Prejudice
Prejudice and bigotry were the norm in nineteenth century society. The French Revolution may have introduced ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, but it also led to counter revolutionary fear and increased conservatism. New scientific ideologies like Darwinism, were interprted, not as showing that all men originated as the one species, but as prooof of the superiority of the 'fitter', more advanced White Anglo Saxon Protestants.
While revisionists regarded the Famine as a natural disaster, modern writers argue that relief policy deficiencies caused by religion and ideology either caused or exasperated the Famine. Margaret Preston (1998) contends that the English regarded the Irish poor as being morally, racially and intellectually inferior, the missing link between the chimpanzees and the blacks. She quotes Charles Kingsley (p. 163) on a visit to Ireland during the Famine 'I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along the miles of horrible country. To see white chimpanzees is dreadful'. John Kelly (2012) believes the British Government 'allowed religion and political ideology to traduce reason and humanity'. According to Christine Kinealy, the Government failed to treat the Irish poor as 'deserving not only a right to relief but also of a right to life' (Kinealy, 2012, p. 95). Religious intolerance and racial and class prejudice influenced the attitude and behaviour of the Government. Even educated, intelligent people were influenced by their intrpetation of providentialism, believing that the Famine was the Will of God. Cecil Woodham Smith (1962) lays much of the blame for the Famine on Trevelyan. His letters show that he was convinced that the famine was 'divinely ordained', that the functions of government was not 'to provide supplies of food but to protect the merchant and the agriculturist' and that the 'cure had been provided to a social evil by an all wise Providence' (Tóibín & Ferriter, 2001). Click HERE for Information on Evangelism |
Unfortunately, English racism also affected Irish attitdes. According to Preston (1998), upper class Irish Protestants and 'Castle Catholics' adopted the English code and came to regard the Irish poor as 'naturally immoral, ferocious, idle and drunken' (p.164). Charitable oganisations in Dublin dedicated to educating the poor, did not aim at producing fully fledged members of society, but at training decent, well behaved, obedient servants and soldiers. 'Fallen women' were condemned to stay in Magdelan Laundries for the rest of their lives, where they worked, prayed and repented and were known not by name but by number. A belief in providentialism exasperated racism. The poor deserved to be poor because it was God' Will. This also applied to poor Protestants.
This attitude perculated through the upper classes. It would be unfair to condemn the landlords of Burrishoole for their cruelty and callousness without taking the prevailing attitudes of the day into consideration. It should be remembered that while the Irish were at the racial bottom of the pile, the British were also prejudiced against the French, Jews, Italians, Negroes,Indians and anyone who was not British and white. Anti Irish Propoganda in Punch(www.historyplace.ie) |