did the english orchesate the irish potato famine.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7617518.stm

^ link to the first actual reporting of long-term anti-Irish abuse which we discussed on the SPL thread a few weeks ago

In the interests of fairness, I should point out that this is not the first time Rangers fans have sung this song, and they haven't just been singing it at Celtic fans. And I'm guessing the reason the Irish government is now involved is because the media, government and football authorities in this country have all managed to ignore blatant racism from thousands of people right under their noses, instead going after the real problem of Artur Boruc giving them the finger after listening to two hours of their pish.

Maybe the problem would disappear if points were taken off clubs where this happens. I don't think the "small minority of fans" singing sectarian songs would be tolerated by the rest of the fans.

the hated english were TERRIBLE MEN for the starving an entire nation.

if they aren't STARVING AN ENTIRE NATION they are saying an Irish athlete is "British" when they're winning and "Irish" when they're losing.

they are a disgusting race, the Brits...terrible!

The only thing worse than the Irish-hating British are those Americans of Irish descent who associate too closely with their heritage. I hate them sooooo much!

it was the Soviets

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/fgeorge.jpg

BURT, HOW CAN U HATE THIS FACE??

Few know that the Irish potato famine was originally scored as a trio for piano, flute and harp.

http://www.a2zrecipes.net/LeprechaunSurfingInternet.gif

Maybe the problem would disappear if points were taken off clubs where this happens. I don't think the "small minority of fans" singing sectarian songs would be tolerated by the rest of the fans.

I've already pointed out Rangers have been spouting this anti-Irish racism for years and it has more or less been ignored by the Scottish media and football authorities for years.

How small a minority does it have to be before you stop docking points? One fan? Ten fans? Does it depend on the length of time they do it for before they shut up? I'd prefer a government that doesn't sweep it under the carpet and tackles it head on, rather than wasting money on "One Scotland, many cultures" posters and congratulatory backslapping about how inclusive they are while ignoring the captain of the Scottish national football team's leg injury being applauded by approx 7000 people singing "what a hell of a way to die, to die a Fenian bastard, a stinking Fenian bastard", for example (same game as the one that fans feel they now have to take elsewhere, having had similar complaints ignored in Scotland for years. There are similar letters going to UEFA etc, this "one fan doesn't like the Famine Song" is just the tip of the iceberg)

Kerr, do you really thinking years of ingrained racism will just disappear if Rangers get docked points? You don't think this exists outside of the football field? You think the assault that could have killed Neil Lennon two weeks ago (widely reported to have been preceded by verbal sectarian abuse) wouldn't have happened if a football team lost points? That the police could ask the SPL to dock points from a team for things that happened outside the ground? (that Gordon Smith would act in the first place?!?!?!) Assuming that the clowns that attacked Lennon are season ticket holders in the first place, of course...

(back to a point we did to death on the SPL thread - do you think Celtic should have had points docked for Artur Boruc "winding people up" at Ibrox by having the effrontery to not be scared of being a Catholic in the face of some pretty hysterical abuse?)

I think it's pretty telling that Rangers FC's response is that they had to seek guidance as to whether it was OK to keep singing it, and that they now suggest their fans don't sing it because it's not nice for the club to be associated with it, not because it is wrong.

FWIW, "the famine's over, why don't you go home" is just the chorus. Rest of the lyrics are here, http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=73402, a charming little ditty of child abuse and total wrong-headedness.

They have U2 and Bono

No they don't, they're Proddies

Celtic fans are hardly guilt free on this, if you've ever had to sit embarassed watching some Danish reserve get abuse hurled at him cos he once played 17 minutes for Rangers in 1994.

Against Ireland, I mean. I don't know if Scottish Celtic fans are different.

Have I said they are? Was the abuse sectarian, btw? I'm not advocating taking any of the fun out hurling abuse at your rivals, that'd be silly. I'm fairly equal ops about disliking Rangers players regardless of their background.

I just think it's pretty sad that some guy turns up to play for his country and is booed everytime he gets the ball cos he played for Rangers. Especially when it's somebody who barely had a good career there. There have been a few cases where the guy has no idea what's going on.

It might be excusable if it was a real Rangers stalwart but even still, seems kinda odd when he's playing for his country against Ireland, not Celtic.

I'm sure some of the abuse is sectarian, I mean, you don't catch Liverpool fans booing a Man United player when he turns up against Ireland do you? The very fact that every single Irish person supports Celtic as a first or default second team is kinda sectarian in itself.

I'm not saying that to counteract your points, just that the sectarian abuse is pretty stupid whoever it's directed at and that both parties are guilty of extreme stupidity.

http://www.bifsniff.com/wp-content/files/2007/02/mail.jpg

The very fact that every single Irish person supports Celtic as a first or default second team is kinda sectarian in itself.

Um, you what?

They certainly don't, in my experience.

I'm sure some of the abuse is sectarian, I mean, you don't catch Liverpool fans booing a Man United player when he turns up against Ireland do you?

What if he's playing against England? Oh, hold on... LOL @ concept of a Liverpool fan being at an England game. I can bet you that Hibs fans would boo an ex-Hearts player and vice versa etc etc etc

Sorry yes they do...what's your experience? The vast majority of Irish people, everybody I know who likes football anyway, supports Celtic or follows their results as their second team behind a Premier League side.

Hibs fans would boo an ex-Hearts player? Isn't that also a religious thing?

Hibs' name is a slight clue there.

Yeah I knew the answer to that question.

Yep, Paul Hartley gets singled out for the abuse from Hibs when they come calling. Though I imagine Ronan is going to suggest that it's sectarian now purely because he wears a Celtic shirt, even though he was getting pelters for being an ex-Hibs player at Hearts for plenty of years before he turned up at Parkhead.

I don't think painting every bit of Celtic v Rangers rivalry as inherently sectarian is doing anyone any favours. Rangers chuck plenty of offensive stuff at Celtic which has fuck all to do with history or religion, and I'm quite happy to draw a dinstinction between the two.

Ronan, can you explain why Irish people choosing to support a certain football team is "sectarian".

Choosing? Yeah that's a good one...

I chose to be an Irish Catholic at birth you know...

What the holy fuck are you on about? Is it not a choice? Do *you* support Celtic? Are you jailed or something if you decide to go against this forced allegiance? And how the hell is it sectarian?

Stop the Catholic On Catholic violence now.

Hibs fans would boo an ex-Hearts player? Isn't that also a religious thing?

No

Sorry yes they do...what's your experience?

My experience is that I've barely met an Irish Celtic fan - from the Republic I mean - in London.

Also experience of being in Irish bars where they won't show a Celtic game if there's any Premiership game on at all

Last two Irish bars I have gone in to watch a Celtic game when I was away, they turned it over to watch Gaelic football with half an hour to go in one pub, and wouldn't turn over until some Aus vs NZ rugby match had finished on Saturday just gone there. Even when they did turn on the Celtic game at my request in the latter, I was the only person watching because everyone else was watching Liverpool vs Man Utd on the other tellies.

Yeah well I grew up in Ireland so sorry, your experience isn't representative of much.

Look I don't even want a major argument about this but what I'm trying to say is that it's not a matter of choosing to support Celtic or not, it's like the second national side. I've no doubt if a kid wore a Rangers jersey to school no matter where they were being schooled they'd get major hassle.

I never chose to support Celtic but it's assumed you do.

There's a kneejerk anti-British sentiment in Ireland and one of the worst ways it manifests itself is by ex-Rangers players (not even Scottish) getting booed at Lansdowne Road.

x-post yeah cos Irish bars are actually a more authentic experience of Ireland than being born there and living there for 25 years.
Why should someone have to sit in the crowd and act like they support that? Or have to feel that a foreign player thinks that's how my country is?

I didn't choose for Celtic to be this default second side or for the whole country to support them. Somebody playing for Rangers seems very divorced from issues of republicanism for me.

Thankfully it's not the entire crowd that does this and it usually is criticised and I'm amazed people would defend it here. Why should somebody have abuse hurled at them because they played for Rangers, when they are in an international game against Ireland, for another country?

As for why it's sectarian, if you take the actual definition of the word then I think a whole nation (with a history of sectarian violence) casually supporting a football team whose history is based in sectarian conflict then I think that is sectarian yes.

There's a very fine line, as people singing "IRA" in the verses of "Fields of Athenry" shows pretty clearly.

x-post meant to be at the end there...

Errrrrrrrrrrr, you did ask for my experience?

yeah I did because I thought you might have lived in Ireland

a football team whose history is based in sectarian conflict

I thought you said they supported Celtic?

why not just make an argument instead of asking a question and I can then answer you?

Yeah well I grew up in Ireland so sorry, your experience isn't representative of much

Apart from the numerous Irish people I've met in my life

Why do people who have played for Rangers get booed? I would suggest that basically it's because Rangers as an institution have proved intolerant of Ireland and its major religion for the vast majority of its history, and that doesn't go down too well with anyone with any sense of tolerance and decency?

a football team whose history is based in sectarian conflict

Explain?

FWIW, I haven't heard the IRA/Sinn Fein add-ons at Celtic Park for ages. The fans were told not to do it, so they don't do it. There is one particularly nasty song about Nacho Novo (a Catholic! told you we were equal opps in heckling rivals) which has been shouted down every time I've heard it this year (twice in the same game, last season, from a handful of fans).

xposts, obviously

Sorry, you want me to make an argument? I would argue that Celtic was founded for charitable reasons, to give a community focus to those Irish immigrants forced out of Ireland due to the famine. Since their inception they have been open to all regardless of colour, creed, race or religion.

Can you explain how this squares with your understanding of Celtic as a club whose history is based in sectarian conflict?

I always wondered why Gerry McNee complained about Celtic playing Fields Of Athenry, What are these add-ons? "Fields Of IRA"? Nah it cant be. Sounds daft. Please tell.
oh and thanks for the link to the famine song, gonna click now and see what it is.

I'm coming late to this, but associating Celtic with sectarianism might have something to do with the more neanderthal end of their supporters.

Sectarian conflict does not necessarily mean IRA violence, in that sense of course Celtic have been involved in a sectarian conflict.

And this idea of Rangers as an institution is ludicrous, people aren't booing Rangers players out of a hurt and wounded sense of national pride. Do you think Rangers Football Club has any effect on the Irish state in recent years?

They're booing them out of small minded hatred and tradition. I can't believe you'd defend it.

I think there's an issue here too, which may be clearer to me (don't mean that arrogantly) of people in the Republic taking on the persecution of those who've emigrated which seems pretty shaky ground especially in the last 15-20 years.

If you'd actually grown up in Glasgow that might be different, but why should a Dublin catholic feel resentment towards protestants from Glasgow? Or footballers who just played for a protestant club in Glasgow?

It's often just a case of looking for a conflict.

the IRA add ons are "our love was on the wing/Sinn Féin/We had dreams and songs to sing/IRA"

There's no doubt there's an association - that's not the same as stating that their history is based on sectarian conflict.

the IRA add ons are "our love was on the wing/Sinn Féin/We had dreams and songs to sing/IRA"

There's also a "fuck the crown" in there after "against the famine and the crown". As ailsa said, these add-ons have been all but eradicated from Celtic Park.

and the other parts?

Native American

lol

That'll be the O'Maha tribe.

Sean-ee

Cher O'Kee

navan ho nation

Ir O'Quois

Connemaranche

Co. Manchee

Algon Quinn

LOL

Drum Cree Nation

seminoleary

damn i picked the wrong time to go to lunch (spuds were delicious btw)

A very short history lesson for those who know little or nothing about the Great Hunger, aka potato famine:

The immediate cause of the famine was a plant disease, which caused the potatos to rot very rapidly, both in the ground and in storage. The English, of course, did not invent this disease or deliberately inflict it on the Irish.

Instead, what the English inflicted on the Irish was an oppressive system where vast tracts of agricultural land were owned by aristocrats who did not live in Ireland, and whose income was derived from the rents on these lands, or the produce of their estates -- the notorious "absentee landlords". These people didn't care a flip about the Irish, but cared intensely about their incomes.

Therefore, huge quantities of food that was grown in Ireland, but not affected by the potato rot, such as grains, milk and livestock, were exported out of the country when the Irish were dying in the millions. Families dying of hunger were dunned for rent money to support these people, then evicted from their homes when they failed to pay, literally eating grass by the roadsides out of desperation, and leaving corpses with green-stained mouths.

As a result, the Irish peasantry of that era became even more savagely bitter toward the English aristocracy than usual, who they saw as capable of feeding the nation, but cruelly indifferent to, or even taunting them in, their massive suffering.

Peel wasn't great but was certainly not nearly as bad Lord John Russell

Efforts were made to help. They were grossly insufficient to address the scope of the famine. And the Irish weren't really in a mood to make fine distinctions between malice and well-meaning incompetance.

will ye have a diaspora?

Look I don't even want a major argument about this but what I'm trying to say is that it's not a matter of choosing to support Celtic or not, it's like the second national side.

Most of us who support actual Irish football teams - ones that play in the League of Ireland -detest Celtic and their fans on this Island: and plenty of Irish League supporters feel the same about Rangers fans.

Things you learn from Wikipedia:

With an ancestor emigrant from the Great Famine, Barack Obama is about as Irish as Americans come. He is also English, apparently, having a late 18th Century Welsh ancestor.

A whole pile of the non-Great Hunger immigrants (in fact, a very large chunk of them) are not only not Irish, but have a severe risk of not even being British (such as Hugenots shipped to Ireland for the Ulster Plantation). Not only are they from Ulster, they were on the Government side and fought on the side of the King against Cromwell. So not so much Tricolour, or green, as Orange. Which means potentially some of the NORAID people were funding the wrong side...

NORAID types were catholics of first or second generation usually

yeah i feel like people doing that kind of stuff would know enough about their family not to make that kind of mistake. i've never thought about that though. noraid-ers have to be a pretty tiny minority of irish americans anyway.

never thought about the true heritage of people claiming irishness, i mean

He is also English, apparently, having a late 18th Century Welsh ancestor

Uh, what?

Most of the Jamaicans I know have Irish or Scottish surnames; it's not difficult to work out why that might be.

To the best of my current knowledge, my 'Irish' ancestors were Highland Scots who made a pit-stop in Fermanagh long enough to shag around/pick up a surname and emigrated to Canada in the late 18th century, well in advance of the potato famine. The men were all doctors. My grandfather on that side would get annoyed if people assumed he was Catholic because the surname is rather obviously Irish.

Certainly lots of Scots in the West Indies, don't know about Irish, unless they're from Ulster. "Scots-Irish" were mostly Lowland Scots.

e is also English, apparently, having a late 18th Century Welsh ancestor

Uh, what?

― Tom D (Tom D.), Thursday, 11 March 2010 09:47 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Quite, and exactly the way to anger any Welshman!

LOL, but Dunham (Obama's maternal family) is an English name.

I'm having to look into this side of my family for a project and everything I'm finding is atypical for even Irish Protestants. I'm guessing this family were pretty much secular; my grandfather identified as Anglican if he could be bothered - Sundays were for drinking at brunch.

Ignoring religion altogether was one way to make yrself REALLY unpopular with both sides, I'd imagine.

He is also English, apparently, having a late 18th Century Welsh ancestor

Tho, I suppose if you believe the theory that the majority of the "English" aren't Anglo-Saxon but "British" then this works

Results 1 - 10 of about 150,000 for there's no such thing as a black welshman. (0.20 seconds)

d-mac, I'm assuming that's why they went to Canada, scalpels in hand. My grandfather (born just over the US border, google Lake of the Woods) was an only child and really disliked talking about this background (we think he was cross with himself for not becoming an MD) and had tons of relatives beyond his immediate family but I know nothing about them. I've also tried to conduct a thorough hillbilly audit of my grandmother's peeps but it's a redneck-free Huguenot/DAR fiesta.

The Obama English/Welsh thing is how Wikipedia phrase it, essentially, and not at all how I would put it.

obama cant be welsh his last name isnt jones

or chlamydia

chlamydia is a welsh christian name, duh

secret welshman

Dunham is the Irish side of his mother's family, not the English/Welsh side. Through her mother, Madelyn Payne:

Her most recent native European ancestor was her great-great grandfather, Robert Perry, who was born in Anglesey, Wales in 1786 and whose father, Henry Perry, first settler of Radnor, Ohio in 1803. Robert Perry's wife, Sarah Hoskins, was also born in Wales and immigrated to Delaware County, Ohio as a young child.

1786? Very Welsh then.

http://irishpost.co.uk/itv-presenter-forced-to-apologise-after-irish-famine-joke-on-air/

The famine's over, it's time to go home.

oh the banter

:-(

Unpick that one, mind!

But did we get this sorted?

Will def have to go down as 'in progress' im afraid

iirc the english (british) created the conditions in which the famine would occur, were aware that there was a very good chance of occurring, did nothing to prevent it, and subsequently nothing to ameliorate it.

but is that genocide or not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think it was a case of it being profitable and easy to set the conditions in place, expedient to ignore the warnings at the outset and it was a sufficiently expendable population on which to experiment once solutions were attempted.

Im not sure that they cared enough for it to be genocide, if that matters