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*Migration Histories > Irish > Origins
* Government Denounced 
 
Some have argued that the Government of the day did not have the capacity to cope with disaster on this scale. Some contemporaries accused it of failing in its duty. An article in January 1847 in the London-based Catholic newspaper The Tablet argued that

the business or clear duty of every government is to provide food and labour for those who have neither, and for those who can get neither.
Others argued that a policy of deliberate *genocide was being applied and that Ireland needed political reform, not charity.

The Illustrated London News began to be adorned with engravings of tottering, windowless hovels, in Skibbereen and elsewhere, with naked wretches dying on a truss of wet straw and the constant language of English Ministers and Members in Parliament created the impression abroad that Ireland was in need of alms and nothing but alms; whereas Irishmen themselves uniformly protested that what they required was Repeal of the Union, so that the English might cease to devour their substance.

How would another administration have acted differently? Even if the political will had been there, could it have afforded unlimited free food distribution for four years? Would raising tax levels to pay for this have been political suicide?

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Creators: Aidan Lawes

 
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