WHEN GENOCIDE BECAME "FAMINE" : IRELAND, 1845 - 1850

Great to see this action.  The AOH and Committee for the Commemoration of the Victims of the Irish Hunger has, since the 1990's been advocating the term "Hunger" as opposed to "Famine" since the dictionary meaning of Famine is "no food available".  As others have noted, and author Christine Kinealy has documented, there was food available in Ireland but not for Irish peasants.  It was collected and transported under army guards past the starving Irish enroute to England.  "Great Irish Famine" is a British propaganda term. Since the research and many publications from the 1990's we can now confidently refer to this inhuman government induced calamity as "Genocide".  However, the term "Holocaust" will never be excepted, as it is established as a signature title for the WWII treatment of largely Jews and Catholics by the Nazi regime.  Perhaps, if a photographic history of the Hunger were available at the time this perception could change.

Jim Gallagher