The Queen’s death sparked a discussion on about the Famine as part of a conversation about colonialism and imperialism and the late royal’s role in it.
Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday at the age of 96, the longest serving monarch in history, and while there has been a worldwide outpouring of grief, in some countries, people are celebrating.
One country where some are celebrating is Ireland, where to this day there is a lasting bitterness towards England.
Ireland remained under British rule for 800 years in a history that is marked by brutality and violent uprisings and the potato famine. The potato famine was a major event in modern Irish history. In Ireland, it is known officially as the Great Famine or An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger.
It lasted from 1845 to 1849 and the famine was caused by a potato blight that saw crops fail all over the country, which relied on the potato crops as their primary food source.
The queen’s death sparked a discussion on Irish Twitter about the famine as part of a larger conversation about colonialism and imperialism and the late queen’s role in it.
“Lots of Americans confused about Irish twitter because our Anglo-centric education taught us Ireland suffered a “famine” when it was really a British led genocide,” read one tweet.
Another Twitter user added: “I’m not emotional about the queen one way or the other. But I’m shocked by how many people think the Potato Famine was due to crop failure and don’t know the English EXPORTED food from Ireland to England during that time – enough food to feed all the Irish who died #irishtwitter.”
Although the famine is a very well-known part of Irish history, many Irish people believe it is misleading to call it a “famine” at all, and today many are scrutinizing Britain’s role in the crisis which saw the death of roughly one million Irish people from starvation and related causes and the emigration of approximately another one million people.
