Media-averse
30-05-2004, 09:47 PM
Calls for Famine remembrance (Sunday Tribune)
Eoghan Rice
Calls have been made for the establishment of a national day of remembrance for the victims of the Great Famine, which killed over one million Irish people in the mid-19th century.
Launching the first annual famine commemoration walk, the Committee for Commemoration of the Irish Famine Victims (CCIFV) claimed that the greatest tragedy in Irish history has been ignored. The CCIFV has call for the establishment of an annual commemoration in memory of those who died.
Today sees the first annual famine commemoration walk take place, when the CCIFV marches through Dublin city. Although regional marches are held annually, the CCIFV says there is a need for a national march.
"Every other country in the western world commemorates their national tragedies," said CCIFV's Michael Blanch, "but in Ireland we have ignored ours. We are hoping that our commemoration will grow in strength and will become a national event."
Blanch has met with representatives of several political parties and received the full backing of the SDLP, Labour and the Greens. However, the government parties did not respond to a request for support.
"It is important that everyone on this island takes time to remember those who were killed," said Blanch.
There's a whiff of Holocaustism of that last statement which I find aversive. The fact is that fever was a major killer too, independently of famine, just as many Jews later died from typhus in 'death' camps (eg Anne Frank). Repressive land laws led to a fatal dependence on the potato, but lice also did their share of killing; a fact that always gets the silent treatment from the red hoaxers. Watch out for that.
"The total of those who died during the fever epidemic and of famine diseases will never be known, but probably about ten times more died of disease than of starvation." The Great Hunger
Eoghan Rice
Calls have been made for the establishment of a national day of remembrance for the victims of the Great Famine, which killed over one million Irish people in the mid-19th century.
Launching the first annual famine commemoration walk, the Committee for Commemoration of the Irish Famine Victims (CCIFV) claimed that the greatest tragedy in Irish history has been ignored. The CCIFV has call for the establishment of an annual commemoration in memory of those who died.
Today sees the first annual famine commemoration walk take place, when the CCIFV marches through Dublin city. Although regional marches are held annually, the CCIFV says there is a need for a national march.
"Every other country in the western world commemorates their national tragedies," said CCIFV's Michael Blanch, "but in Ireland we have ignored ours. We are hoping that our commemoration will grow in strength and will become a national event."
Blanch has met with representatives of several political parties and received the full backing of the SDLP, Labour and the Greens. However, the government parties did not respond to a request for support.
"It is important that everyone on this island takes time to remember those who were killed," said Blanch.
There's a whiff of Holocaustism of that last statement which I find aversive. The fact is that fever was a major killer too, independently of famine, just as many Jews later died from typhus in 'death' camps (eg Anne Frank). Repressive land laws led to a fatal dependence on the potato, but lice also did their share of killing; a fact that always gets the silent treatment from the red hoaxers. Watch out for that.
"The total of those who died during the fever epidemic and of famine diseases will never be known, but probably about ten times more died of disease than of starvation." The Great Hunger