back as Henry II in the twelfth century, the Irish nobility and been intermingled with the English through diplomacy deals, small wars and the like. Ireland had not been a sovereign nation in centuries.

 

Cromwell was putting down the last royal resistance. Charles I was a secret Catholic. Protestant England had faced centuries of wars by Catholic Europe because of their religion. Now Ireland was taking part too. religious persecution is a funny old game. Swings and roundabouts, almost.

 

 

In addition, in excess of one million Irish emigrated to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, while more than one million emigrated over following decades; by 1911, a combination of emigration and an abnormally high number of unmarried men and women in the population, had reduced the population of Ireland to 4.4 million.

 

The emigration started during the early years of the nineteenth and ended ten years before Ireland became independant. Yes, I know the context. Ireland was heavily populated at the beginning of the nineteenth century. So were Germany and Italy. Surprisingly, the Germans and Italians also emigrated in huge numbers. Population density was the main reason, not persecution.

 

Certainly, the English didn't treat Ireland as a whole very well, but how much the average Irishman was treated any differently to how they were under the Irish High Kings is entirely debateable. It is certainly a fallacy to claim that the Irish emigrated because they were persecuted. The colony of America had been around since the fifteenth century, Ireland was under direct English rule since the seventeenth.

 

If the Irish persecution started under Cromwell, why then did it take 200 years for the Irish to start leaving?

 

Honestly, reading the way you speak about Britain in this and other threads, I wonder if you might have a tiny bit of a bias against the place.

Edited December 13, 2006 by Kroney

[alanschu]

Secondly, the Irish, on reached the States were treated far, *far* worse than they were at home; leading some to wish they had never left. Odd idea when you're fleeing religious and social persecution, don't you think?

 

This doesn't prove your statement. All you're saying is that it was worse when they got to the USA. You can't deduce that they weren't leaving because of persecution.

 

So the people whose lands were being stolen from them and were suffering under the yoke of religious persecution and imperialism fled to the very country that was perpetrated these crimes?

 

Well, it is quite close to Ireland, and you know, people are dying and all that. I'm guessing it was significantly cheaper to move to Great Britain. In order to make a conclusion though, you'd have to see what these people did after they arrived in Great Britain. They may have stayed temporarily, and emigrated the main island shortly afterwards.

 

 

Since you're a history buff, you'll already know that King Charles I raised an army from Ireland in order to try and retake his kingdom. You'll also know that from as far back as Henry II in the twelfth century, the Irish nobility and been intermingled with the English through diplomacy deals, small wars and the like. Ireland had not been a sovereign nation in centuries.

 

Such actions were not uncommon throughout all of medieval europe though.

 

Certainly, the English didn't treat Ireland as a whole very well, but how much the average Irishman was treated any differently to how they were under the Irish High Kings is entirely debateable. It is certainly a fallacy to claim that the Irish emigrated because they were persecuted. The colony of America had been around since the fifteenth century, Ireland was under direct English rule since the seventeenth.

 

But, in your own words, they hadn't been sovereign for "centuries" :]

 

Yes of course the English were blamed for it. The response to the Famine was an absolute farce. That doesn't make it a persecution. It was Governmental stupidity and an unwillingness to disrupt the cash flow they were getting from Ireland's other food exports.

 

Unfortunately, the perception of the people is what matters. If they feel they are being persecuted, then that is a viable reason for the emigration. If, upon hindsight, we look at it and say "You know, it wasn't really persecution" based on some application of the definition, it wouldn't mean that those that left because they felt they were being persecuted are wrong.

 

Having said that, I'm not sure how you can say that "it was Governmental stupidity and an unwillingness to disrupt the cash flow they were getting from Ireland's other food exports" while still holding the idea that they were not subjected to ill-treatment. Maintaining the food exports of Ireland while the people are starving in a famine is not ill-treatment?

 

 

Honestly, reading the way you speak about Britain in this and other threads, I wonder if you might have a tiny bit of a bias against the place.

 

And you could argue that you might be a bit bias in favour of it. It seems as though you live there based on your other posts, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if you're defensive about it. However, I believe Meta is also a Brit as well.

Edited December 13, 2006 by alanschu

[Kroney]

This doesn't prove your statement.  All you're saying is that it was worse when they got to the USA.  You can't deduce that they weren't leaving because of persecution.

 

Well if we're going down that route, you can't really prove that they did. Dead end.

 

Well, it is quite close to Ireland, and you know, people are dying and all that.  I'm guessing it was significantly cheaper to move to Great Britain.  In order to make a conclusion though, you'd have to see what these people did after they arrived in Great Britain.  They may have stayed temporarily, and emigrated the main island shortly afterwards.

 

Given the sheer number of Irish surnames throughout the Commonwealth, including the UK, it's fairly clear that a good few of them stayed.

 

You cannot deny that it would be very strange for a persecuted people to settle in the land that is persecuting them.

 

 

 

 

Such actions were not uncommon throughout all of medieval europe though.

 

And neither was religious persecution. Cromwell's faction were reactionary. The British Government of the time of the Diaspora was one that had declared religious tolerance several decades, if not centuries, ago and had outlawed slavery only a decade before.

 

 

But, in your own words, they hadn't been sovereign for "centuries" :]

 

I said "not truly sovereign, I believe. Semantics, possibly, but still not an absolute. Besides and at the very least, two hundred years *is* centuries.

 

Unfortunately, the perception of the people is what matters.  If they feel they are being persecuted, then that is a viable reason for the emigration.  If, upon hindsight, we look at it and say "You know, it wasn't really persecution" based on some application of the definition, it wouldn't mean that those that left because they felt they were being persecuted are wrong.

 

Having said that, I'm not sure how you can say that "it was Governmental stupidity and an unwillingness to disrupt the cash flow they were getting from Ireland's other food exports" while still holding the idea that they were not subjected to ill-treatment.  Maintaining the food exports of Ireland while the people are starving in a famine is not ill-treatment?

 

I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution. I don't think it's provable that the British Government was out to maliciously make life difficult for the Irish people, which seems to be metadigital's angle. I think the British Government created a human catastrophe through mismanagement and self-interest, but not through an act of persecution.

 

And you could argue that you might be a bit bias in favour of it.  It seems as though you live there based on your other posts, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if you're defensive about it.  However, I believe Meta is also a Brit as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You could, I won't deny that. It's not true, but you could argue it. I am a Brit, as it happens, but of Scottish descent. The Scots were every bit as badly treated by the English as the Irish were, in fact the Highland Clearances could be argued to be rather more of an act of persecution than the Famine. I don't personally believe it to be so, but it's certainly a position.

 

It's en vogue at the moment to think of the British Empire as some massive engine of persecution, which I don't believe was the case. I am wondering, however, if metadigital does.

 

As an addendum, I would like to point out the irony in calling a link "schoolboy" and then retaliating with a wiki.

Edited December 13, 2006 by Kroney

[Pop]

I'm kind of jumping into this, but

 

You cannot deny that it would be very strange for a persecuted people to settle in the land that is persecuting them.

Nonsense. Just look at the Jews, for christ's sake. They've been living that for centuries. Back in the Middle Ages, the church's position prohibited christians from lending money to one another, and thus the Jews filled the void in Europe. That's how a persecuted people stays in an area: They own property, are tied to a religious meeting place, gain some sense of pride, and they stay.

 

They were already educated (their standard religious education was light years ahead of christians at the time) and capable, so they became Europe's bankers, which is part of where that stereotype comes from. That's also part of the reason why they were persecuted. Drive the jews out of town and you'd never have to pay back your loans. But most of them stayed where they were until they were driven out by Catholic monarchies. Then a bunch of them went to Poland, and look where that got them.

 

The moral of the story: Stay away from Poland.

[Kroney]

I'm kind of jumping into this, but

 

You cannot deny that it would be very strange for a persecuted people to settle in the land that is persecuting them.

Nonsense. Just look at the Jews, for christ's sake. They've been living that for centuries. Back in the Middle Ages, the church's position prohibited christians from lending money to one another, and thus the Jews filled the void in Europe. That's how a persecuted people stays in an area: They own property, are tied to a religious meeting place, gain some sense of pride, and they stay.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

This is not the same thing. You are talking about a peopel moving to a place, gaining importance, being persecuted for it and then staying despite the persecution.

 

I am talking about a native people, being invaded, being persecuted and then moving to the homeland of the people persecuting them.

[blue]

It's en vogue at the moment to think of the British Empire as some massive engine of persecution . . .

People have felt that way for centuries--under colonial rule in India, Africa, America and Ireland. If anything emotions have cooled over time. Except perhaps in Belfast.

 

The sense of persecution is almost inevitable in regions with occupying foreign gov'ts. The level of outrage is often proportional to economic and/or humanitarian hardship.

 

I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution. I don't think it's provable that the British Government was out to maliciously make life difficult for the Irish people, which seems to be metadigital's angle. I think the British Government created a human catastrophe through mismanagement and self-interest, but not through an act of persecution.

Must acts of persecution be overt, coordinated and deliberate?

 

So what if historians can't discover incontrovertible proof of malicious intent? Pop's right: what matters is perception, and in the broadest definition persecution simply means persistent oppression--often because of race, religion or nationality.

 

I doubt your narrow definition would have been acceptable to early 20th-century Irish nationalists whose hatreds were partly fueled by the memory of British soldiers escorting Irish crops out of their country. To many Irish, the famine became a national catastrophe not simply because of fungus and mismanagement; families needlessly starved because of political and economic choices made by a British government that (they felt) viewed the Irish as a degenerate race. To this day there exists the perception that the British gov't quelled crop export protests because Irish lives were less important than the financial concerns of British landlords. Britain so valued its colonial economy that it withheld monetary aid (deliberately, some say), fearing that Irish revolutionaries would use money to buy guns. As with most foreign occupations, dead peasants were considered collateral damage. (Nothing new here, folks. Move along.)

 

Also, it's been suggested that some Irish moved to Britain because they were hungry. For many, starvation trumps politics.

[alanschu]

I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution.

 

Perhaps you should look at the definition of persecution that metadigital provided again.

[blue]

Perhaps you should look at the definition of persecution that metadigital provided again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's what I meant to say. (Also, in my previous msg I erroneously credited Pop; I meant to cite Alan re:perception. Sry.)

 

Anyway. The history of the Great Hunger is too complex for some generalizations. It's worth noting that many British figures in & out of gov't were sympathetic to the Irish and actively worked to save lives--helping create food lines or shipping in grain even as Ireland exported more than it took in.

 

Kroney's right in that the suffering wasn't simply a conspiracy orchestrated by the British elite. Here's an alternative: the Irish were persecuted by the bureaucracy of the British Empire.

 

Not sure there's a practical difference.

Edited December 13, 2006 by blue

[Kroney]

I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution.

 

Perhaps you should look at the definition of persecution that metadigital provided again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Exposure to prolonged hostility and ill-treatment.

 

And, not or. If anything the government was antipathetic, not overtly hostile. The word "persecution" implies intent.

[alanschu]

It does?

[blue]

The word "persecution" implies intent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not necessarily. While certain courts have held that some forms of persecution require intent (e.g. genocidal intent), many high courts have specifically ruled the other way, declaring that the definition of persecution does not need to include punitive intent. This has popped up in US, UK, UN & other decisions related to refugee law as well as prosecutions involving threats to life, liberty or bodily integrity.

[metadigital]

I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution.

 

Perhaps you should look at the definition of persecution that metadigital provided again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Exposure to prolonged hostility and ill-treatment.

 

And, not or. If anything the government was antipathetic, not overtly hostile. The word "persecution" implies intent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Irish famine was only one example.

 

I tend to think dispossessing the indigenous peoples and supplanting them English landlords qualifies. Basically England annexed her neighbours, going to war with them should they dare to revolt, and taking what she wanted from them, when she wanted. I'd call that "prolonged hostility and ill-treatment".

[Craigboy2]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210358.stm

 

Perhaps we could trade people with other countries?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Everyone should try living abroad for a while - I spent a year in Sweden as a student, and while that's hardly a "different" culture, it's great to gain a closer insight into how other people live" but why Australia? I pretty sure that is Britain's culture but with a twist.

[metadigital]

Yeah, they win games of sport there. ^_^

[Gorth]

Assuming Cricket is a sport of course

Edited December 14, 2006 by Gorth