Part Three: That Time Britain Did A Genocide in Ireland

Robert is joined by Prop for part three of our series on the Great Hunger. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome Behind the Bastards, the podcast about crimes against humanity.
I'm legally distinct from that mouse. I had to do it.
I hated it when you did it off, Mike and
you were just like making a joke to proper about
news we need it. I really hated it. And like,

(00:25):
I don't think you sound like the mouse that you're
trying to take. I think you sound like, uh, he
sounds like Donald Glover in that episode of Atlanta when
he when he's not Michael Jackson. Michael jacks Ye oh
that was that was the episode of that show. Oh wait, wait,
I'm sorry, I need to go along with the bit.

(00:46):
Oh god, are you are you doing kit? I'm a mouse?
Would you like to talk about the starvation genocide of
an island? Well, if we need to something that the
creator of this mouse was probably broadly fine with. I
hope both of you gett made fun of on the internet.

(01:08):
Here's the thing. I feel like our level of like
cool can take this sort of hit. I feel like
it were we we can't be canceled for making Mickey
Mouse supportive of a genocide. And and I mean Kerman
is one of the most beloved frogs he is, he's
a meme. He drinks tea and everyone permit, would never
support a genocide, not not at all. I mean maybe

(01:29):
tacit Lee with his tax dollars because he's not really
a fighter. But we all do right now, and then
it's not really a bit. It's more of like a
mediation about the necessity of supporting terrible things just because
you exist within a society where you don't have total
control over cannot help the ocean. You can't help the

(01:52):
ocean from being saltwater. Yeah, those just is Yep, it
just is. It just doesn't tell you. Yeah, speaking of
alt water, are you ready to get salty? My god?
I mean just call me sodium chloride baby. At the
end of last episode, we talked about Lord Hatesberry, who
was like, I don't think we know if his famine
thing is going to be a real problem yet, let's

(02:14):
she pulled off name on the nose. Now we're gonna
have another guy with a really horrible name. But he's
he's he's actually kind of chill, kind of cool. He's
not one of the real problems here, um, because there are,
it's worth noting. While overwhelmingly the English government allowed this

(02:36):
to happen and in many cases directly enabled the deaths
that are coming. Uh. There were people who were had
prominence in the government, like O'Connell that we've talked about,
but also folks who were English who tried very hard
to do something, and one of them was the unfortunately
named Sir Edward pine Coffin. Um, it doesn't seem like
the kind of guy who's going to try to help,

(02:57):
but Pine Coffin Edward pinecof And it spelled like, Okay, listen,
we're in a simulation. Bro, I'm Jina corps box. That's
his American cousin. Yeah, we're in a simulation because like
somebody wrote that script this well, yeah, one of the
fun things is actually in terms of coffins. So one
of the reasons you would want to go to like

(03:18):
a workhouse, and we'll talk about these more later, but
these are like the places poor people go well during
the worst parts of the famine is that when you die,
you get a coffin, which you can't you can't afford
otherwise right there, you can't get that. That's good, so
you get a box, but also you don't because they
just put you in the common in the coffin long
enough to take you to the mass grave and then
they dump you in. Oh my god, they yo that

(03:42):
steering wheel just jerk to them. You got me in.
I was like, okay, well at least you get a
oh wait near man. And one of the things. So
with these mass graves, a decent number of people get
buried alive, which is the thing that always happens in
mass graves. You find a lot of stories like that
from the Holocaust. One of the differences in when they
realize someone is alive in the mass grave here they

(04:03):
do try to rescue, trying to get him out, as
opposed to like just shooting them more, which is what
the Nazis did. So I guess that's a marketing British Empires. No,
it's not. Yeah, um so. Edward Pinecoffin is the Deputy
uh Commissioner of the government relief agency responsible for Ireland.

(04:24):
Scotland's potato crop had failed. Because again, this potato failure,
this is part of why people again reject calling it
the potato famine. There are failures of potato crops all
throughout Europe. It happens everywhere. The starvation happens in Ireland.
Um So, when Scotland's potato crop fails, Pine Coffin commandeers
a warship, fills it with food uh and sails around

(04:46):
the coast of Scotland, distributing it in starving villages. And
he tries to do the same thing in Ireland, but
Trevillian stops him because Travillion is the guy who controls
the purse drinks. So pine Coffin can't spend the money
he needs to fill these boats up with food without
Travali and say ahead. And while everybody's fine with that
food with money getting spent on the Scottish uh, Travillians

(05:07):
like not these people? Though not these what's the difference?
So pine Coffin has to watch helpless and pretty enraged
as like he's unable to take ships and food to Ireland.
But he keeps watching these ships filled with food depart
and increasingly starved island. Um So people begin dying heavily

(05:29):
in eighteen forty six, But before they a lot of
them are forced to make the decision do we spend
because we did have crops right which we can either
sell to pay our rent or we can eat. But
if we eat the food, that we have, then we
can't pay rent and we will get evicted right now.
I don't know if you know this. Bet Ireland prop

(05:50):
pretty wet. They're warm, not a warm part of the world,
not famous for its balmy weather. Um. Even in the summer,
it can be quite rough at night for people like it,
and especially during the fall and winter it gets very
cold and it's very wet. And by the way, these
people are so poor they don't have like like they
don't own jackets. Oftentimes they have sold basically there are

(06:12):
people sold everything, partly naked because they have sold anything
they have that could possibly be a value to try
to feed their children. So not without being indoors, people
will die UM. And if they don't sell their food
and turn it into rent money, they're gonna get kicked
out and be in just like wandering the countryside and

(06:33):
they will starve to death or die of of um exposure. UM.
Being evicted is basically a death sentence for a lot
of people UM and this happens on a massive scale.
Whole villages are depopulated and sent just wandering muddy pathways
in the countryside, begging for help that often did not come,
and people begin to die in their thousands. Entire communities starve,

(06:56):
basically like kicked out of their homes. Um. Now, one
of the few options for sucker were the so called workhouses.
These were operated by local landlords. And again we've been
talking again. This is one of those situations where broadly speaking,
the landlords are the problem. There are individual landlords who
do do things like don't you don't have to pay rent?
You know, and you can find I would spend more

(07:19):
time reading their stories, but I'm worried it would kind
of take away from the people who are monsters. But
there are and and to his credit, Um Coogan, who's
the historian that's the major source for this, goes into
some detail. There are individual like landlords who do take
very reasonable steps to preserve life and put their profits.
And that is a thing that happens. And Um, it's
worth acknowledging that, not partly because it condemns the people

(07:41):
who don't do that. More it is not like every
landlord doesn't do the same thing. Some of them help,
you know. Um, And it's one of those things. Also
in terms of things we can criticize Peel for um,
even though he is probably the best politician of his
day in terms of famine relief, who has any power?
Peel is adamant that local landlord should be the ones

(08:01):
dealing with the famine problem. It should be up to them,
right um. And this quote from Coogan's book makes it
clear how badly the situation tended to work, because you
have these kind of local landlords who are managing these workhouses. Quote.
A workhouse was built on the Martin estate at Clifton
and County Galway. Martin was an eccentric figure known for

(08:22):
his gambling, for his fearsome prowess as a duellist, and
for his kindness to animals, which led him to found
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
and to be nicknamed Humanity Dick. Oh my god, hold
onto that for a second, Martin. Listen, we're in a simulation.
Somebody like you got a problem with humanity Dick. I

(08:43):
I don't, I just I again this story we really
need to go back to like the editor names, keep
telling the story. Both your names are spoiler alerts, like okay,
Sanity Dick. Humanity Dick lived in splendor at Balinahinch Castle

(09:03):
on a huge estate, comprising some two hundred thousand acres
and including parts of Mayo and most of Connemara, that
incredibly beautiful but barren area of County Galway, stretching westward
from Galway City along Galway Bay, skirting the coastline until
it reaches the open Atlantic. A workhouse was built on
the estate at Clifton, even though it was notorious for
being crippled by debts, mainly through Martin's gambling. The King

(09:25):
of Kunamara, as he was referred to in Ireland, had
had to flee the country several years earlier upon losing
his parliamentary immunity. On his death in eighteen thirty four,
his son Thomas became his heir. During the famine, Thomas
died from a fever contracted while inspecting the awful conditions
in the overcrowded workhouse, which could not cope with the
demands placed upon it. The workhouse went bankrupt and had

(09:45):
to close, with catastrophic results for its inmates, Clifton and
its environs. The Martin estate was subsequently put up for auction,
and one of its principal attractions, as cited by the auctioneers,
was the fact that none of the tenants who had
lived on the estate before the famine lived there any
long grew. Given the population density peraker at the time,
this could have indicated a death toll of some two

(10:05):
thousand people. So because this family of rich people goes bankrupt,
there is no help and potentially two people starved to death.
And what's this area alone? What do you do in
a workhouse? Is it like it's just called workhouse? Yeah,
I mean you there, there's basically you receive a small
amount of food, um, and you do you work like.

(10:29):
There's different kind of things they have you do. Some
of these people are like the ones who are digging,
these who are building these roads to nowhere and ship like.
There's a variety of things that they might have you do.
But they're also not A ton of people can fit
in these workhouses. They are the difference between life and
death for some people. But the fact that they are
they're not funded by the imperial government and out of

(10:51):
by these local landlords, which means if your landlords doing good,
and if he's someone who's financially responsible, maybe your workhouse
is a lifeline. But in amara this family are because
of their gambling debts, like loses everything, and that means
there's just there's no fucking help for these people. And yeah,
like two people starved to death. Um, yeah, it's a problem.

(11:12):
That's not good. That's that's a lot of people to
starve to death. Um. Maybe the biggest consequence of a
gambling addiction that we've run across on this show. Pretty
up there, it's pretty up there. Yeah, humanity dick. If
only he'd had some help, Um, humanity dick. So this
brings what an incredible name, And this brings us to

(11:34):
a particularly horrifying fact, which is, again, the failure of
the potato crop was not the biggest part of the famine.
The massivevictions of Irish tenants by landlords killed most like
at least as many people, if not many more people. Um.
And here's the thing we've been focusing mostly on, Like,
because the crops fail, like they have to either buy

(11:55):
food or they can't pay their rent, Like a whole
bunch of things happened. Ship gets too expensive, they can't
afford their rent, and they get have died. Right, that's
the most obvious way for this to happen. That's not
the only reason evictions happen. So you know how Instagram
works in what way you know, how like there's there's
someone will like decide to paint their nails in like
a certain very elaborate way and do a video on it,

(12:16):
and suddenly that will go huge, and then like there's
a bunch of videos like that. You know that that
kind of thing works like trends, you know, such just Instagram,
but like things get popular and then everybody wants to
do a version of that same thing. Well, that kind
of happens with rich landlords and a thing called high farming.
High farming, yeah, which is basically like clearing areas of

(12:37):
agriculture in the way that it had been done in
order to make more room for to gray sheep in
order to like raise a bunch of sheep. Basically, so
all these landlords their friends start doing this um and
the problem is that, like, if you want to clear
all of your land to gray sheep, to to be
hip and cool and get into this neat new farming
thing that all your friends are doing, well, there's like

(12:58):
there's like people there, right, there's people that live on
his land. There's like there's like tens of thousands, maybe
hundreds of thousands of people living on that land, but
it is your land and you have the right to
evict him at any moment. So you wanna get up
on this trend, what do you do? Victim people? You
give victim all. This is what happens because it's not
like we can grow crops, well, no, you want to
you it's time for sheep. She was gonna say, and yeah,

(13:22):
that's like, that's so, that's so we've done crops. That's yeah,
that's that's last. Everybody does crops. I want to do sheet.
So Lord Lord Luken evicts four hundred families and his
mayo estates during like the rising peak of the famine
in order to clear get grazing area for sheep um.
And again this is because this has gotten like really

(13:42):
popular from the aristocraphy, from the aristocracy, and so a
lot of these rich people start getting into sheep farming
and evicting whole village. These are ethnic cleansings. They are
cleansing an area of its indigenous population. Where do they
and where do you expect them to go? They're just
gonna yeah, not, why would it be your problem. It's

(14:03):
your land. You can have them leave if you want,
you know, they don't like. That's not that's not on you.
Yeah cost him. There's more money and because and even you,
you can't feed yourself anymore. So yeah, so I might
as well kick you off and try this new thing,
and that way I can be cool like my friends.
So it is proper hard to exaggerate how enraging some

(14:25):
of these stories can be. Oh my god. The village
of balin Glass was a fairly rare find in Ireland.
The people there had been allowed by their landlady to
improve their land um, and they had created a very
prosperous community. Um. So prosperous in fact that they all
lived in stone houses, which was very rare at the time.
I think there were sixty one families, so a few
hundred people. So after years of clearing bog land and

(14:47):
improving their land in order to make it more productive,
improvements which probably would have allowed them to survive the
famine because they've done it, they've been able to do
a really good job of improving things. Suddenly their landlady,
Miss Gerard, decides she wants to get into high farming,
so she evicts them all um kicks him ride out,
kicks him ride out and I'm gonna quote from the
Famine plot here. On the morning of March forty six,

(15:09):
an attachment of troops and police showed up to eject
the people from their homes. Their belongings were thrown out
and the roofs of their houses tumbled. It was made
clear to the people in surrounding areas that if they
took in the e vict s, they would suffer the
same fate, and so the evicted people passed from door
to door vainly seeking shelter. In desperation, they erected temporary
shelters and ditches, or constructed what would become a common

(15:30):
sight that year across the Irish countryside scalps. These considered
consisted either of poles covered by sods that were stretched
across a ditch, or, if the ditches were filled with water,
as they frequently were, they simply dug a hole in
the ground or in the shelter end of a gable
and their tumbled house, and covered this with sticks and sods,
but in balin glasses elsewhere. The bailiffs returned in the

(15:50):
days following the evictions to destroy the scalps and move
people out of the landlord's land. So again when they
say tumbling, they in order to stop anyone from reoccupying
a house, they destroy the roof, just the roof, that's all.
Then then it'll rain in there and people can't stay,
can't keep a fire going, I won't keep you warm, right, Okay,

(16:12):
so you're so you're so efficient at evil, but like
you're all thumbs on doing anything decent like that is
like you just saying, well, you said there're stone houses,
so it would be a lot more effort or work,

(16:33):
so it's more efficient to just let the rain do
the work. I'll just knock the roof down. So so
you can think, yeah, that's that is that is in
the most perverse way, the shortest distance between two points,
like yeah, yeah, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense.
And if y'all could not figure out how to not

(16:56):
have how to not have your people start are okay? Yeah,
I mean I think a lot reading this about. I
spent a lot of time because Portland has a substantial
population of unhoused people in and around just as part
of my daily life. Encampments and a lot of them
sound very familiar in that because it's also very rainy here,

(17:17):
you will have people who will like kind of set
up lean to type structures that are partly in ditches
because it provides some shelter from the wind. But then
when it rains, they flood right. Um, And no matter
what people do, the cops are going to come by
periodically and sweep them out. And so oftentimes they'll do
it right before a storm or right before you know,
the temperature drops and ship. Um you know that. I

(17:39):
mean they're literally sending cops to kick people out of there,
like crumbled down houses and knocked down with little shelters
they've been able to make. Um yo, it's not even
a house. Yeah, Like, come on, guys, this is an
eviction genocide, which I don't know that I've heard about before.
That's what's happening here. So back in Merry Old angel And,

(17:59):
the suffering of the Irish was often caused for mockery
in the press. That same year, the economist magazine Yeah
that one, the one that's still around, alleged that Irish
suffering had been quote brought on by their own wickedness
and folly. The Times, Yeah baby, yeah, the economist there
it is good job economists. Hey, don't worry, there's other
people we know who we're talking In this period of time,

(18:21):
The Times of London, which also exists today, published articles
on Ireland every single day. Its message was dizzying Lee
consistent the Imperial Government should not spend money on Irish
relief and I'm gonna quote from RTE here. The worst
famine in a century was depicted as an extension of normal,
recurring events, and the newspaper consistently complained about the financial

(18:41):
burdens forced on British workers for the sake of the
starving Irish. On fifteen September eighteen forty six, it's editorial declared,
it appears to us at the very first important to
all classes of Irish society is to impress on them
that there is nothing really so peculiar, so exceptional in
the condition which they look upon as the pit of
utter despair. It continued, is the English laborer to compensate

(19:04):
the Irish peasant for the loss of potatoes and secure
him a regular employer for this next twelve month? Why
the English laborer isn't just the same case? They were not?
They were not, They were not? They weren't they sure weren't.
Um Now, The Times argued that Ireland should pay for
its own improvement, which you might say, shipping six of

(19:26):
the food they're out to England in other places is
paying for y'all either not hearing yourself or know what
the hell you say it? Well the times his argument
is that because people were suffering, and because suffering only
really happens when you are not willing to work to
make your life better, the fact that things were desperate

(19:47):
in Ireland, it was an example of quote a case
of permanent and inveterate national degradation. Yeah, yep, yeah, I
just like I can't I can't st s enough. How
in how the same artists it's the like, that's the same,
it's the same argument. It's the same argument now, and

(20:12):
and it just and like I'm like, but we can
all look back at the same we can all rewind
the tape to the same moment and can see how
wrong they are for saying that, Like you can see
that that's not there, that that's your fault, that they
can't eat you can So how are people still making

(20:33):
the same argument now about poverty? Yeah, it is the same,
Like that's the thing. It's not it's what always happens,
you know, It's this it must be their own fault,
because if it's not their own fault, and perhaps number one,
I would have to account for the fact that maybe
my success and my the things that I enjoy not

(20:55):
due to me doing anything to earn it. But also
then perhaps if it's not their fault at all, and
maybe it is the fault of a system that I
benefit from, then it is incumbent upon me to make
some changes. Um. Yes, and there is way harder than
just writing a column for the Economist, which is why
people still write so many columns for the Economists. Absolutely absolutely,

(21:17):
But you're you're nailing on something that I think is like,
I know, whenever I'm asked to do any sort of
like d I training, it's that. It's that because if
you admit that there was somebody suffering from this system unfairly,
then that means you are unfairly being benefited for you
And there's nothing special about your little nose you that. Yeah,

(21:38):
that's not going to be popular to the people who
read the Times of London, but you know it is
popular to the people who read the Times of London.
Every last one of these problems and services massive thing,
big followings in Europe, you guys may not know about
it really big, so check it out. Ah, and we're bachman,

(22:08):
we're back man. So in the winter of eighteen forty seven,
after this is like the third successive failure of the
potato crop. Right. The famine had already killed hundreds of
thousands of people. Culture, art, music had all come to
a sudden, horrid halt in Ireland as it was gripped
by unimaginable suffering. Just before Christmas, a landlord named Walsh

(22:29):
in Mayo personally led the eviction of three villages. Local
clergy had begged him to at least wait until after
the holiday, but he refused. Homes were destroyed and everyone
was forced out. One Quaker engaged in relief efforts later
wrote quote, the people were all turned out of doors
and the roofs of their houses pulled down. That night
they made a tinterer shelter of wooden straw, but however,

(22:50):
the drivers the bailiffs threw them down and drove them
from the place. It would have pitied the sun to
look at them, as they had to go headfirst into
the storm. It was a night of high window and storm,
and whaling could be heard at a great distance. They
implored the drivers to allow them to remain a short
time as it was so near the time of festival Christmas,
but they would not. Previously a hundred and two families

(23:11):
had lived in the area, but after the eviction only
the walls of three houses remained. And it's one of
those things. These evictions are being carried out by both
local law enforcement and by English soldiers UM like soldiers
of the occupation, and a lot of these guys are
shocked by the cruelty of the landlords that they're enforcing
evictions for UM. There are cases of officers asked to

(23:33):
use their troops to enforce evictions who found reasons to
deny the requests. UM. In one case in particular, Scottish
soldiers lodged protests against being forced to evict families and
even took up collections to give money to the people
they were evicting. Now the evictions continued, so this maybe
perhaps we should as we acknowledge the fact that people
felt horrible about this. That didn't stop anything as a

(23:56):
general rule, UM, and these small acts of kindness did
nothing to alleviate suffering on a broader scale. I want
to quote now from another write up in our te
By eighteen forty seven, the sheer scale of eviction across
Ireland prompted newspapers to employ special correspondents who visited the
scene of clearances. Among the reporters in the field was
James McCarthy, proprietor of the Limerick Examiner, who led the

(24:17):
way in reporting on the scenes of havoc and despair.
McCarthy had no shortage of material to report on, particularly
in Counties Claire and Tipporary reporters like McCarthy were successful
in harnessing public opinion and in some instances preventing eviction.
It was often a perilous task, and McCarthy was assailed
and insulted in the discharge of his duty by some
of the disgruntled wretches who were employed in leveling the

(24:39):
houses of the evicted tenants. Yet he was undeterred in
reporting eviction, including at the Walter estate in Limerick, where
he described the evicted being left to burrow into the
earth for shelter. The so called exterminators were frequently challenged
by the local press, who were quick to report on
the sensational aspects of eviction, especially where women and young
children were rejected. Follow evictions at the Westrip estate and Claire,

(25:02):
it was reported that the body of a young boy
had been found dead and eaten by dogs. Likewise, when
Arthur Keeley Usher cleared over seven hundred people at bally
sagart More Waterford was bally saggart More Waterford, it was
reported that groups of famished women and crying children hovered
the ruins where they clung for refuge beneath the crumbling chimneys.
And again when we talk about like what kills people,

(25:24):
some people do starve to death, some people die of exposure.
A lot of people buy of disease because disease spreads rampantly.
And you know, when you're kicking people out, you're forcing
them into workhouses, You're you're they're just spending nights out.
You know, they don't have access to shelter, which makes
their immune systems where it's also the potatoes they were
eating were high invitement c so the fact that they
don't have vitamin Like there's a number of things that

(25:45):
are happening. We talked about like what's killing people, but
as much as anything, this is an eviction genocide. That's
a big part of what is occurring in Ireland. Um,
there was no organized resistance on a mass scale to
a vis within the country. Uh, there were scattered murders
and assaults on mayors and landlords, often from these kind

(26:05):
of secret society groups we talked about in part of
the victors were not just absentee landlords and members of
the aristocracy. Many of them were members of the growing
English and Irish middle class who had purchased land prior
to the famine or during its early days when people
were forced to flee their homes and so long I
went up for cheap um. And it's worth noting that

(26:26):
the largest landholder in Ireland during the famine UM, and
as a result one of the largest victors was Trinity
College in Dublin, UM which yeah, yeah, they were one
of these. So this is not I can see the
leadership is coming kind of from the UK, but the
plenty of Irish people are part of this, you know. Yeah,

(26:48):
another tale as old as time, and I get, I mean,
I guess it's like, yeah, you can see it, like
if you can, just if you don't think of it
as like you know, old timey stuff and just think
of it as just like you're just playing the numbers,
and especially especially talking about this like rising middle crap

(27:09):
middle class, they're like, yo, we ain't gotta we gotta
nest egg Like there's we don't. We don't come from
all that. We were barely getting this piece of land,
and the only way for us to keep this land
is we gotta pivot. I can't be having y'all on
my land. I'm just gonna lose it, Like Lord, Lord
forbid me become one of you again, you know what

(27:30):
I'm saying. So if you're playing a numbers game, you know,
forgetting the humanity, it's like it's it's it's again, no
different than than the world we're living in now during
like I said, our plague, but people being like I
still have to pay the mortgage, so like I can't rent,

(27:51):
I can't not collect rent. So it's like, I mean,
I don't know what to say, like I sucks, but
I have to evict you, or maybe it don't suck
because you just like why have I mean I can't
I have to st Yeah, none of these landlords, I
mean some of them are these just cartoonishly out of
touch rich people who are like, well, I would like
to have the you know, I went to graze sheep.

(28:12):
Now let's get them off the land. But most people
don't like to feel like monsters. Like as a general rule,
the people who are a part of this eviction genocide
are not being like you know, they're finding ways to
be like, well, this is just what oftentimes it is.
I mean, it's still pretty dire because they're saying that, like, well,
I'm a Malthusian and I believe that you know, overpopulation

(28:34):
the only thing that happens when there's overpopulation, that that's
what causes famine. Right, Rather than famine being a thing
that happens and kills people, famine is caused by people
breeding out of control. And so the real problem is
that they bread and it's sad and it's tragic. But
if we just feed them, then they're only going to
breed more and that's just gonna cause more of a Right,
people find ways to justify it, to feel like it's

(28:54):
not they're not complicit in something nightmarish, as they always do, right,
as everybody who's implicit in something nightmarish is done throughout history. Um. Now,
it's worth noting that some of these evictions mirrored acts
of genocide committed by the US government. One of the
most striking was the Dulo Lake incident. This occurred between
March thirty and thirty first, eighteen forty nine. A number

(29:17):
of starving famine victims were ordered to show up at
Louisbourg and be checked to see if they deserved relief tickets. Now,
this is what it sounds like. This is again. Eventually
there get some like plans implanted where people can get
tickets that will entitle them to like some food and
supplies and whatnot. Um So, these people who are all
actively starving to death and often homeless, they assemble, they
all go to Louisbourg and in some cases means while starving,

(29:39):
they have to walk miles to get there. Um So
they show up at this place to try to get
tickets that will give them the food they need to
not starve to death. And they are told when they arrive, oh,
there's been a mistake, and the people who can evaluate
you are actually sixteen kilometers away at this hunting So
you've got to go walk there now, right, um So,
four to six hundred people, maybe more like a thousand,

(30:01):
it's really not exactly known, spend the night sleeping out
in the freezing rain, because what else are they going
to do? And then they march sixteen kilometers to this lodge,
and when they arrive, the relief commissioners like, oh, we're
actually eating right now, and we can't bother people while
they're having their lunch, so you're going to have to
wait until people finish eating. So the crowd, who does
not provided with food, of course, sits around starving after

(30:23):
their long walk while these commissioners eat. And then when
the commissioners finished eating, they're able to meet with them,
and the commissioners are saying, oh, I'm so sorry, but
you don't qualify for relief. Actually we don't have any
food for you. There's nothing here. I'm so sorry. Brittis
is your British is pretty uh, pretty spot on right
now and really in the moment, maybe it's just because

(30:44):
I'm so furious that these people, while wiping flavorless, flavorless grades,
seasoned season off your job being like, oh we have
nothing for you. My God, get some guards. So these
folks have their guards drive this horde of starving people
away and forced them to march miles back in the

(31:05):
frigid rain, where a bunch of them die. The bodies
of at least seven people are found by the side
of Dulo Lake, having starved on the way back. Other
people are swept into the lake by a mud side
and slide and drown. And this is this whole situation
is like fucked up, And shall Darius say, Terry gilliamy enough,
this is really some like Brazil ship. Yeah, yeah, that it.

(31:26):
It becomes pretty significant news internationally, and it gets back
to the United States and some of the people who
read about what happens at Dulo Lake are Choctaw people,
indigenous Americans. Now, eight years earlier, the Choctaw had been
forced on a death march from Mississippi to Oklahoma by
the United States government. And so eight years not a

(31:48):
long time, still dealing very much with the effects of
this fucking death march. The Choctaw here about what has
happened to these Irish people, and despite being desperately impoverished,
they take up a collection and get there's seven dollars
worth of money, which is a lot at the time,
and send it to Ireland for relief. Um wow, yeah,

(32:08):
and uh that is still very much remembered by the
Irish people today. There's a monument to the Choctaw. I'm
not sure in Ireland as like there are people who
give more, but there's no one who gives more and
has less than the child exactly. You know, um that
this is something that that has never been forgotten to
this day, speaking of that, speaking of that unread Bible

(32:30):
like yet another, yet another story Jesus talked about. We've
we've talked about how there's a lot of solidarity in
Ireland with the Palestinian cause because they recognize and there
that's the same thing the chocolate. They are looking at
this and being like, oh, ship, no, we know what
that's like. Yes, suffering like to be type like suffering
like nice people. It's like a type of empathy. You
know what I'm saying, where you just like why I

(32:53):
have the capacity to understand and to have a heartbreaking
for the people of Ukraine and and the people of Yemen,
and you know what I'm saying, the people of the
Tigray region in Ethiopia. You know what I'm saying, Like
I have capacity for all that because I've suffered in the
the fact that you're trying to make a choice between
which one of these things I need to care about

(33:14):
is so indicative of exactly what these these people did
in this incident. It is my job to judge whether
you're worthy of my mercy. It's I think when when
I have had conversations with Irish people about the Great Hunger,
this is the story that probably gets brought up more
than any other. Is the Choctaw donation. I think just incredible,

(33:37):
such an emotionally affecting story. So throughout all of this,
Travillion and the other public officials and politicians are adamant
that landlords cannot be forced to keep tenants on their land,
nor could they forcibly reduce rent. Right. That's a violation
of the landlords right if you put any kind of
rent control, and we can't do that. Um. But the
scale of suffering was titanic enough by the late eighteen

(33:59):
forties that the Eight and Good felt a need to donate.
Sir Charles Wood Travillions Boss donated two hundred pounds sterling
to famine relief. Queen Victoria gives two thousand pounds. That's
very nice. That's got to be a significant chunk of
her She probably doesn't have much more than two thousand pounds, right.
The Queen Queen Doria, that's all she could afford. Um.

(34:19):
The Pope gives a thousand The Pope, you know in Rome,
gives a thousand pounds in an aid. You want to
guess how much Chucky Trevillian gives. I'm gonna peas. Yeah,
you fucking give you? You mean just that's literally, that

(34:41):
is an amount to just be able to say I donated, right, Yeah,
fuck yourself all day and twice on Sunday. I want
telling me the oldest you. I didn't know this play
was this old for rich people to just donate to
a charity. I didn't know that that play was that play.

(35:01):
It has stood the test of time. So rather than
understanding that you are the problem and you could easily
solve it, just donate to a cause, like I am impressed.
Did rich people have figured out how to do it?
Is Travalion is the one that's easiest to make fun
of here. I think the Queen and the Catholic Church

(35:22):
should actually get more ship. And I'm going to read
a quote here from Tim pat Coogan about why so
we're gonna start with the pope. The people of Rome
contributed generously to Irish relief as did a few cardinals,
but no masterpieces from the Vatican's art collection were removed
for sale to help supplement the appeal, and it is
likely that the amount of money that was collected came

(35:42):
mainly not as a result of the Pope's letter, but
from the generosity of the Irish Catholic diaspora, particularly from America.
In fact, that the height of the famine, it was
the Irish who sent money to the pope. In eighteen
forty nine, the Pope was on the run because Republican
forces had temporarily driven him from the Vatican. The Wish
bishops were ordered to take up a colleption collection to
help defray papal expenses. To judge from a letter to

(36:05):
the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray, this appeal much of
must have realized much more than the Pope's gift of
a thousand pounds, so the Irish, while starving, donate more
money in the pope anyway funds, and again this is
This is not to say one of the most effective
forces for relief is the Catholic churches in Ireland, which

(36:26):
are supported financially by the Irish people, not by the
Church in Rome. Right not to not to cut them
out of this, because there's a lot of Catholic clergy
who do a ton during this period, just not the
fucking pope. Just not him, you know. Um. One of
the more interesting donors is Sultan Abdul Messid of Turkey. Right,
he's the Ottoman leader. He wants to give he's very

(36:49):
moved by the suffering of the Irish people. He wants
to donate ten tho pounds, right, That is a ton
of money back in the day, that's a lot of money.
But when he says he goes to the British bastards
like I've got I'm gonna give. I want to give
ten thousand pounds to relieve, to try to help these people,
And the British ambassador says, well, you know, that's a
very nice gift, sir, But you see the Queen's given

(37:10):
two thousand pounds and you can't you can't say her gift.
You know, that would be quite improper. You know what
people thinking about her clouds fucking Queen Victoria. Yeah, my gosh, now, okay,
it is worth noting to the Sultan's credit. When he's like,

(37:31):
all right, well, I can't donate as much cash as
I want to. He fills five boats with grain and
he sends them to Ireland at his own expense to
feed the starving Turkish soldiers. It's said have to unload
the grain in secret at night in order to avoid
embarrassing the royal family. Oh my god, day that petty.
That family been petty for that long. Okay, and yeah,

(37:53):
the Turkeys. So it's like, if you talk, you already
an empire. So you I mean, it's not like you
don't empathize. It's like the Sultan's not like out, you know,
he's hurtin. Yeah. I was like, he's a sultan. Yes
he's fine, but at least that's not nothing, you know,
that's a meaningful that's a meaningful attempt to relieve stuff,
like his little piece of like understanding of like, well,

(38:17):
of course I don't want to upstate the queen. I mean,
I mean, I'm assaulted. I wouldn't want to be upstage either.
So it is what we're gonna do. We're gonna slide
this in there because y'all trip in. But I get it.
You don't just like slide this in there under the Yeah,
And I just wonder if you're a Turk your soldier
if you're just like, man, what hi, alright, alright, I
guess okay, you know. Yeah, there's a line in Tim

(38:39):
pat Coogan's book that I found interesting. I can't vouch
for it because I'm not Irish, but he points out that,
like obviously you know, in World War One, Irish soldiers
are a major part of the effort at the Battle
of Gallipoli, which is this shipload because the British Empires
forces get their asses handed to them by the turkicle.
I mean, it's not to say that it's an easy
it's a nightmare. It's one of the battles there's been

(39:01):
in the history of warfare. And Tim past glibly Glippoli,
Tim tie Hugan makes a point that like at today,
there's no more ill will from the Irish towards the
Turks for the casualties at the Battle of Gallipoli, but
there are still monuments to the Turkish soldiers who came
and like handed out delivered fo Yeah you really do,

(39:21):
I mean you remember friends, Yeah, yeah, you remember whose
graces to you? Yea? So Charles travallion Um issued copies
of Adam Smith's books to his employees carrying out relief
operations in Ireland. He told them that they should be
used as guides and handling how to feed the starving. Now,
this does not mean that Trevillion did nothing that was capable.

(39:44):
In fact, he helped to organize a network of soup
kitchens from late eighty seven, which were a fairly effective
relief effort and helped stop several significant number of people
from dying. That said, it's not like the soup kitchens
were his idea. You know, he was just like the
guy who wound up helping to organize them. Um, and
he was one of the people. A lot of folks

(40:04):
did see them as dangerous, as bad for the Irish spirit,
because it would encourage indolence. Travellian typified the feelings of
many English civil servants when he said, the judgment of
God sent the calamity to teach the Irish lesson that
calamity must not be too much mitigated. The real evil
with which we have to contend is not the physical
evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish,

(40:27):
perverse and turbulent character of the people. So it's like
it's just God sent the famine to Ireland to teach
the Irish something, and so we can't help them too much.
We can't save too many lives because that would piss
God off. Piss God God and Adam Smith, who are
basically the same to Chucky Truth, Chuckiele Clearly you're just

(40:48):
like we it's already happening to him, and we all
already know you to cause of it. Let that be
enough for you to have to keep giving these speeches
like this somehow my fault is. I'm just like that's
where I'm just like, now you're now you're pissing on
my grave. Okay, Like if you could at least just

(41:09):
yeah to me, like that's the salt in the would
that you keep that y'all keep saying that this is
God's will because this is all fault. Like that's when
you when when it's just when you're just ready to
throw a chair, it's like, I feel like it's that feeling.
Well it's not as bad, but it's that feeling when
somebody when a politician get on the especially like a

(41:31):
like a like a white boy get on the stage
and be like, well, if Martin Luther King was alive today,
he would say, I'm like I'm gonna throw a chair
at you. I'm like, that's like, I just want to
throw a chair. Like there's a thousand chick Dr King's
name out your fucking mouth. I mean, yeah, there's that's

(41:55):
one thing. Like the guy said a lot, like you
don't have to put words in his mouth and spoke
on a bunch of stuff. Actually spokes a lot of
things that are relevant to this story. Yes, I'm pretty
sure happening the story we talked about right now. He
had a number of opinions on free market economics. Actually,

(42:17):
I tell you what, you don't have to invent things anyway.
You do if you want him to sound like he
agrees with something else, because you know, there's Martin Luther King,
and then there's Martin Luther King. You know, there's there's
the media Martin Luther King. That is easy for anybody
to turn into a guy on their side while they're
giving a speech about whatever. Um I marched with King? Yeah, alright, buddy,

(42:42):
um so potato. The famine plot goes into greater detail
about how Travalian personally intervened to exacerbate the famine in
the name of his precious fre market principles. Quote one
of his first actions on Peel's departure in June six
Because Peel, you know, Russell takes over for Peel, right
he eventually leaves being Prime Minister symbolizes the attitude he

(43:03):
was to adopt throughout the famine. He canceled a shipment
of grain on its way to Ireland. He wrote to
Thomas Bearing on July eighteen forty six, who's the head
of the bank. The cargo of food is not wanted.
Her owners must dispose of it as they think proper.
Bearing replied, congratulating him on the termination of your feeding operations.
When the complexity and the time consuming nature of the

(43:24):
corn processing was brought to his attention, Travillion made two
decisive interventions. First, he wrote to the Bearing to bear
it to the Bearings, temporarily cutting back on the corn
supply by fifty and asking that henceforth, whenever possible, Indian
corn meal should be sent rather than unprocessed grain. Second,
he decreed that there was no need for the Indian
corn to be ground. Twice, in a letter to Ruth,
he summed up his attitude towards Relief. It was that

(43:46):
of the workhouse we must not aim at giving more
than a wholesome food. I cannot believe it would be
necessary to grindto the Indian corn twice. Dependence on charity
is not to be made an agreeable mode of life.
In Ireland in early eighty six, there was very little
danger that the poorest classes would find dependence on Peel's
Yellow meal agreeable. The milling deficiencies and the fact that
through hunger, many of the recipients did not give it

(44:08):
sufficient cooking time made for severe and widespread bowel complaints,
particularly among children. Hence the meal quickly became known as
Peel's brimstone. Why would they need it milled twice? Well,
if I have to mill it, let's send half as much.
You know, we don't want them to get lazy because
we're doing all of this work. Yeah, there's that. Sounds
like there's that thing again. We can't help you because

(44:30):
if we help you, then that means you'll never do
anything for yourself. Yeah. Now you know who isn't lazy? Yeah,
I know it's not lazy. Yeah. Yeah, these amazing absolutely
now they know how to work for themselves. You know,
these these products, they really they're not like you are,

(44:53):
not indolent. I tell you what, they're more kinzy. They
don't need to grind their corn more than once. Sometimes
they just eat it raw. Just hardcore law. Baby, and
we're back. Uh boy, howdy. Um So, the famine brought

(45:17):
through a series of changes in what we're known as
Ireland's poor laws. Uh And for this, I'm going to
quote from a write up by Virginia Corpsman of Oxford
Brooks University. Prior to the Great Famine, relief was only
available within the workhouse. Under the pressure of mass starvation
and with many workhouses full to overflowing, the system was
extended in eighteen forty seven to allow poor law boards

(45:37):
to grant outdoor relief to the sick and disabled and
two widows with two and two widows with two or
more legitimate children. Outdoor relief could only be granted to
the able bodied if the workhouse was full or a
sight of infection. Anyone occupying more than one quarter of
an acre of land, however, was excluded from receiving relief.
The effect of this provision, when combined with falling rent
rolls and the liability of landlords to pay the poor

(45:58):
rates on holdings worth less than four pounds per annum
was to encourage landlords to evict their smallest tenants. Workhouse
occupancy rose from around four hundred and seventeen thousand and
eighteen forty seven to around nine hundred and thirty two
thousands by the end of eighteen forty nine. So one
of the things they do is they make an advantageous
financially to evict people um for the landlords, because it

(46:22):
makes for a better tax situation because then you don't
have to pay as much and we gotta pay for it. Yeah, yeah,
it's and the idea of like, if you own what
was it, one quarter a quarter acre? Not not even Yeah,
that's I was like, wait, not even Oh, you just
gotta live on it. So if you got you got
a little well, I don't know, man, you got a
quarter you cool? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I guess I

(46:44):
could if I had that little quarter of an acre,
I guess I could plant some foods. Yeah, theoretically, right,
theoretically a quarter acre, by the way, not a ton
of space to grow enough food both to pay your
mint and keep a family. Of course, that of course
the food I would I would grow to eat I
have to pay and also it doesn't grow right now,

(47:07):
a lot of the food that I would eat. So yeah,
but people are really edged out of many options here. Yes,
So the poor laws effectively put the burden too caring
for starving Irish masses on Irish landowners and business owners.
One thing this did was make it clear to the
that the United Kingdom that Ireland had been made to
join an eight hundred that like that this this idea

(47:30):
of the UK doesn't exist for the Irish right because
none of the funding for this is coming from outside
of Ireland. Ireland like, they stopped that immediately. Menlike Travalian
didn't see this as England abandoning Ireland. They saw this
as England crafting laws to change the Irish into something
else that would make them better people. Right, that's the
reasoning behind all this. There's a lot of intent in

(47:52):
the terrible things they're doing. These aren't just like random
bad laws. They want to fundamentally alter an and get
rid of a lot of Irish people in order to
make them better. You know it's that Yeah, it sounds
like that, like kill the Indians, save the man. In
a letter he wrote to Edward Twistleton, the Chief Poor
Law Commissioner of Ireland travel In said, we must not

(48:14):
complain of what we really want to obtain. If small
farmers go and their landlords are reduced to sell portions
of their estates to persons who will invest capital, we
shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement
of the country. Yeah, this is again that he's well,
they just die off. Yeah, it's an ethnic cleansing for

(48:35):
economic purposes. That's what he's discussing with A very convenient,
A convenient uh fungus. Yeah, yeah, this fungus convenient. It
helps out now. The famine also provided an opportunity for
the crown and its servants to rid Ireland of some
of its pesky and rebellious young men. Crime, which during
the famine often meant simply stealing food, was punished, often

(48:57):
by transportation. This was the FOURT expulsion of a criminal
to somewhere like Australia. John Mitchell, leader of a nationalist
group named Young Ireland, was transported in eighteen forty eight
to Australia. He later called the famine quote an artificial famine.
Potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe, yet there
was no famine save in Ireland. The Almighty indeed sent

(49:19):
the potato blight, but the English created the famine. Si nailed.
Time has proven his words very correct. The potato again
did fail for years, but only in Ireland was their
famine and death on an industrial scale. Huge numbers of
Irish people fled their homeland in this period, many of
whom wound up in the United States. Right, this is
when we really get our big waves of Irish immigration.

(49:42):
This is pretty well known to most Americans, so I
prefer to focus on the fact that a ton of
Irish folks also go to England. Right, it is you
know a bit closer. Yeah. Uh. Tens of thousands of
famine victims flee to the seat of the Imperial government,
hoping for a chance to survive. This, of course, does
not make English people very In eighteen fifty, the Liverpool
Mercury wrote that the lamentable excess of crime in that

(50:05):
city has been caused entirely by Irish refugees. This constant
influx of Irish misery and crime is almost impossible to restrain,
and of course there are huge surges in the number
of people arrested and charged with crimes, most of whom
are Irish because guess who the cops are focused on. Man, Listen,
I don't look listen, I'm I'm making a retroactive plead

(50:25):
to the Irish, like man, when when whiteness comes knock
it like you don't don't don't answer that called man,
come to with us? You see, how doing you just
be with us? Because yeah, I mean there's an unfortunate
story of like how a lot of these famine victims
come to the United States and many wind up becoming police.

(50:46):
And it's a whole tale. Yeah, it's a whole tale.
It's a whole thing. Yeah, yeah, that's why I was
just like, man, listen, why do y'all doing this? Like
you know what they do to you? They did, they
did they do to you, They're doing to us what
they did to you. Like, come all, guys, No, it's
a it's a it's it's not a book that we're
reading through here. Isn't the playbook because it doesn't work exactly,

(51:10):
It's works because good it works pretty well. You want
to be It's like, at the end of the day, man,
like you want to be the hunter or the hunter,
and if you have a chance to become the hunter,
ten out of ten times you just do that it's
rather than rather than that being eight, and it just
and it's like it just sucks. But it is what

(51:31):
it is. It is what it is. So it's also
worth emphasizing that many, many foreigners did travel to Ireland
during her time of need to try and help Quakers,
in particular, probably like the group that came in and
did the most good, like huge amount of life saved
by Quakers who operated soup kitchens and engaged another very
compassionate aid work, like really incredible ship. And in fact,

(51:53):
when you go through like English newspapers in this period
that are like people who are publishing columns and letters
of anti Ira bigotry, you will also find Quakers writing
and to be like shut the funk up, you know,
but basically because yeah, they're not. They're they're a little
nicer about Yeah. Many Americans also traveled to the island
to help. One American philanthropist at the time wrote of

(52:16):
Irish famine victims, I could scarcely believe that these creatures
were my fellow beings. Never have I seen slaves so degraded.
And here I learned that there are many pages in
the volume of slavery, and that every branch of it
proceeds from one and the same route, that it assumes
different shapes. These poor creatures are in his virtual bondage
to their landlords and superiors, as it is possible for
mind or body to be. They cannot work unless they

(52:37):
bid them, they cannot eat unless they feed them, and
they cannot get away unless they help them. Wow. Yeah, yep, yep, Yeah,
there's a lot of truth, man. There are many pages
in the volume of slavery, and that every branch it
proceeds from one and the same route. It's the same room. Yes,
So no sympathy at all was to be found in

(52:59):
the heart of the regent, Queen Victoria, who came to
be known as the Famine Queen for her government's utter failure.
And this is something that happens really after the famine,
but there's still a push in Ireland out to call
her the family King. Yeah. Historian Christine keen Kinney, director
of the Great Hunger Institute, sums it up thus Lee
there is no evidence that she had any real compassion

(53:21):
for the Irish people in any way. When she visited
Ireland for the first time in eighteen forty nine. Near
the end of the famine, huge numbers of soldiers were
needed to keep the streets clear and ensure that she
saw no real sign of the suffering her agents had permitted.
We could go on and on about different policies, how
they failed or succeeded, which other individuals played roles in
the famine. Eventually it ended, but only after tremendous suffering.

(53:43):
At least one million people starved to death. Modern scholars
suspect the real number was closer to two million one
point nine millions something like that. Millions more left the island,
either due to forced transportation or immigration and hope of
a better life or just survival from a pre famine
population of almost nine million. Ireland's population post famine was
less than five million um, and it did not exceed

(54:05):
five million again until last year. So for a an
idea of the scale of how this famine compares to
modern famines, the famine and Yemen right now is probably
the number one humanitarian crisis on the globe. At the moment,
at least a hundred thousand people have already starved to death.
Experts warn that four hundred thousand's children under the age

(54:28):
of five could die in the near future without sufficient intervention. Um,
it is a Titanic problem. That is a hundred thousand
dead so far out of a population of thirty million.
The faminine Darfur was probably the most prominent twenty first
century famine before yomen. It killed around a hundred thousand
people out of a population of twenty seven million. Now,

(54:48):
both of these are Titanic tragedies, and I'm trying to
minimize that in any way, But two million dead out
of nine million for an example of like the scale
Yeah of this U Yeah, like it's uh, that's yeah. Yeah,
and just and like adding the like roll that weather

(55:08):
plays that like yeah, it's it's just it was a
it's a perfect storm. You know when in the history
of time and you know, understanding of how viruses and
bacteria work, like when this happened is the perfect storm
of being like, yeah, it's gonna wipe you all out.
Yeah yep. And and there's a lot of people who

(55:29):
have a vested interest in allowing you to be wiped out.
Um yep. Anyway, because because we're gonna graze this We're
gonna graze this land with these these hipster to get
some sheep. You know I'm gonna get some sheep. So
fuck Charles Trevillion. That's that's all day, every day. Yeah,

(55:49):
definitely don't like that. I found an article that interviews
his great great great granddaughter who was a BBC reporter,
Laura Trevillion Um and she she got she got sent
for an idea of like, maybe how out of touch
the BBC can be. They have Charles Trevillian's great great
great granddaughter and in the mid nineties, when like ship's
going off in northern Ireland, they send her as a correspondent.

(56:13):
Let's go, so she says, quote, I was interviewing a
member of the Republican Shinfei and in southern Arma, and
she asked if I was related to Charles Travallion. I
said I was, And she asked me how I could
live in Ireland when I had the blood of the
Irish on my hands. She wasn't joking. I was constantly
surprised by the number of people who knew about Charles
Trevalian and the impact that the famine has in Ireland
more than a hundred fifty years later. Yet I felt

(56:35):
ashamed that I didn't know all that much about him.
And she wrote writes a book because of this, called
a Very British Family about the Trevillian family. And he
like heard just being cute, like like, hey, are you
related to Yeah, that's like my great great granddad, you

(56:55):
know him. You're like, uh hum, that's a chair throw
that's another yeah, Like I'm happy that lady didn't throw
the chair again. Real real uh real restraint on behalf
of the Irish Republicans there there is, I know that
can be a spicy crowd. I'm surprissed. Um, So she
writes this fucking book. Uh, and she says of it,

(57:18):
I'm not defending him or endorsing some of his actions,
but I want to show he was more humane than
has been portrayed. He did work very hard to try
and improve the situation in Ireland and had a genuine
concern for the welfare of the people. It's all right,
like yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, look listen, there's your grand

(57:40):
your granddaddy, a piece of ship. It's just we have it.
There's some fucking incredible quotes from this lady. Um. He
is vilified in Ireland, and not wrongly because the policy
enacted by the government at the time is impossible to
defend a policy of effectively withholding relief and allowing market
forces to take their courses brutal. However, what I'm taking

(58:00):
what I'm taking issue with, is the portrayal of him
as someone who wanted the Irish to die. Yes, he
was a providentialist who felt the famine had been the
will of God. But that's not the same as saying
he wanted the Irish to die. Kind of man, it's
this a little bit that kind of is And unless
you're being like God wants these people to die, but
fuck him, I'm gonna fight him, you know. But that's

(58:22):
not what Charles Valiant was saying. No, No, I don't know, man,
I listen, I don't know man. I'm just listen. Your
granddaddy piece. I think your granddad just gonna have to
live with it. You know what I'm saying, Just live
with it. They don't mean you a piece it. They
don't mean that. Okay, there, listen, we all you can't

(58:43):
go and hired. You can't go into nobody's family tree
and not find a piece of Yeah. Absolutely, it's just
there in all of our families. Look like, what do
you want me to say? He was a piece of ship.
There's a lot of blood on his hands. Yeah, you
probably can't go into anyone's background and not find somebody
who helped do with genocide at some point. There's been
a lot of bodies that we've done, a lot of

(59:04):
them as a species, a lot of them. It happen
you were, Yes, you were later in that line, you've
got somebody like and it's fine because people aren't responsible
for their ancestors. Just don't write what do you get about?
How what you what makes you responsible? Is you trying
to justify it rather than being like the rest of us,

(59:24):
which is like, yeah, you know, yeah it's cool, it's
good stuff. Uh not write no book. One of them dead,
But that doesn't mean he didn't like them, you know, say,
I just figure I won't feed him because this principle. Yeah,

(59:45):
but I don't mean I want them to die. Yeah,
it's a shame they're dying. I wish I could do
something about it. As the guy responsible for the relief efforts,
I mean, we're trying to find the guide who did this.
As Charles Travallion in the banana costume, well a potato costume.
Let's let's go to potato costume. But Doug, this is glorious, man,

(01:00:08):
just man, don't write a book about the end of
the story, this book about him. I'm sure there's there's
a valid case for like, well, we have this family archives,
and I'm going to write a book revealing like what
made him the kind of man who would do this,
and like take a hard note that that. That's fine.
There's some survive there's some like descendants of Nazis who

(01:00:29):
have written some very good things about grappling with the
fact that like, yeah, my grandpa did some ship, you know. Yeah,
there's that. That's a really valuable thing to do. Actually,
because it's a species, you could stand a better at that. Yeah. Yeah.
Or I'm like again, like we said, people are two
opposite things can be true at the same time. Surely,
surely your murderous grandfather was a very cuddly person who

(01:00:53):
could read you a bedtime story, you know what I'm saying,
who really loved you know, nice strolls, you know, and
got your grandma daisies every Sunday. Yes, and also is
a bloodthirsty murder. They're they're both true. So even if
you're gonna defend your Granddaddy like, hey, you know what,
he was really nice to my mom then late and

(01:01:14):
just talk about that part I this is. Don't try
to like the piece of ship stuff is just piece
of ship stuff. So just let it be what it is.
People like things to be clear cut, and I think
there's not enough of an understanding that probably most of
the people who have personally participated in genocide throughout history
have been perfectly pleasant human beings outside of that moment.

(01:01:36):
And probably most of the people who owned slaves were
lovely to their wife and children. They were just fine
at ignoring the humanity of certain other people, you know, Like,
that's what I'm saying. You could be two things. Well,
you know, well my like well not Big Daddy, Greig
big Daddy. You know, well, I do declare. I'd go
hang out at Big Daddy's house and we'd sit on
the pot and we drink our lemonade and he would

(01:01:58):
play tea with us the whole Big Daddy was so
love Yeah, yes, Big Daddy was very loving to you. Yep,
it's awesome. That was my Southern Bell. How did I
do as good as your fine? I mean, my cotillion,
We really I can't deal with this, I've caught the vapors.

(01:02:18):
I would like some alabaster columns, plantation, you know, I
don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I
don't have a good I don't have a good Southern bell. Ready.
I apologize, No, I apologize. I like. I like pulling
alabaster out. I do. It's one of my favorite words.
You really sound white when you say alabaster. There's no

(01:02:40):
other reason to say that. Less Again, you're the strongest
one reading a gospel in your But besides that, why
would you ever say alabasas? It's a fun stuff. Well,
that's the story of the Great Hunger, Great Hunger, the
potato plight, the Unnecessary Family. Yeah, the British Famine, the
British Family. It would be so up if in like Ireland,

(01:03:01):
their books were called The Unnecessary Famine. Yeah, the Unnecessary
I mean, the famine plot is a good one. Coogan
frames it very much, is like, yeah, it was like
people meant for this ship to go down. Yeah, the
famine plot. Y'all did this, which is cool. Um, it's
not cool, but it's good to talk about things accurately.
Prop you want to plug anything before we roll out

(01:03:21):
in a hail of I Do podcast, I do I UM.
I wrote a book called After the Revolution. You can
google a v what if I did? What if I?
What if I did write it? And I just accidentally
just told on us that that I just I just
stole your book. Yeah. I was like wait. I was like, yeah, Robert,

(01:03:42):
I waited till this whole time to tell you I
want my book prop hip. Hop. I did write a book.
It's called Terraform. It's um poetry in short story. Uh,
and I I haven't won any awards for it. It's okay.
You know who else didn't win any awards? Well? You
know who want actually a lot of awards is Charles Travalion.

(01:04:04):
He got like Knighted and ship You want to bunch
want any of that? Yeah? Maybe maybe awards aren't really
worth anything. Maybe you're not wor Yeah. Yeah, all right,
well that's the podcast. All right, dude, go out and
again find uh property of the British royal family and
damage it. Yeah, and find yourself, find yourself, uh somebody

(01:04:29):
in the military and uninvite them into your home. Yeah yeah,
invite a soldier into your house and be like, you
know what gets the funk out you don't get to
be in my house. Third Amendment motherfucker by