236. The Great Famine: The Blight Strikes Ireland (Ep 1)

Empire

Jack Davenport

History

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did the memory of the Great Famine shape Irish identity? Could it have been prevented? From 1845 to 1852, a disease decimated potato crops across Ireland. Farmers of small plots who relied entirely on this monoculture were launched into complete destitution. Desperate families were evicted from their homes and suffered through starvation. British public policy offered limited assistance, such as workhouses and public works schemes. But people who were used to hunkering down inside during winter had no warm clothes now suddenly had to work outside in freezing conditions to earn their way. Charles Trevelyan, was put in charge of handling the famine and repeatedly promoted “self-reliance”, describing the catastrophe as a “judgement of God sent to teach the Irish a lesson”. Approximately 1 million people died of disease or starvation, and around 2 million people emigrated, causing huge societal shifts that changed Ireland forever. Listen as Anita and William are joined by writer and historian Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn and Long Island, and co-author of The Irish Famine, to discuss the impact of the Great Hunger on Ireland. _____________ Empire UK Live Tour: The podcast is going on a UK tour! William and Anita will be live on stage in Glasgow, Birmingham, York and Bristol, discussing how the British Empire continues to shape our everyday lives. Tickets are on sale NOW, to buy yours head to empirepoduk.com. Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, and a weekly newsletter! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. Email: [email protected] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community.
0:06.7	Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter,
0:12.0	sign up to Empire Club at www.empowerpod.ukuk.com.
0:33.1	Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnhann.
0:35.3	And me, William Durempal.
0:41.5	Thank you so much for all of your very kind comments about the Irish series that we are embarking on.
0:44.6	It's been really lovely to hear what many of you have thought.
0:46.5	And also, it is not an easy listen.
0:51.9	And I won't lie, today's episode is going to be a particularly difficult listen, isn't it, William?
0:53.2	It's going to be very rough.
0:54.9	I have been deeply depressed all week, just reading the material for this pod. I think since we did the Armenian genocide last year,
1:01.2	I had such a depressing and sad week of reading. It is a relentless tale of suffering and
1:07.6	unnecessary trauma. But the bright side of this is we have one of our favourite people coming to speak to us today,
1:14.3	which is Comtebun, who is getting up out of bed in L.A.
1:18.5	Hello. Thank you.
1:19.8	So look, the reason that you're here and what we are going to talk about,
1:22.8	it's an episode that really does form the bedrock, I think, of Irish cultural identity. It is we're going
1:29.1	to be talking about the famine, the great hunger. And there is, I don't know whether it's because
1:34.9	I'm not Irish, but I always sense it in song, in music, in poetry, a great fatalism about the
1:41.1	Irish mindset. And I wonder whether there is something about that, a cultural memory
1:46.2	that is founded on something so horrific, the thing that we're going to talk about today, does
1:50.3	stamp the Irish identity somewhat. I suppose I'd take the opposite view to that, that it's
	...

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