A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
When I travel throughout the United States and Canada, I have the privilege to meet with the newly arrived Irish, the descendants of those who fled an Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), and all generations in between.
I have visited “famine” monuments in Quebec, New York, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. Each is a powerful reminder of the scale of suffering, death, and sacrifice of those fleeing starvation.
In the census of 1841, the population of all of Ireland was 8 million but by 1851 over 1.5 million had been lost to starvation and emigration. More than one in six of the population.
There was a potato blight that wrecked harvest after harvest, but this was not a famine. Ireland was producing enough food to feed all of the people, but it was being exported by landlords for profit.
The landlords realized that more money could be made from cattle, sheep, and commercial crops than from rents from subsistence farmers. The Irish were evicted and starved off their own land. It was one part genocide (starvation) and one part ethnic cleansing (forced emigration).
Ireland was a colony of Britain. They could do as they pleased without sanction from other nations.
The impact of this policy would be felt for generations. Our countryside is haunted by skeletons of abandoned stone cottages. The memory of an Gorta Mór drove generations to resist and rebel against the British. Like other colonial powers, the British believed that they had the right to determine the boundaries of a nation and partition our land.
I have met the descendants of those forced by starvation to emigrate who returned to Ireland to find the only reference to their family in a church register. Their land was lost and a community was wiped away. But the sense of belonging remains.
Our past colors how we view the world of today. Uniting our nation and undoing the division that is part of Britain’s colonial legacy is why I am an Irish Republican.
Our past explains the widespread horror in Ireland at the proposal to clear the land of Gaza of its people. It spoke to our history.
The US played a central and successful role in building and sustaining our peace process. It was a facilitator and guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.
Our history demonstrates that the seeds that are sowed today are reaped tomorrow.
The British starved a generation and dispersed people across the globe. The memory of that horror was never lost leading to generations of conflict.
In 1994 the US helped sow the seed of peace and today a generation has grown up without knowing conflict.
I hope that the US administration reflects on Irish history and the injustice of ethnic cleansing, and supports the effort to rebuild Gaza for the people of Palestine and peace.
I always travel in hope. Have a great weekend.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
