Bones on Canadian beach likely from Irish Famine ‘coffin ship’

[tay]

More than 150 years ago, the end of the world came to Ireland. The Great Famine wasn’t just another chapter in the history of the Emerald Isle — it threatened the nation’s survival before it even became a nation.


One million died. Two million fled. Today, the population of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is still lower than it was before Abraham Lincoln became president.


Now, the remains of some of those who tried to flee this cataclysm have been identified — on a beach in Canada.


The bones — vertebrae, pieces of a jawbone — washed up in 2011 on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, about 500 miles from Montreal.


After three years of research, Parks Canada says that they likely belonged to Irish children fleeing the Great Famine who died in a shipwreck.


“They are witnesses to a tragic event,” said Pierre Cloutier, an archeologist at Parks Canada, told the Globe and Mail. “You can’t have a more tangible witness to tragedy than human remains.”


When famine descended on Ireland in the 1840s, North America beckoned. Another continent — one not gripped by a potato blight — was just a shallow ocean away.


But Irish without means who wanted to fill their bellies in the New World faced one major problem: The only way to get there were “coffin ships.” And though they carried refugees of the Great Famine, coffin ships — illustrations of which resemble the sleeping quarters of Nazi concentration camps — were themselves deadly, claiming the lives of up to 100,000 would-be migrants.


“These ships were packed with people,” Kathryn Miles, author of “All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, the Legendary Irish Famine Ship,” told NPR last year. “Most families of four would be given a platform that was about 6 feet square. So they were sleeping head-to-toe and there was no sense of quarantine or hygiene.”


One coffin ship, the Carricks, set sail from Ireland to Quebec City in 1847. But there would be no salvation for many aboard: The ship went down in a storm off of the peninsula. Survivors — 100 of them, by some accounts — washed up onshore and were taken in, while 87 people perished. In 1900, a monument was erected to memorialize the disaster.


But more than a century after the memorial went up, skeletal remains of some what Parks Canada said were victims of the Carricks were found 40 yards away from the memorial. Without DNA testing and carbon dating, the agency can’t be sure the victims were aboard the doomed coffin ship.


But there is quite a bit they do know. The bones belonged to children — two between 7 and 9, and another as old as 12. They showed evidence of rickets, a vitamin-D deficiency found among the malnourished. Analysis of a tooth showed its former owner ate a plant-based diet. And a button found near the site was linked to a Europe that had not yet endured the Great War.


more


Bones found on Canadian beach likely from ‘coffin ship’ from Ireland’s Great Famine - The Washington Post

 

[darkbeaver]

The Blight was British Imperialism.

 

[Nonious]

More than 150 years ago, the end of the world came to Ireland. The Great Famine wasn’t just another chapter in the history of the Emerald Isle — it threatened the nation’s survival before it even became a nation.


One million died. Two million fled. Today, the population of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is still lower than it was before Abraham Lincoln became president.


Now, the remains of some of those who tried to flee this cataclysm have been identified — on a beach in Canada.


The bones — vertebrae, pieces of a jawbone — washed up in 2011 on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, about 500 miles from Montreal.


After three years of research, Parks Canada says that they likely belonged to Irish children fleeing the Great Famine who died in a shipwreck.


“They are witnesses to a tragic event,” said Pierre Cloutier, an archeologist at Parks Canada, told the Globe and Mail. “You can’t have a more tangible witness to tragedy than human remains.”


When famine descended on Ireland in the 1840s, North America beckoned. Another continent — one not gripped by a potato blight — was just a shallow ocean away.


But Irish without means who wanted to fill their bellies in the New World faced one major problem: The only way to get there were “coffin ships.” And though they carried refugees of the Great Famine, coffin ships — illustrations of which resemble the sleeping quarters of Nazi concentration camps — were themselves deadly, claiming the lives of up to 100,000 would-be migrants.


“These ships were packed with people,” Kathryn Miles, author of “All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, the Legendary Irish Famine Ship,” told NPR last year. “Most families of four would be given a platform that was about 6 feet square. So they were sleeping head-to-toe and there was no sense of quarantine or hygiene.”


One coffin ship, the Carricks, set sail from Ireland to Quebec City in 1847. But there would be no salvation for many aboard: The ship went down in a storm off of the peninsula. Survivors — 100 of them, by some accounts — washed up onshore and were taken in, while 87 people perished. In 1900, a monument was erected to memorialize the disaster.


But more than a century after the memorial went up, skeletal remains of some what Parks Canada said were victims of the Carricks were found 40 yards away from the memorial. Without DNA testing and carbon dating, the agency can’t be sure the victims were aboard the doomed coffin ship.


But there is quite a bit they do know. The bones belonged to children — two between 7 and 9, and another as old as 12. They showed evidence of rickets, a vitamin-D deficiency found among the malnourished. Analysis of a tooth showed its former owner ate a plant-based diet. And a button found near the site was linked to a Europe that had not yet endured the Great War.


more


Bones found on Canadian beach likely from ‘coffin ship’ from Ireland’s Great Famine - The Washington Post

Industrial areas of Britain had another form of 'blight', in my home city of Sheffield at about the same time of the Irish famine the average man's life-span was less than 30 due to bad diet, poverty, pollution and damned hard work (average 60 hours over a 6-day working week).

 

[Blackleaf]

The Blight was British Imperialism.

No, it wasn't (the whole of Ireland was in the UK at the time). It was a fungus-like eukaryotic microorganism known as Phytophthora infestans.

 

[bill barilko]

One million died. Two million fled.

And the rest of them still haven't sobered up.

 

[darkbeaver]

No, it wasn't (the whole of Ireland was in the UK at the time). It was a fungus-like eukaryotic microorganism known as Phytophthora infestans.

Ireland was stripped to the bone year after year. The Irish were slaves and sold as such into the new world by the British even before the Africans.

 

[taxslave]

No, it wasn't (the whole of Ireland was in the UK at the time). It was a fungus-like eukaryotic microorganism known as Phytophthora infestans.

ANd the english rushed right in to help out much like they did when Hitler was burning Jews.

 

[Blackleaf]

Ireland was stripped to the bone year after year.

Yeah? How?

The Irish were slaves and sold as such into the new world by the British even before the Africans.

Only one man can sort this out. Come and save us, Bull**** Man!

By the way, which country was it which permanently abolished slavery in 1807? That's right - Great Britain. And that was all thanks to William Wilberforce and mainly English evangelical Protestants and Quakers.

ANd the english

What did the Scots and Welsh do? The English aren't the only people who make up the United Kingdom.

right in to help out much like they did when Hitler was burning Jews.

As for the fact that Britain didn't do enough to help the people of Ireland, that's just bollocks. Like so many other aspects of history, the facts surrounding the Great Famine have been taken away by the Left and replaced with a made up, invented, Left wing narrative that is then taught to pupils in schools who are brainwashed into believing it. It's much like what has happened with WWI history and the Left-wing, Blackadder version of those events.

What REALLY happened, when you start reading PROPER history books and not the Left-wing ones that are nowadays abundant which give a Left-wing slant on things, is that in the summer of 1847, in the wake of the almost total second failure of the potato crop, the British Government established soup kitchens throughout Ireland. At the peak of this scheme, over three million people - 40% of the population - were receiving free rations of food daily from the soup kitchens. This caused mortaility rates to fall.

 

[darkbeaver]

The occupying British established soup kitchens to prevent total collapse of their economic looting.

The Irish Genocide Author Thomas Gallagher sets the scene for this unspeakable tragedy in his moving testament to the Irish dead, Paddy’s Lament:
“A famine unprecedented in the history of the world, a chapter in human misery to harrow the human heart was about to start, and even little children could see its quick, sure approach in the nakedly fearful eyes and faces of their parents.”[19]
By the mid-19th century, Ireland was a country of Eight Million, mostly peasants. As a result of years of exploitation, they survived as tenant farmers and were never far from economic disaster. They were forced to exist on a single crop: the potato. A disease turned the potato into a foul slime. When the Irish masses turned to the British government for relief, they received the back of London’s hand.
Meanwhile, “Food, from 30 to 50 shiploads per day, was removed at gunpoint (from Ireland) by 12,000 British constables, reinforced by 200,000 British soldiers, warships, excise vessels, and coast guards... Britain seized from Ireland’s producers tens of millions of head of livestock, tens of millions of tons of flour, grains, meat, poultry and dairy products-enough to sustain 18-million persons.”[20]. Note: While the British occupied Northern Ireland millions of Irish Catholics were starving from lack of food not the British.
Gallagher estimates 2 million died from the famine. Writer Chris Fogarty, however, places the numbers “murdered at approximately 5.16 million, making it the Irish holocaust.”[21] Distinguished legal scholars, like Professors Charles Rice of Notre Dame U. and Francis A. Boyle, U. of Illinois, believe that under International Law, that the British pursued a barbarous policy of mass starvation in Ireland from 1845-50, and that such conduct constituted “genocide.”[22].

Irish Holocaust

 

[Nuggler]

The Blight was British Imperialism.

Well, that too, but there actually was a potato blight.

 

[darkbeaver]

Well, that too, but there actually was a potato blight.

Yes but they could have eaten turnip beef wheat. It wasn't the blight that killed them, it was bankers and there red coated murderers.

 

[taxslave]

Yeah? How?




Only one man can sort this out. Come and save us, Bull**** Man!

By the way, which country was it which permanently abolished slavery in 1807? That's right - Great Britain. And that was all thanks to William Wilberforce and mainly English evangelical Protestants and Quakers.



What did the Scots and Welsh do? The English aren't the only people who make up the United Kingdom.



As for the fact that Britain didn't do enough to help the people of Ireland, that's just bollocks. Like so many other aspects of history, the facts surrounding the Great Famine have been taken away by the Left and replaced with a made up, invented, Left wing narrative that is then taught to pupils in schools who are brainwashed into believing it. It's much like what has happened with WWI history and the Left-wing, Blackadder version of those events.

What REALLY happened, when you start reading PROPER history books and not the Left-wing ones that are nowadays abundant which give a Left-wing slant on things, is that in the summer of 1847, in the wake of the almost total second failure of the potato crop, the British Government established soup kitchens throughout Ireland. At the peak of this scheme, over three million people - 40% of the population - were receiving free rations of food daily from the soup kitchens. This caused mortaility rates to fall.

Interesting spin. You should get an unbiased history book.IE one not printed in England. Your version of history is much like the Japanese version of their part in WW2. I suggest some German books.

 

[Blackleaf]

The occupying British established soup kitchens to prevent total collapse of their economic looting.

What a load of nonsense. I bet you also believe that Prince Philip ordered the death of Princess Diana.

Interesting spin. You should get an unbiased history book.

I never read biased history books and magazine and internet history articles. I only read books and articles written by well-respected historians who just simply tell you the history as it happened and have no agenda. Unlike you, I don't read books on articles such as the Potato Famine that are written by Left-wing, Guardianista historians and Irish republicans who skew history to suit their agenda and yours.

Saying that Britain stood by and did nothing to help the people of Ireland - who were British citizens living in the United Kingdom - is a perfect example of this. That myth is something you have been led to believe by the biased books you have read on the subject.

The REALITY is that the British Government opened up soup kitchens all through Ireland which fed almost half the entire Irish population, causing a huge fall in mortality rates. Of course, this revelation has come as a surprise to you because you have never read anything on the subject which actually tells the truth.

Yes but they could have eaten turnip beef wheat. It wasn't the blight that killed them, it was bankers and there red coated murderers.

No. It was a potato blight, one that also hit Scotland and much of Continental Europe.

As for "British" imperialism, it was actually the Normans who initially invaded Ireland. England's Norman rulers in the 12th Century decided to add Ireland to their Norman empire. Again, this is also rarely mentioned by the biased "historians" you read.

And what Irish republicans fail to tell you is that the Irish invaded Britain first. As an Irish historian on Sky News pointed out in 2011 during the Queen's first visit to the Republic of Ireland is that the Irish invaded and settled Britain centuries before the "English" (it was actually the Normans) invaded Ireland. He mentioned that this is an inconvenient truth for Irish republicans that they'd prefer not to mention.

Also, you have to remember that Ireland was part of the United Kingdom when the British Empire was at its height, and the Irish were themselves very much willing participants in the running of the Empire.


Is this the most tasteless idea for a sitcom ever? Channel 4 commissions 'new Shameless' to be set during the Irish POTATO FAMINE

Sitcom, called Hungry, was revealed by Dublin-based writer Hugh Travers
Defending idea he said: 'Ireland has always been good at black humour'
Added that they are thinking of the project as 'Shameless in famine Ireland'
Show is facing strong opposition with thousands signing online petition

By Jack Crone for MailOnline
3 January 2015
Daily Mail

Channel 4 has caused outrage by commissioning a 'Shameless-style' comedy series based on the Irish potato famine - a tragedy in which more than a million people died.

The sitcom, called Hungry, was recently revealed by Dublin-based screenwriter Hugh Travers but has been met with strong opposition - with thousands signing a petition to prevent the show being aired.

Some say the show's comical stance is an insult to those who died and that the Irish potato famine is 'no laughing matter' and should only be shown in an historical context.

Irish potato famine: More than one million died when the potato crop was hit by disease in the mid 19th century

Writer Mr Travers told the Irish Times: 'They say comedy equals tragedy plus time.

'I don't want to do anything that denies the suffering that people went through, but Ireland has always been good at black humour.

'We're kind of thinking of it as Shameless in famine Ireland.'

Shameless was a Channel 4 hit comedy about a dysfunctional family living in a Manchester council estate riddled with alcohol and drug abuse.

The Great Famine lasted from 1845 until 1849. One eight of the population died in the four-year period and two million people were forced to emigrate.

The TV project has been heavily criticised in Ireland before even being aired - with one Dublin councillor claiming the show was intended to 'embarrass and denigrate' one of the most tragic periods in Irish history.

Speaking to The Independent, David McGuinness added: 'Jewish people would never endorse making a comedy of the mass extermination of their ancestors at the hands of the Nazis.

'The people of Somalia, Ethiopia or Sudan would never accept the plight of their people, through generational famine, being the source of humour in Britain.

'I am not surprised that it is a British television outlet funding this venture.'

Anger: Dublin councillor David McGuinness has heavily criticised the show's premise

The councillor is calling on Irish broadcasters to reject the project.

Hugh Travers, who is best-known for the award-winning Irish radio drama Lambo, said that the broadcasters had given him an 'open commission' - meaning he could write about anything he wanted.

So far more than 9,000 people have signed an online petition on change.org to prevent the show from being aired.

The petition reads: 'Famine or genocide is no laughing matter, approximately one million Irish people died and another two million were forced to emigrate because they were starving.

'Any programme on this issue would have to be of serious historical context... not a comedy.'

Twitter users have also weighed into the argument, with one, James Foran, calling the show 'unbelievably crass and insensitive'.

But not everyone is critical of the concept. Another Twitter user, Ryan Cullen, posted: 'No concept should be censored for art...wait until you see how's it's presented and what its intent is.'

He adds: 'Same people complaining about Channel 4 making a sitcom about famine are same complaining about 'The Interview' being pulled. Hypocrites.'

A Channel 4 spokesman said 'We have commissioned a script set in 19th century Ireland by Dublin-based writer Hugh Travers and Irish-based production company Deadpan Pictures - however this is in the development process and is not currently planned to air.'

HEAVY TOLL OF THE GREAT FAMINE

Period: 1845-1849

Cause: Late blight - a disease that destroys both the leaves and the edible roots of the potato plant.

Late blight: Caused by water mould

Significance: It was the worst famine to occur in Europe in the 19th century

Deaths: More than one million people

Emigrated: Around two million people

By the early 1840s, almost one-half of the Irish population - but primarily the rural poor - had come to depend almost exclusively on the potato for their diet, and the rest of the population also consumed it in large quantities.

A heavy reliance on just one or two high-yielding varieties of potato greatly reduced the genetic variety that ordinarily prevents the decimation of an entire crop by disease.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Outrage: Many Twitter users have reacted angrily to the the proposal of a comedy based on the potato famine

So far more than 9,000 people have signed an online petition to prevent Hungry from being aired by Channel 4

Defence: There were a few who defended the idea of the programme on social media

'New shameless': The proposed show, Hungry, about the Irish potato famine, has been compared to Channel 4 comedy Shameless by its writer Hugh Travers. Above Shameless central character Frank Gallagher


Read more: Is this the most tasteless idea for a sitcom ever? Channel 4 commissions 'new Shameless' to be set during the Irish POTATO FAMINE* | Daily Mail Online

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