irish potatoe famin

Samantha Boatema-frimpong Surname · Mar 17, 2009

Hi there this is my first post i was just wandering if any one could give me some more facts about the irish potatoe famin; the amount of deaths, and the cuases of death ect. possibly even put me in touch with someone who knows a bit about it.

thanks

Grumpy Git @ · Mar 17, 2009

Samantha, no offence but surely a quick search on Google would give more information than a group of anglers could muster up in a month of Sundays.

Here goes anyway seeing as it's St Patricks day : - all the potatoes died and turned to a mush because of a disease called blight. Lots of people died because they starved.

Fred Bonney · Mar 17, 2009

Agree totally with ol'Grumpy.Search on Google.We only fish.

He also encapsulates the overall problem very well!

Mr Cholmondeley-Corker (PaSC) · Mar 17, 2009

Try

www.potatoemagic.com

Grumpy Git @ · Mar 17, 2009

/forum/smilies/embarassed_smiley.gif okay Matt, I clicked it /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

The Irish Potato Famine was caused by Bob Nudd. Whilst watching an early form of Discovery Channel in the 1860's people in the UK were astounded to see a very young Nuddy demonstrating to an even younger Kev Green the art of taking a plug of potato with a meat punch and dyeing it brown by soaking the plug in coffee. The resultant plug of potato looked very much like a halibut pellet and had the added bonus of being particularly enjoyed by early morning carp who liked to wake up to a caffeine fix.

The problem was getting the potato plug to stay on the hook. It was subsequently discovered that the potatoes grown in England were of the wrong type. They were too 'floury' and tended to split. What was needed was a 'waxy' potato and these were known to be grown in Ireland. The end result, of course, was the descent on the fair isle of thousands ofmatch carp anglers who denuded the place of potatoes, smuggling them back to England and winning matches all over the UK using Irish potatoes.

The rest, as they say, is history. The then fledgling NFA issued an apology to the Irish who subsequently decided that all English anglers were round the bend for devoting so much time to coarse angling, the only fish worth catching obviouslybeing salmon and trout. This mindset has remained to the present day.

Question answered methinks.

Peter Jacobs · Mar 18, 2009

"Question answered methinks"

Nope, 'fraid not - you missed out the part about the fledgling Carp Anglers who were illegally importing Irish potatos for par boiling as bait.

[ insert smiley thing - - - - > H E R E ]

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

Damn, I need a new history book!! But that's the thing about history innit? New things are being discovered all the time and the books are being re-written. I'm currently working on a new thesus that commercial fisheries were, in fact, introduced by the Romans and Julius Caesar actively encouraged recreational angling among his troops. Not a lot of people know that the reason the Romans invaded in the first place was to get their hands on the fishing rights of the Hampshire Avon.

The long winter nights just fly by in the Lambert household .....................

Peter Jacobs · Mar 18, 2009

Long after the Romans Phil the Royalty fishery was purchased by a Mr. Thywhit Walker (I kid you not) in for the princely sum of £4,000 from its previous family ownership of Sir George Henry Rose.

It was sold on in 1899 to a Mr. John Mills whose descendants then sold it in 1972 to the West Hampshire Water authority.

The Royalty Fishery was conferred by Royal grant in the reign of Queen Mary and then renewed by Queen Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century.

Hope this helps in your studies

[ insert smiley - - - - > H E R E ]

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

Thanks Peter, the research goes on.

I have it good authority that Sir George Henry Rose was, in fact, an undercover Roman. The bloke down the Red Lion who speaks fluent b*ll*cks told me so.

I do remember seeing an early wood cut print of Queen Mary fishing the Railway section on the Royalty during one of her many barbel expeditions using an early form of Plumrose as bait.

Graham Whatmore · Mar 18, 2009

I know a bit about the Irish potato famine because I read books about it that I obtained from the library and never was a fictional horror story as vivid as the factual accounts of those terrible happenings.

The rulers of Ireland (us the English) decided that the the Irish nation wasn't worth saving despite all the pleas from various English landowners and even forced the Irish to export any food that was produced back to England thus leaving nothing for the Irish peasants. The result of this was the death of over a million and a half people from starvation and the plague, sometimes whole communities were completely wiped out and whole families as well. Many more thousands died in their attempts to find a haven in America on what in essence were slave ships, battened down for the whole of the voyage without any food and very little water. Sometimes as many as fifty percent of those poor unfortunates were found to be dead when they eventually reached a port in America and even then those that survived were treated as vermin once they were located in cities.

We, the English nation, were responsible for most of what happened during that crisis and it should give you an insight into why the Irish dislike, some even hate us to this very day. Yet another example, one of many, of just how cruel and uncaring our English forefathers were in the pursuit of wealth at the expense of others.

Samantha I suggest you get the information from the library and this is just a few of the books that were written on the subject

Cakey · Mar 18, 2009

Francis Drake was a carper

Cakey · Mar 18, 2009

King Harold took one in the eye for poaching French lakes

Cakey · Mar 18, 2009

King Arthur famous for boiling the pot dry and burning the boilies

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

History is full of horror stories Graham but visiting the sins of the father onto the offspring is now out of fashion. In any historic scenario, to be objective you have toexamine the attitudes and behaviours of the timeand to attempt to compare those attitudes to modern day thinking only distorts the picture. It was a brutal time but, by the canons of the day, the English actions in Ireland would have been considered rational and sensible by many involved in the decision making of the day. Tragic indeed, but understandable in the context of the day.

You could, of course, continue the theme with the English being pilloried for their attitudes to Aboriginals, Maoris, Africans even the French. Forgive me, but you sound as though you are having a pop at the English and, personally, I am happy to learn from history but I don't think most of us want to go through life apologising for it.

Deanos · Mar 18, 2009

To be honest, I dont care if there is another Potatoe famin, I only ever eat oven chips!

Graham Whatmore · Mar 18, 2009

"Forgive me, but you sound as though you are having a pop at the English and, personally, I am happy to learn from history but I don't think most of us want to go through life apologising for it."

Just how wrong can you be Phil, you obviously interpreted what I said as having a pop at the English because I am not English - well you are 100% wrong I am of old English stock born and bred in Birmingham for my sins but that doesn't blind me to our failings as a nation. We were the perpetator of those ghastly deeds and nothing will change that fact.

As for the forefathers bit then you are wrong again it still goes on today in different forms, even the idol of every Englishman Winston Churchill who, in a bid to appease our great friend and ally Stalin sent 2 million Russian prisoners back to Russia knowing full well that they would (and were, to a man) be executed. He knew this because Stalin told him so but still he decided to do it in the name of the British people.

British serviceman used as guinnea pigs for years by being exposed to the affects of poison gas, being exposed to the atomic bomb explosions in the Pacific and made to wear nothing but shorts on the upper deck, some of those servicemen are alive today and suffering the agonies of cancer as a result. The list is endless.

History is a great teacher but not to those who choose to ignore their history.

ED (The ORIGINAL and REAL one) · Mar 18, 2009

King Edward likedpotatoes ..........

In fact he liked them that much that he hadhis plums removed and replaced by two King Edward potatoes, hence the saying:

"I think I'll go and strain my potatoes"

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

Graham, I never had any doubt you were English. It just seems thatsome of the English have this mindset that we should be ashamedof our history. It's a peculiarly English trait. I refuse tosubscribe to a blanketplea of guilty to the actions of our forebears.

It may surprise you but I know all about the Russian Cossacks and Ukrainians handed back to Stalin after they had been captured whilst fighting for the Axis. I am also acutely aware of the 'tests' undertaken on Service Personnel not only in the Pacific but closer to home at Porton Down - all in the name of gleaning information on the effects of radiation andnerve agent exposure. I think you'll find the MoD has admitted that hindsight would have prevented such experiments. I believe, could be wrong here, that the current legal action surrounds providing proof positive that current illnesses are directly attributable to NBC agent exposure.

History is indeed a great teacher and I most definitely don't ignore it. But I don't meekly approach a history book with my eyes lowered and fearful of what I'll find. It's rather like the'is my glass half full or half empty' analogy. Do we go through life constantly ashamed of this great nation's failings or do we take pride in some of it's magnificent achievements? On balance the record shows we did OK. Perhaps the form master might have written 'could have done better' but that would apply to today as well as yesterday.

Phil Lambert · Mar 18, 2009

Ed, so does John Motson but he's not royal. He's a common tater.

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