Great Irish Famine
The definition of genocide is fluid enough for it to be very easily claimed, and no less easily rejected. Quite as the Turkish government and people reject outright the definition of the Armenian deportation as genocide, so the British government also regard the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852. Nonetheless, in the unfathomable complexity of the Anglo-Irish relationship, there are no small number of historians who point the finger at the British government, not so much for acts of commission, but acts of omission.
During that bitter period of modern Irish history – between 1845 and 1849 – approximately 1 million people died, and a million more emigrated. The raw facts of the Irish Famine are quite simple. It was caused by the failure of the potato crop, thanks to a mold-related blight, which affected a rural population heavily dependent on potatoes as a staple food source. Numerous similar crop failures, both in Ireland and elsewhere, had occurred at various times, but without the same catastrophic effect. This particular event, however, became embroiled in other social, political and economic issues, which is where historians tend to point the finger of blame at the British and accuse them of genocide.
In the 1840s, Ireland existed as part of Great Britain and Ireland, and as such, it was ruled directly from London by the British Government. Between 1782-1783, a similar crop failure occurred in Ireland, but on that occasion, the British government responded by closing all Irish ports. This was to ensure that all food produced in Ireland remained in Ireland, guaranteeing that everyone had enough to eat, even during the leanest times. There was, of course, a great deal of mercantile resistance, but the British government held firm. It was this policy in the end that is credited with saving Ireland from the worst possible consequences of crop failure.
No such policy was implemented in 1845, and as such, the famine has been described as artificial, and attributable to a deliberate policy of punishing a stubborn and difficult constituent territory of the Kingdom.
Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, Francis A. Boyle, argues that these actions, according to sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, constitute genocide. Other academic opinion tends to point to a typically dogmatic refusal on the part of the British government to acknowledge a failed policy.
Needless to say, there are passionate advocates on both sides of the argument; and certainly a fractious, and historically difficult relationship between Dublin and London is not improved in the slightest by the discussion. Was the Great Irish Famine genocide? Probably in the minds of a few individuals who had the power to stop it, it was, but as a systematic government policy, perhaps not.