Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 Oct 1995

Vol. 456 No. 5

150th Anniversary of the Famine: Statements (Resumed).

Mr. Crawford

If the Minister of State, Deputy Kenny, has any problem spending the money in Courtown perhaps he can find some way of spending it in Clones. We would be only too glad to help him. Although it is not a seaside town it is a Border town with great need.

While there were many negative effects of the Famine there were some positive ones. Some people who emigrated did extremely well. We think of men of the calibre of John F. Kennedy whose family emigrated and brought great honour and respect to this country. I hope President Clinton, who has roots North of the Border, will visit this country in the not too distant future.

The Famine was not confined to the South. Somebody said people in County Down did not suffer as much as those in County Mayo. In areas such as Fermanagh, Tyrone and Monaghan there was great poverty and soup kitchens were set up.

In my area a Presbyterian Minister left with a boatload of approximately 400 people from the church at Cahans. It was a very big church but, as a result of that exodus, it is now closed.

In my early days, flax, potatoes and grass seed had regained their place as main crops in County Monaghan but that is not so now. However, potatoes are still the mainstay crop in other areas. I am thinking in particular of Prince Edward Island.

Some years ago a member of Monaghan County Council, Councillor Willie McKenna — he is a member of Fianna Fáil but that does not do him any harm — worked hard to build up a relationship between Prince Edward Island and County Monaghan because 25 per cent of the citizens of that island are Irish and 40 per cent of those have County Monaghan origins.

Monaghan County Council will commemorate the Famine positively. We visited Prince Edward Island and had discussions with the elected representatives there who, in turn, visited Monaghan. For the first time in 150 years the relatives of Irish emigrants are tracing their roots. This is one area we could develop in the context of the tourism industry. The Taoiseach planned to visit Prince Edward Island recently but unfortunately was not able to do so. That was a cause of great disappointment. There is a great longing by those people to know the history of their family and learn fully about their background. Thus, from a cultural and heritage point of view, even commercially from a tourism point of view, we must utilise all of these links.

The First Secretary of the Canadian Embassy, Mr. Philip Pinnington, is visiting schools in the north Monaghan area today speaking of the connections between his great country and ours. The Canadian Ambassador, Mr. Barry Mawhinney, also has visited Monaghan and will address the November meeting of Monaghan County Council. That clearly demonstrates that we can benefit enormously from such links and in building up new relationships, hopefully widening our horizons.

I heard some Members today recalling the erstwhile misdemeanours and evil doings of some people, not without good reason but, in this time of peace in Northern Ireland — here I speak as a member of the minority living in a Border area — it is my intention to promote that peace as much as possible. While I know it is not easy, we must endeavour to forget some of the past, learn from it and bury the hatchet. In that context, nobody could have better expressed those sentiments than Archbishop Robin Eames at the Service of Remembrance in June last when he said:

Today Ireland must be the land in which the healing of traditional wounds and the building of new understanding abounds. We all have a great deal which we must bury in the past and leave behind us in the past. Today, as we remember the Great Famine, we remember not just the untold suffering, we remember the anger and resentment but, in the act of remembrance, can we show the vision, courage and Christian understanding which alone can heal the bitterness of our troubled past?

That is the challenge we must all face, thus ensuring that we learn and benefit from the past rather than resort to it in a manner that may cause dissension.

This country has learned and benefited enormously from its understanding of famine, although those of us here today, I for one, cannot be accused of understanding or experiencing famine too acutely. Unfortunately, there remains a great deal of famine worldwide but our record in dealing with it in recent years has been amazing. At times one might think there was very little money available, yet whenever a genuine appeal is made, whether for Ethiopia or elsewhere, the ordinary people of Ireland give extremely generously. In that sense we have indeed a proud tradition. Unhappily, the fact famine continues means we must continue to help in whatever way possible.

In this respect, it might be no harm to remind the electorate of the efforts of this Government in a small way by increasing Third World aid and its innovation in changing our tax laws to allow donors make committed contributions to various charities. Merely feeding the hungry with the few fish available does not constitute a long term solution; we must provide them with the wherewithal to feed themselves in the long term. In that respect many individuals have led the way in taking initiatives so that such countries can begin to provide food for themselves, an endeavour that must continue. As we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Famine we must resolve to make the best use of whatever funds are available in addition to advising and directing long term programmes.

The Minister informed us earlier today that she has limited resources available and would be unable to fund certain deserving projects. However, there are a number of heritage groups and others in my constituency who would very much appreciate some small financial help. In my parish of Killevan a group is actively endeavouring to build a permanent memorial to the Famine, with the aid of FÁS schemes and the like, in the form of a Famine wall.

A heritage group in Castleblayney requested me today to urge the Minister to give them some help in funding a weekend event in the county on 22 October, based on the Famine theme, in an endeavour to make people more aware of their heritage. They are two only of the many requests I have received which I hope the Minister will help with the limited funds available to her.

While requesting our people to examine and learn from our history I implore them, for God's sake, not to live by it because the past 13 months have been a tremendous period in which to live in a Border area. Many of our young people remember nothing but the bomb, bullet, murders, punishment beatings and so on. The past 13 months have afforded us an opportunity to demonstrate how the different traditions on this island can live and work together happily.

It is my hope that the raking over of events 150 years ago, any more than of those of 300 years ago, will not stir up any animosity or other trouble. The vast majority of our people want to bury the hatchet, to turn this island once more into a place of which we can all be proud so that those who were forced to emigrate as far as Australia, New Zealand, America and elsewhere, in addition to those who emigrated to England, Scotland and Wales, can return on holiday, perhaps even return to work or retire here. If, through our commemoration of the Famine, we can encourage them to do so we shall have done a very good job for all who live on this island.

Kathleen Lynch

Undoubtedly many people will listen to this debate, read extracts from it in the papers or get glimpses of it on television and they may question its validity. Nonetheless, it is important to commemorate a famine that devastated not merely one million of our people but our entire nation.

Now that we can view famine conditions in Third World countries on television programmes can we begin to realise or come to terms with the scale of the catastrophe that befell us 150 years ago? Heretofore our Famine usually was depicted merely in black and white sketch drawings in history books, with various explanations of how other nations were to blame. Very rarely are those suffering the consequences of famine interested in hearing who is to blame whereas, after the event, all usually want to and do participate in its analysis.

Each one of us is the survivor of survivors of the Famine and, despite that, the subject was not always dealt with comprehensively in history. We have an inherited memory which is part and parcel of our DNA, and, to a great extent, it has formed our opinions and attitudes to other countries stricken by famine. It continues to do so although we are only now coming to terms with our own famine. It should not surprise us that we are so generous and compassionate in our response when it comes to helping those whose lives are devastated by mass emigration, as in Rwanda, or mass starvation, as in Ethiopia and other famine areas. We have a genetically inherited memory which will not allow us to forget.

The country was devastated by famine 150 years ago. It is estimated that between 1845 and 1850 over a million people died from famine related causes and a further million were forced to emigrate in uncertain and sometimes horrific circumstances. The experience which claimed almost a quarter of our population has left us with an historical memory of famine and social disintegration and instability. The root cause of The Famine and the response to it have been debated by academics, but no amount of debate can obscure the fact that it was probably the most traumatic single event in our history.

Historically 150 years is a mere blip on the screen of evolution. Our relatively recent experience of mass starvation distinguishes us from most other European countries and has contributed to a sense of solidarity with other famine stricken regions. That sense of solidarity is reflected in Government policy and in the generous response of the Irish people to development needs. There is no doubt how the Irish people feel about development aid, emergency aid and how famine regions should be dealt with, because it has been spelt out clearly time and again in the best possible way.

In 1944, 100 years after Ireland was devastated by one of the worst famines in Europe, the Bretton Woods Agreement sought to address the social and economic challenges of the post-war era and the glaring economic disparities between different parts of the world. These disparities have today left the developing world groaning under a massive debt burden, with thousands of people sacrificed to the need to export food in order to earn hard currency to pay off debts.

Crop failure was the major cause of Ireland's famine 150 years ago. Famine is caused today not only by drought and crop failure but also by the failure of a system. During the 1980s it became increasingly clear the Bretton Woods system was failing developing countries. Unless we address the debt crisis facing the developing world and ensure the World Bank's commitment to equitable growth and sustainable development is translated into reality, famine and near famine — which often occurs for many years before and after a famine — will continue to be a part of modern life. The Irish people's commitment to the alleviation of famine and to a more developed, more balanced world was never in doubt.

The economic adjustment policies which are an intrinsic part of the World Bank's approach continue to impose unacceptable costs on the south. Those costs have been compounded by GATT agreements and regional subtreaties, such as NAFTA, which have given respectability to the concept of social and environmental dumping. At a time when political democracy is making slow but measurable advances the World Bank continues to be a profoundly undemocratic institution.

Developing countries have, in effect, been forced to transfer their economic sovereignty to two remote and undemocratic institutions — the World Bank and the IMF. Their policies are dictated by the developed world. It is ironic the World Bank and the IMF should continue to impose neo-liberal economic policies on the developing world when "Reaganomics" and "Thatcherism" have been discredited in the developed world.

In exchange for balance of payments loans the structural adjustment policies imposed on developing countries require them to reduce their budget deficits, liberalise imports, deregulate internal markets and promote exports. The inevitable result of the monetarist corset imposed on a large part of the developing world has been declining public investment in economic and social infrastructure; the investment shortfall has also hit employment intensive industries. As a people which needs to generate hard currency and needs to have a buoyant economy, we know that employment through labour intensive industries is the way forward. Yet the peoples of the developing world are being mitigated against, time and time again, by policies which it appears support us and not them.

The export-led strategy had been a two pronged disaster. Not only have developing countries, such as Zimbabwe been forced to export foodstuffs desperately needed to feed its own population but increased commodity exports have also led to a sharp drop in commodity prices. This is an underlying trend which is obscured but not alleviated by occasional price fluctuations.

I agree with the Minister of State, Deputy Burton, the brunt of the structural adjustment policies has been borne by the weakest section of the societies concerned. The net result of these policies was to cause average incomes in Africa to fall by around 20 per cent during the 1980s while unemployment rose to around 100 million people and the continent's share of the world market dropped to an unbelievable 2 per cent.

Oxfam has referred to the 1980s as the lost decade in developing terms. There is a real danger the 1990s will also been seen as another lost decade unless the governments of the north and south insist on a radical transformation of development policies accompanied by a root and branch overhaul of the World Bank and the IMF.

Ireland is well placed to voice the concerns of developing countries in the northern fora. The programme for Government not only commits us to increase Ireland's official ODA by 0.05 per cent each year, it also commits us to supporting "... policies designed to reduce the gap between the richer and poorer regions, and aimed at ensuring that the peripheral regions continue to benefit from European economic development, particularly in terms of increased employment". In addition, the Government partners are committed to promoting international co-operation in favour of ecologically sustainable development. The Irish people had through the years expressed its solidarity with the peoples of the developing world and this Government has given that solidarity a voice on the world stage.

Over a decade after the Brandt Commission highlighted the growing gap between north and south the social and economic gulf continues to widen.

Today environmental destruction has added to the social and econmic woes of the south, as the industrialised nations of the north seek to export low pay, pollution and waste. During the past few months we saw one of the most cynical examples of the one-way trade in environmental destruction, as the French exploded nuclear weapons in the south Pacific. We have a selfish interest in seeking to turn around international development policies and reduce the gap between north and south — unless the gap is reduced the resulting instability may engulf us all.

This has been a year of anniversaries — in Ireland we look back at the Famine while Europe as a whole has looked back to the Second World War and the 50 years of uneasy peace which followed. Anniversaries are sometimes commemorated with empty ceremonies, nostalgia and reams of rhetoric. As we look to the past rather than the future the victims of the Famine 150 years ago can best be commemorated by ensuring our policies and those of our international partners are aimed at closing rather than widening the gap between the developed and developing worlds.

In Cork there is a famine grave, which has always been a point at which people gather to remember not only the dead of 150 years ago but those who died in all famines. A grave brings to mind that one has lost something precious. When we consider this anniversary, we should vow that we will never again be party to devastation such as that in Ireland. We must ensure our inherited memory, our DNA map, guides us towards the right policies when helping other nations.

Mrs. Doyle

I am tempted to start at the last point made by Deputy Lynch. I thank her and the other 16 Deputies for their positive contributions and kind words about the programme and the committee I have the privilege to chair. I also thank my officials who have worked so hard with me; we met on a fortnightly basis to put the programme in place. They worked hard all through August for the four commemorative events to mark the outbreak of blight and August is traditionally a holiday period, so I thank them for their generosity with the time and energy in ensuring the programme was in place and on course.

Deputy Lynch said the Famine is in our DNA; that strikes a chord in me as a one-time scientist — it is so long ago all I can say is that I have qualifications in that area. To pursue that metaphor, we are speaking about a recessive gene. If nothing else happens through this debate, the Government commemoration and the enormous interest throughout the country and abroad in the Famine, has brought to prominence in our genetic make-up that part of our heritage which we have buried and refused to talk about for so long because it hurt too much. That is an extremely healthy exercise.

I was impressed by all the contributions. Different people placed different emphases but that is to be expected in our national Parliament. The Dáil represents many strands of political and public opinion; if we all thought the same on every issue there would be no need for different political parties and the democratic system would not work. People emphasised different nuances in suggesting how the Famine should be commemorated and why it happened.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Ahern, for his wholehearted support for the Government commemoration programme. One heartening aspect of today's debate was that we were all going in the same direction, albeit with different emphases. There was unanimous support for the Government's programme. That is as it should be and I am delighted Deputies voiced their support because our commemoration should not be a matter of political divisiveness. I welcome the support and thank colleagues for their good wishes and kind words. I assure them that in the next two years there will be a wide and varied programme. We will be adding to it — apart from what has been announced, many proposals are at an embryonic stage. I did not want to preempt them by announcing them today until they had been confirmed.

Deputy Treacy said Liverpool should be involved in our commemoration because of its importance as a port of emigration for so many thousands of our people. I feel strongly about that and for some months have tried to coordinate a commemorative event in Liverpool in which our people and Government could take part. We have been in contact with the great hunger commemoration committee in Liverpool, which is erecting a monument in the city and has requested funding from us, towards which we are favourably disposed. I wish to bring this one step forward, perhaps to have a joint Government commemoration, ecumenical service, concert or similar function and Liverpool may be the right place to have it, but it is early days yet.

The Government programme will run from August this year to mid-1997. There is a case for continuing it beyond that but we must be practical. We could commemorate the great Famine for five to seven years but I think the people would be tired of the issue if we strung it out that long. I would rather give of our best as a Government commemoration committee, choose the occasions and events which respect what we are commemorating and allow one element of celebration of survivors and of the great sense of global Irishness which was one result of the tragedy of our Famine. It will be a mixture of commemoration and celebration.

We have decided to bring the Government commemoration proceedings to a halt in mid-1997 but an enormous number of local voluntary commemoration events will continue through the rest of the decade. The Government may well be part of those but the offical programme will end in 1997. One reason we decided to do that was to give "Black '47" its due commemoration in the last six months. Another was that the bicentenary of 1798 would not be confused with our Famine commemoration. They can be linked in many ways but I think we need to stop one commemoration and consider what should be done to mark 1798, which will be different in many ways.

There is, therefore, a practical reason in that we do not want to overdo the Famine commemoration. We will mark it properly, with respect and great dignity and then stop to consider commemorating 1798. The same committee will look after that programme and we have already started work to be in a position to do justice to that major part of our heritage.

Deputy Ahern and others mentioned the impact of the Famine on Irish culture. Ours was a monoglot culture at the time and our Gaelic heritage was severely affected, not only our language and literature but our music and dance. The story goes that the very last goods or chattels which people pawned or sold to get food were their musical instruments. Irish culture was devastated at that time.

Those who have taken the trouble to read in detail the Government's commemorative programme will see that in 1996 and 1997 we are running a bilingual essay competition in secondary schools, with three phases for different age groups. That is being adjudicated on by the National History Teachers' Association. The documentary, and subsequent video, being made by RTE and scripted by Louis Marcus, and cofunded by RTE and the Government commemoration committee, will have a strong bilingual component.

Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge has been in touch with me expressing its concern at the decline of Irish was a major factor during the Famine. It is examining the language aspect of the tragedy and has asked for funding for research and a seminar on this aspect. Last Tuesday, the Government Famine commemoration committee specifically discussed that application. I will be contacting Fr. Ó Flaithearta and this committee very shortly with a view to meeting them to see how we can help them, as this is a result of the tragedy.

It had a major impact to this day on the attitude of people towards their language. In the minds of many, the Irish language was, and is, associated with poverty and suffering because most of those who died during the Famine of starvation and related diseases were native Irish speakers. That association has been difficult to shake off. As a result, we embraced continental languages far more fervently than we returned to a love of the Irish language. I speak in general when I say that. That problem needs to be addressed and I will be talking to Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge very shortly to say that we support what they are doing and would be delighted to help them in some small way. Several Deputies raised that aspect and I fully recognise that it was one of the many tragedies of the Great Famine.

Deputy Lynch hesitated over the word "great" which sometimes sits rather uncomfortably with the topic we are discussing. It was great in the sense that the scale of suffering, death, deprivation and misery of emigration was enormous. The word "great" has many connotations and in that context it was a great tragedy. Many people find it rather ironic to refer to it as the "Great Irish Famine"— an Gorta Mór. However, most of us who have looked in depth at what happened can understand where that label came from and why that adjective has come into common parlance to describe the famine of the 1840s and early 1850s, as distinct from other Irish famines. The scale of the tragedy was enormous.

Deputy Michael McDowell made a very interesting contribution, which I know made many Members feel rather uncomfortable. However, it was a very thoughtful contribution and what he said sits quite comfortably with what other Members said — we can, and must, be inclusive in our commemoration. We must recognise that our heritage has many strands, particularly when we are commemorating our history, even such painful episodes as the 1840s and early 1850s.

Deputy Michael McDowell referred to the teaching of history when he was at school in the 1950s and 1960s, and that it was always a matter of tragedies, battles, failed revolutions and doom and gloom. It is perhaps part of the Irish psyche that we are inclined to be a little maudlin and no upbeat part of history was ever taught to us at that time. I do not wish to step on any toes, but one of the aspects which surprised me enormously when I was appointed chairperson of the Government Great Famine committee, was the discovery that the Great Famine is not on the history curriculum of any of our secondary schools. That says a great deal about the nation and how we treat this subject. There are two modules of history at second level: the first ends in 1830 or 1840 and the second begins in 1870. The period in the middle is left out.

What are we afraid to face up to as a nation? Is it just that it has hurt too much for too long, even to tell our children the truth? Is it because there were so many attempts at different stages to sanitise the truth? Perhaps, it was better not to tell it if we were not going to tell it factually. I was amazed to check with my children, one of whom is still at school, that this section of our history — the greatest tragedy in modern Irish history — is not taught in any of our second level schools. That speaks volumes for the way it has been handled over the years. No wonder that we say there was little discussion 50 years ago at the time of the 100th anniversary because the pain and the folk memory were still so close. People could tell stories of grandparents who ran children up to their bedrooms or slapped them firmly if they mentioned the Famine. They could not even bring themselves to talk about it, such was the pain and suffering at the time.

The inclusiveness aspect is extremely important and is a matter which the Taoiseach feels very strongly about. I was reminded of his speech in the War Memorial Park in Islandbridge in April and I got a copy of that speech during the break in todays debate for Question Time. He referred to the inclusion of the feelings of all who make up our country. Never let us forget that being Irish means different things to different people and we should be proud of our diversity and pluralism. It is only, as the Taoiseach said, when we "acknowledge and harness all the strands that go into the making of the Irish tradition, will we as a people working together achieve our full potential. What we need is not uniformity but diversity". I wish to echo those sentiments.

Deputy Michael McDowell made the point that sometimes we like to airbrush out our Anglo-Irishness. Liam de Paor said in a paper published some years ago that:

The element of shared experience is enormous [that is, the British-Irish experience] but in the South we have liked to forget about the British parts of our inheritance and in the North we have tried to forget about the Irish parts.

How true that is. Let us use this occasion, reflecting on the words of Dr. Eames in Tuam a few weeks ago, to be inclusive and not to rake over the coals of the past to lay blame but to tell the story as it actually was, to understand our history better and to appreciate the identity of modern Ireland, which is a vibrant country today. We will always have to go back to the question posed by Stuart Trench: Why should the people die? Why did our people die in the great Famine in the midst of plenty? Bring that parallel to the modern world today and ask why, in the midst of plenty, in the midst of agricultural abundance in Europe, in the midst of set aside and intervention stocks, are so many dying?

I compliment the Irish people for their enormously generous response to modern tragedies. It must come from within them, from the genes, from the DNA and from their past experience and suffering in relation to The Famine. The Irish people respond more generously per capita than those of any other developed country to the tragedies, starvation and famines in the developing world today. It is from them that we as Governments can learn. I thank them for showing us as they would want it to be. Even those who have little in Ireland today will give their last few shillings and pounds when there is a call from one of our non Governmental organisations, such as Concern, Trócaire, Goal, AFRI and all of the other NGOs who deserve our commemoration and support for doing so much for those who have so little.

We have suffered and we know what it is to have so little, to suffer and to starve. We know what it is to receive help when we need it. We received such help from 19 nations, from the Choctaw Indians, prisoners on a prison ship anchored somewhere off Liverpool, the Sultan of Turkey, the Pope, Queen Victoria and from little work groups in different parts of the world. If it was only a matter of a few pounds they got it together and sent it. Nineteen nations rallied to the support of Ireland.

The Society of Friends, the Quakers, deserve our specific mention and thanks. Without them, and without their distribution of food and soup and the tremendous commitment they had to this country, especially to the west and the south west, which was ravaged by the Famine, the toll of death, disease and suffering would have been far higher. They also lost many of their number who died of famine related diseases, if not directly from hunger.

Thank you to the-Society of Friends and to all other religous denominations in the small and big parishes throughout the country who, on a voluntary basis, did what they could when, unfortunately, the response of the Government of the time was not malicious but hopelessly inadequate.

People were faced with an alien administration that had been removed from Dublin some decades before. It was physically and psychologically removed from the people. A market economic system, of laissez fair, was in place and consequently, little was done. As Stuart Trench said, there was abundance of corn, cattle and food, and the people died. Why did the people die?

I thank all the contributors. We should not forget the Famine. To do so would be morally and culturally wrong. It is part of the nation's soul and identity. I look forward to support from all sides of the Houses over the next two years for the many events organised by the Government in the commemoration programme.