When Ireland experienced a famine in 1782-83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests; that export ban did not happen in the 1840s.

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, "...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland.

The Quakers are the only protestant religio

I was so shocked when I first read about the Irish famine and I still am.

Still saddens to even think about it.

Apologies to my English neighbours for replaying this old historical event that can be seen as divisive to cordial relations between us. My only purpose in posting this is to highlight that the Holocaust was not the only catastrophic event to befall a nation.

It is the fact that we Irish have matured as an independent nation that allows us to discuss this without bitterness or rancour. More anon.