Editing Great Famine (Ireland) (section)

===Genocide question{{anchor|Genocide}}===
{{See also|Genocides in history (before World War I)#Great Irish Famine}}

The vast majority of historians reject the claim that the British government's response to the famine constituted a genocide. Their position is partially based on the fact that, with regard to famine related deaths, there was a lack of intent to commit genocide. For a mass-death atrocity to be defined as a genocide, it must include the intentional destruction of a people.<ref name="grada cambridge">{{cite book |last=Ó Gráda |first=Cormac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X0uf6t8VfAsC |title=The Great Irish famine |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-521-55787-0 |edition=illustrated, reprinted |series=New Studies in Economic and Social History |pages=4, 68 |quote=[page 4] While no academic historian continues to take the claim of genocide seriously, the issue of blame remains controversial [page 68]. In sum, the Great Famine of the 1840s, instead of being inevitable and inherent in the potato economy, was a tragic ecological accident. Ireland's experience during these years supports neither the complacency exemplified by the Whig view of political economy nor the genocide theories formerly espoused by a few nationalist historians. |access-date=7 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813011514/https://books.google.com/books?id=X0uf6t8VfAsC |archive-date=13 August 2020 |url-status=live |issue=7}}</ref><ref>{{bulleted list|
|{{harvnb|Kenny|2003|p=246|ps=: "And, while few, if any, historians in Ireland today would endorse the idea of British genocide (in the sense of conscious intent to slaughter), this does not mean that government policies, whether adopted or rejected, had no impact on starvation, disease, mortality and emigration."}}
|{{harvnb|Kennedy|2016|p=111|ps=: "Contrary to what might be surmised, modern Irish society is not particularly receptive to the doctrine of genocide. The fact that virtually all historians of Ireland have reached a verdict that eschews that position, be they Irish-born or scholars from Britain, North America or Australasia, has weakened the populist account."}}
|{{harvnb|McGowan|2017|p=88}}
}}</ref> Contemporary commentators blamed the mass death on the actions of the British government, rather than the blight.{{sfn|Mcveigh|2008|p=549}}

In 1996, the U.S. state of [[New Jersey]] included the famine in the "Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum" of its [[Secondary education in the United States|secondary]] schools.{{refn|Approved by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on 10 September 1996, for inclusion in the Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum at the secondary level. Revision submitted 11/26/98.{{sfn|Irish Famine Curriculum Committee|1998|p=1}}|group=fn}} In the 1990s, Irish-American [[Lobbying in the United States|lobbying groups]] campaigned vigorously to include the study of the Irish Famine in school curriculums, alongside studies of [[the Holocaust]], [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] and other similar atrocities.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |last=Kennedy |first=Liam |url=https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandtheHolocaust/ |title=The Great Irish Famine and the Holocaust |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213022226/https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandtheHolocaust/ |archive-date=13 February 2021 |access-date=5 February 2021}}</ref> The New Jersey curriculum was pushed by such lobbying groups and was drafted by the librarian James Mullin. Following criticism, the New Jersey Holocaust Commission requested statements from two academics that the Irish famine was genocide, which was eventually provided by law professors [[Charles E. Rice]] and [[Francis Boyle]], who had not been previously known for studying Irish history.{{sfn|Kennedy|2016|pp=100–101}} They concluded that the British government deliberately pursued a race- and ethnicity-based policy aimed at destroying the Irish people and that the policy of mass starvation amounted to genocide per retrospective application of article 2 of the [[Genocide Convention|Hague Convention of 1948]].{{refn|"Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic and racial group commonly known as the Irish People ... Therefore, during the years 1845 to 1850 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland that constituted acts of genocide against the Irish people within the meaning of Article II (c) of the 1948 [Hague] [[Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide|Genocide Convention]]."{{sfn|Ritschel|1996}}|group=fn}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mullin |first=James V. |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKX/is_2002_Spring-Summer/ai_87915680/pg_5 |title=The New Jersey Famine Curriculum: a report |journal=Eire-Ireland: Journal of Irish Studies |date=Spring–Summer 2002 |volume=37 |issue=1–2 |pages=119–129 |doi=10.1353/eir.2002.0008 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709023854/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKX/is_2002_Spring-Summer/ai_87915680/pg_5 |archive-date=9 July 2012}}</ref>

Historian [[Donald Akenson]], who has written 24 books on Ireland, stated that "When you see [the word ''Holocaust'' used with regard to the Great Famine], you know that you are encountering famine-porn. It is inevitably part of a presentation that is historically unbalanced and, like other kinds of pornography, is distinguished by a covert (and sometimes overt) appeal to misanthropy and almost always an incitement to hatred."{{sfn|Kennedy|2016|p=104}}

Irish historian [[Cormac Ó Gráda]] rejected the claim that the British government's response to the famine was a genocide and he also stated that "no academic historian continues to take the claim of 'genocide' seriously".<ref name="grada cambridge" /> He argued that "genocide includes [[genocidal intent|murderous intent]], and it must be said that not even the most bigoted and [[Racism|racist]] commentators of the day sought the extermination of the Irish", and he also stated that most people in [[Whitehall]] "hoped for better times for Ireland". Additionally, he stated that the claim of genocide overlooks "the enormous challenge facing relief agencies, both central and local, public and private".{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2000|p=10}} Ó Gráda thinks that a case of neglect is easier to sustain than a case of genocide.{{sfn|Ó Gráda|2000|p=10}}

John Leazer, professor of history at Carthage College, Wisconsin, wrote that the binary framing of the debate about the British government's, and particularly Trevelyan's, actions as being good or bad is "unsatisfactory" and that the entire debate surrounding the question of genocide serves to oversimplify and obfuscate complex factors behind the actions of the government as a whole and individuals within it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leazer |first1=John |date=17 January 2022 |title=Politics as Usual: Charles Edward Trevelyan and the Irish and Scottish Fisheries Before and During the Great Famine |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03324893211049539 |journal=Irish Economic and Social History |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=47–59 |doi=10.1177/03324893211049539 |s2cid=246022519 |access-date=16 December 2022}}</ref>

Writing in 2008, historian Robbie Mcveigh highlighted that while discussions around whether the Great Irish Famine was genocidal in nature have a long history, the tools of genocide analysis were never employed to assess such claims.{{sfn|Mcveigh|2008|p=553}} Scholars highlight the similarity of British policies around and in response to the Irish famine and other cases of famine and starvation in the British empire and colonial regimes,{{sfn|Conley|de Waal|2023|p=139}}{{sfn|Mcveigh|2008|p=556}} with Mcveigh stating in the other cases they "appear not as horrendous imperial incompetence but rather a deliberate administrative policy of genocide", and calls for more rigorous investigation of the history of Ireland in genocide studies.{{sfn|Mcveigh|2008|p=556}} There have been later genocide scholars who support the description of the famine as a genocide.<ref>{{bulleted list|
|{{cite book |last=King |first=Neysa |chapter=Rethinking and Recognizing Genocide: The British and the Case of the Great Irish Potato Famine |date=2009 |title=Re-Imaging Death and Dying |editor1-first=Dennis R. |editor1-last=Cooley |editor2-first=Lloyd |editor2-last=Steffen |publisher=Inter-Disciplinary Press |isbn=978-1-904710-82-0 |pages=123–132}}
|{{harvnb|McGowan|2017|pp=87–104}}
|{{harvnb|Jacobs|2023|pp=94–97}}
|{{harvnb|Conley|de Waal|2023|p=139}}
}}</ref> Nat Hill, director of research at [[Genocide Watch]], has stated that "While the potato famine may not fit perfectly into the legal and political definitions of 'genocide', it should be given equal consideration in history as an egregious crime against humanity".<ref>{{cite web |last=Hill |first=Nat |date=13 October 2021 |title=An Gorta Mór: The Question of the Irish "Genocide" |url=https://www.genocidewatchblog.com/post/an-gorta-m%C3%B3r-the-question-of-the-irish-genocide |work=[[Genocide Watch]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240211155335/https://www.genocidewatchblog.com/post/an-gorta-m%C3%B3r-the-question-of-the-irish-genocide |archive-date=11 February 2024}}</ref>