CONTEXT: Contrary to what a lot of people think, Potatoes were NOT the only crop grown in Ireland when the potato blight struck Europe, they just weren't allowed to keep any other crops due to British trade policies, resulting in the famine becoming far worse than it should have been.
While many countries tried to send humanitarian aid, one of the more fun examples was Sultan Adbulmecid, who tried to send £10,000 but was forced to limit it to £1,000 to not overshadow aid sent by Queen Victoria. It was also said he secretly sent ships stuffed with food to Drogheda to help.
by Lord_Eln_8
15 Comments
I will once again state;
THE BRITISH ARE NOT GODS, REGARDLESS OF OUR GOOD LOOKS WE CANNOT CAUSE ACTS OF GOD.
WE DO NOT DECIDE WHEN THE SUN RISES OR WHEN THE STORMS COME, NOR THE OUTCOME OF HARVISTS.
Irish famine was not caused by British administration, However it was exacerbated by bad administration.
>Sultan Adbulmecid, who tried to send £10,000
this specifically is a myth with no evidence behind it. he donated at least £1,000 directly to London but there is no evidence of a larger sum nor the sum being limited.
it’s just a repeated rumour with no basis.
this is another comment that long form wrote it up and sourced their stuff much better than I could right now; [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/geore1/did_an_ottoman_sultan_really_donate_food_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/geore1/did_an_ottoman_sultan_really_donate_food_and/)
Damn Brit’s in the comments defending this. I didn’t know their indoctrination went so hard.
Hating Britain is CRINGE and SATANIC
RULE BRITANNIA
ALSO I WANT TO REMIND EVERYONE HERE WHO HATES NAZIS WHO WE ALL OWN OUR FREEDOM
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
MAY HEAVEN REST ALL THE BRAVES HEROES OF THE EMPIRE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM TYRANNY SO TANKIE LOSERS CAN SAY “nUh tHe UsSr aKtUaLlY dId eVeRyThInG” STALIN LITERALLY SIGNED A PACT WITH HITLER TO MASS GENOCIDE THE POLES
THANK THE REAL HEROES WHERE THEY ARE
Why do you need to go all stirring up things now?
The comment section: [https://arethebritsatitagain.org/](https://arethebritsatitagain.org/)
The famine wasn’t created by the British, but they exacerbated it
Theres a reason why former crown counties celebrate their independence. The UK fucking sucks
Oh this repost again. How original.
Love how Reddit is obsessed with criticising the Empire, whilst glossing over the wrongs their own nations committed.
Ottoman empire and the Armenian genocide, anyone?
Oh, but they allegedly sent a few ships of food to Drogheda, so thats fine then.
Hypocrites.
not heard about this before.
That’s an interesting little tidbit. Although the first thing that I think of when it comes to interactions between Ireland and the Ottomans is the [Sack of Baltimore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore). At least 100 villagers in West Cork were kidnapped by Barbary Pirates and forced into slavery. The settlement was abandoned after the raid and wouldn’t be resettled until many years later.
A lot then migrated to America where they were then abused with racist American policies.
Don’t forget Scottish plantation Settler are the one make things worse by stealing the farmable lands, not allowing Irish to grew other crops, and refused to help during the famine, and steal money from relief aids.
They are no victims, they are complicit, some might even say they are the biggest reason, and now the Scots pretending to be victims.
Some here are commenting that the British might have made the famine worse, but they did not create it. Actually no, history shows us that the British actions in Ireland created conditions that the famine would occur (See other countries where they did this) and also that their actions exacerbated the already dire situation.
For a start the British enforced the Penal laws in Ireland. These laws came about due to the discriminatory lens through which the British viewed the Irish. These discriminatory views were codified in the Penal Laws, often called the Popery Acts, enacted by the Protestant dominated Irish Parliament from 1695 onward. The laws specifically targeted Irish Catholics, who comprised about 90% of the population, these laws systematically stripped them of rights to housing, education, public office, weapons, and especially land ownership. The laws were more onerous than those exacted onto British Catholics. . A key result was a drastic decline in Catholic land holdings: from 25% in 1688 to 14% by 1704 and just 5% by 1776. The land ownership of individually families was forcefully divided so much that the only crop that could be grown reliably was the potato. The British set up the conditions whereby the Irish were second class citizens in their own country and had a reliance on one crop.
This land concentration in Protestant Anglo Irish hands created a skewed agrarian economy that primed Ireland for disaster during the Great Famine (1845–1852). Catholic tenant farmers, reduced to small potato dependent plots on marginal lands, were vulnerable to blight; absentee landlords (often exporting cash crops like grain) prioritized rents over food security, evicting hundreds of thousands when crops failed. The Penal Laws’ legacy of dispossession thus amplified famine mortality, over 1 million deaths, and mass emigration.
So the British set up the conditions by which crop reliance would occur and they acted to exacerbate it when it did occur.