Tony Hamilton - Glasgow needs a Famine Memorial

The highland clearances is another thing. I am just talking about the potato ffamine of the 1840s. It also led to mass evacuation from the highlands as well as Ireland. The potato famine of the 1840s devastated the highlands too. Nothing to do with the landlord clearances. Same as the Irish the people had to leave because the population had grown huge for the land and when the potato failed they either had to leave, live on hand outs/work schemes or starve. I think there are a lot of people here who are sharing with the huns the idea that the famine is nothing to do with the native Scots. Really for * sakes would people read the wiki article I posted above on the famine (not the clearances) in Scotland. I know Scots dont tend to have the same strong awareness of it and often themselves see it as an Irish thing but its nonsense. Its their history too.

 

For the many tims who are interested in Irish history does this piece on the potato famine in the highlands not ring very famiar

The Highland Potato Famine was a famine caused by potato blight that struck the Scottish Highlands in the 1840s. While the mortality rate was less than other Scottish famines in the 1690s, and 1780, the Highland potato famine caused over 1.7 million[1] people to leave Scotland during the period 1846–52. The Highland Potato Famine is now in widespread use as a name for a period of 19th century Highland and Scottish history. Famine was a real prospect throughout the period, and certainly it was one of severe malnutrition, serious disease, crippling financial hardship and traumatic disruption to essentially agrarian communities. The causes of the crisis were similar to those of the Great Irish Famine and both famines were part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s.
In the mid-19th century, most crofters in the Highlands of Scotland were very dependent on potatoes as a source of food. The potato was perhaps the only crop that would provide enough food from such land areas. The land was generally of poor quality in exposed coastal locations. (See Highland Clearances.) Very similar conditions had developed in Ireland.
In the Highlands, in 1846, potato crops were blighted. Crops failed, and the following winter was especially cold and snowy. Similar crop failures began earlier in Ireland, but famine relief programmes were perhaps better organised and more effective in the Highlands and Islands. During 1847, Sir Edward Pine Coffin used naval vessels to distribute oatmeal and other supplies. Nonetheless, in Wick, Cromarty and Invergordon, there were protests about the export of grain from local harbours (this grain being privately owned). Troops were used to quell the protests. Crop failures continued into the 1850s, and famine relief programmes became semi-permanent operations.
Crofters were not simply given their oatmeal rations: they were expected to work for them, eight hours a day, six days a week. Relief programmes resulted in the building of destitution roads. Also, they produced projects with very little (if any) real value, and their administration was very bureaucratic, employing legions of clerks to ensure compliance with complex sets of rules. The daily ration was set at 24 ounces (680 g) per man, 12 oz (340 g) per woman and 8 oz (230 g) per child.[citation needed]
Some landlords worked to lessen the effects of the famine on their crofting tenants. Other landlords resorted to eviction. John Gordon of Cluny became the target of criticism in Scottish newspapers when many of his crofters were reduced to living on the streets of Inverness. Gordon hired a fleet of ships and forcibly transported his Hebridean crofters to Canada, where they were dumped on Canadian authorities. News of the famine led to the Scottish diaspora including Scottish-Americans to organise relief efforts.[2]
During the ten years following 1847, from throughout the Highlands, over 16,000 crofters were shipped overseas to Canada and Australia. In 1857, potato crops were again growing without serious blight.


The famine did not distinguise between nations, religions etc. It effected all who lived on marginal land and relied on the potato and the highlands of Scotland were second only to Ireland in terms of that. There is a bad tendency for people to divide history up into theirs and someone else's but despite the idiotic mocking for the famine by some huns its as much their history. The bit posted above shows the highland experience was IDENTICAL to that of the Irish. So, lets not get confused here. It was the same period, the same phase of potato blight, the same mass movement of communities, the same cruel management of the crisis by the authorities and landlords etc.

 

Reading further into the potato famine the real difference is the very high death toll in Ireland. Migration from Ireland and Scotland was actually even higher from the Highlands than Ireland. Destitution and migration abroad or to local cities was the main effect of the famine in the highlands rather than deaths. Its been put at 1-2 million which is incredibly bad when you consider we are only talking about one part of Scotland. Ireland is usually stated to be 1 million deaths and 1 million migrated. The Irish and Highlanders shared what must have been a terrible uprooting and shattering of families and communities from local Gaelic speaking rural areas to big cities. The result is the sparsely populated areas of western Ireland and Scotland where once millions of people lived. It hard to imagine millions in places like the highlands. I once read that between the clearances and the highland potato famine something like 3 or 4 million people left between 1745 and 1850-odd. The highlands (and I am sure western Ireland) was once absolutely packed with people. Hard to imagine now. Many of their houses were made of mud, turf etc so they have just melted away with no trace.

 

Completely agree, I definitely think it should happen.

There would definitely have to be something in place to try and stop the vandals though because I have no faith in their scummy support at all and that's never going to change.

They shouldn't be able to dictate what happens in Glasgow though, I'm all for the memorial.

 

They vandalised John Thomson's brand new grave stone the night before the pilgrimage so nothing surprises me with them.

That should never factor in any decision to erect any kind of monument though. We can always spruce it back up

 

its about time a famine monument was erected in glasgow to remember the 60,000 irish men and woman who came to the west of scotland.theres monuments erected all over the world so why not glasgow,maybes have it down on the banks of clyde.

 

Great idea. But this topic always annoys me. People either forget or just do not know that over 1m Scots left Scotland and just under half a million died in the same famine yet all we hear about is the Irish side of things.

A joint memorial for everyone that died or had to leave their homes would be a far greater show of respect.

 

Not a chance mate. They sing about the famine that killed many Scots, they sing about King Billy who gave the go ahead for the massacre of Glencoe.

Some of them know about the above but do not care, not about nationality but about people lives and hardships.

 

I did not know that. That's just disgusting.

 

Would be great to see a joint memorial. Thanks for the wiki link, an interesting read

 

it would get destroyed by the rancid.

 

Well what is clear is that people dont know as much about the reality of the potato famine of the 1840s as they should. For Scots who suffered the immigration of 1.6 million abroad and * knows how many to flee to local cities from their highland homes to mock the famine is one of the worst cases of ignorance imaginable. I would guess from the statistics that there are as many Rangers fans as Celtic fans who found themselves in Glasgow as a result of the famine. Both the Irish and highlanders were coming from predominantly Gaelic speaking rural ancient communities to the shock of industrial English speaking world. Both were actually huge culture shock and both were actually migration within the UK rather than immigration as such (technically speaking).

The one way to educate people in Scotland is to show its everybody's history. It would be a misrepresentation of history is a famine memorial was to become seen as some sort of republican political thing either by our own fans or by those who are anti-republican. it should not be political or made in such a way that it would be interpreted as. I just think there are people on both sides who would prefer to emphasis distinctiveness and an us and them approach rather than use the actual commonality of the famine experience of the Irish and the Scots Highlanders. IMO its the right and moral thing to look for the common ground rather than differences.

 

Celtic FC contributed to Floods and Bushfires in Australia too

Yes apart from all the other great causes Celtic FC has supported over a very long time, Celtic donated a substantial cash amount to Australia's Flood and Bushfire relief only 2 years ago!