Irish history lesson

Published on Sunday 23 November 2008 20:34

Instead of having a go at the racist element among Rangers supporters for singing about Celtic supporters going home to Ireland now that the potato famine in Ireland is over (Sport, 21 November), Celtic chairman John Reid should have more properly quietly tittered at their ignorance, because there was no famine in Ireland; it was a holocaust.

There was indeed a potato blight between 1845 and 1848, but there were potato blights in the US and all over Europe at that time, but only in Ireland did people die of starvation. The Irish did not starve from lack of potatoes; they starved for the lack of "food".

There were more than 70 British food removal regiments based all over Ireland, while British excise steamers, coastguards and warships sailed close to Irish ports to ensure that food was safely exported.

British soldiers forcibly removed food from its starving Limerick, Clare, Kerry and Galway producers. They seized from Ireland's producers tens of millions of head of livestock and tens of millions of tonnes of flour, grains, meat, poultry and dairy products – enough to sustain 18 million persons.

Not only were the Irish starved of food then, they are starved of their history today.

WILLIAM BURNS

Pennywell Road

Edinburgh