Learning this was an intentional genocide changed me.
I know most of those following me know this, but just to make it super clear. An Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger/the Great Famine) was a deliberate genocide of the Irish people. There was enough food grown in Ireland to make sure everyone was alive and healthy and survived. Instead it was exported, sent to England and elsewhere for profit while men, women, and children starved in the streets. While the English landlords fucked off and evicted starving families who couldn’t afford rent. While babies were too weak to cry and died at the side of the road.
They tried to kill us, but they did not succeed. And we owe so much thanks to the other oppressed peoples, in particular the Choctaw Nation and the Masai, who sent money and grain to us.
Let me repeat that. The Choctaw Nation who had just gone through the Trail of Tears sent us money to try save Irish lives. It’s led to an understanding between Irish people and Native American tribes, most recently when we donated to the Navajo and Hopi fundraisers for COVID-19 relief, because while it may be a different tribe, Irish people will never forget those who helped us and we’ll help back.
The entire population of the island is less than seven million people. We’re still a million less on this island than pre famine. And it’s not that long ago. My grandmother’s grandparents lived through it. We’ve told the stories, it literally changed the DNA of the country. We have a national fear of renting, because so many people were evicted. People joke about Irish people always offering loads of food, but it’s because there’s that cultural memory of not being able to.
They tried to kill us, but they did not succeed. We will not let them take our lives, we will not let them take our language. We lost so much, but we will not lose it all.
i think some of y'all really need to learn is that you are only entitled to safety, not to feelings of safety. you need to recognize that your feelings are fallible, shaped by your cultural upbringing and intrinsic biases, and that they are not always reflective of reality.
for example, imagine you’ve been raised in a society that violently stigmatizes drug use, mental illness and homelessness. you’re walking down the street, and you see someone who is disheveled, talking to themselves or yelling, pacing, maybe even smoking or injecting drugs. you feel unsafe, even though this person poses no threat to you. you call the police, even though no harm has been done and a reasonable assessment of the situation can tell you that no harm will be done. the police come and arrest that person, and although your right to safety was never violated, you’ve now put someone else in harm’s way. you’ve traded their right to physical safety for your own perception of safety, and that is morally indefensible. that cannot be explained away by saying that you deserve to be safe in public, because you were never unsafe in the first place.
