An Gorta Mor to be remembered

[earl]

And only 4 million today with 10-15% of that immigrants.

Michael Blanch felt the famine's place in history was neglected

I know one or two unionists here might disagree with this statement in a certain sense! The famine is hardly ever mentioned down south, and amongst my generation, it's never given a second chance. We live in an age where getting food is a given, and people run around trying to get HD TV's, ipods, new cars, computers and holiday homes. Very few people consider what their ancestors had to deal with.


*****Maybe we could continue the famine discussions on the rangers thread here in this more suitable location*******

[Blue Angel]

I'm glad to see this - the gentleman who started this gets my whole hearted respect and I quite agree with Earl we live in a world in which the pursuit of trivia has become the pursuit of happiness and all of us including myself are infected with that disease.


As for me I shall borrow a poem from a well known author in respect of all those who died or were forced to abandon their country:-
Siberia

IN Siberia's wastes
The ice-wind's breath
Woundeth like the toothed steel;
Lost Siberia doth reveal
Only blight and death.

Blight and death alone.
No Summer shines.
Night is interblent with Day.
In Siberia's wastes alway
The blood blackens, the heart pines.

In Siberia's wastes
No tears are shed,
For they freeze within the brain.
Nought is felt but dullest pain,
Pain acute, yet dead;

Pain as in a dream,
When years go by
Funeral-paced, yet fugitive,
When man lives, and doth not live.
Doth not live -- nor die.

In Siberia's wastes
Are sands and rocks
Nothing blooms of green or soft,
But the snow-peaks rise aloft
And the gaunt ice-blocks.

And the exile there
Is one with those;
They are part, and lie is part,
For the sands are in his heart,
And the killing snows.

Therefore, in those wastes
None curse the Czar.
Each man's tongue is cloven by
The North Blast, that heweth nigh
With sharp scymitar.

And such doom each sees,
Till, hunger-gnawn,
And cold-slain, he at length sinks there,
Yet scarce more a corpse than ere
His last breath was drawn.

James Clarence Mangan