I always struggle with this podcast. The topics being covered are always very interesting and I’m keen to listen but the constant interjections by the guests to make unfunny jokes or totally unrelated points/comments mean I usually have to turn it off after 20 minutes out of frustration.
I’ve listened to other podcasts from Evans that I’ve enjoyed a lot more though.
It’s pretty much accepted agreement in Irish academic circles that the Famine can be considered a lot of things – gross neglect, poor governance, symptom of inadequate response, failed (Laissez-faire) ideology – but labelling it has a genocide is entirely incorrect. This is why, for example, you don’t see any references to actual credible Irish academics in the footnotes but instead a reference to the likes of Tim Pat Coogan.
Yeah the guests make this unlistenable with their constant search for jokes. If it was someone like Dan Carlin I’d be all over this but not from these guys.
This is very hard to listen to. I’m 20 minutes in and they are still doing their impressions of English accents. I’m not sure what the two additional hosts are supposed to add apart from witty interjections?
It’s more like a recording of their reaction to learning about this stuff than it is a dissection of the topic.
I just find it depressing that none of this stuff was covered in school. None that I can remember anyways. I’m 34.
I also can’t stand the woman on this podcast. She’s the producer so doesn’t need to talk but yet always does and never has anything to add. I complained about this on their subreddit after the episode on the catholic church murdering babies but it got deleted by a moderator for being overly mean to her.
Not available in the UK.
“The country you are located in is not supported. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we do not allow access in your current location.”
They did one about the catholic church murdering Ireland babies
There was an excellent RTÉ doc last year covering this called ‘Hunger’. Most interesting part for me is that the only reason it wasn’t classed as a genocide was a technicality; the British wanted an entire ‘cottier’ class (peasant farmer) wiped out but not on the basis of their nationality/religion/ethnicity.
Britain intended to let people die off to pave the way for improved farming.
If anything, Crown campaigns during the Desmond rebellions or Nine Years War would be the ones you’d compare to a genocide. That or the Confederate Wars (with sectarian slaughter by Catholic and Protestant) followed by the Cromwellian Conquest, didn’t Ireland lose a third of it’s population over that decade?
An Gorta Mòr was not intentional but the british certainly could not of cared less how many died at the time. They had a generally racist and heartless attitude toward the Irish (alot of them still do today) from the beginning which made such disasters worse than they should have been. The landlord system installed by them was run by protestants with english surnames who rackrented the poor Irish to the point that the Irish just about survived by planting high yielding potatoes. When that crop failed, they had nothing to fall back on and were evicted on mass to starve or die from disease or exposure. It is little wonder they kept rebelling.
There were previous attempts at genocide by the English in Ireland but that was mainly the 1600,s and they very nearly succeeded; Chichester in Ulster being a prime example in the early 1600s followed by Ollie Cromwell 50 years later. Those were tougher times to be Irish (slightly).
The British did not commit genocide in Ireland.
Ahem.
During the period currently under discussion.
Singular?
I listen to this pod a lot and like Evans but my god the guests are 90% brutal and ruin it. Also the producer, Sophie….. God damn she is so annoying. Can’t stand the eps with Prop as the guest, there’s only a handful of regular guests who are decent
13 comments
I always struggle with this podcast. The topics being covered are always very interesting and I’m keen to listen but the constant interjections by the guests to make unfunny jokes or totally unrelated points/comments mean I usually have to turn it off after 20 minutes out of frustration.
I’ve listened to other podcasts from Evans that I’ve enjoyed a lot more though.
It’s pretty much accepted agreement in Irish academic circles that the Famine can be considered a lot of things – gross neglect, poor governance, symptom of inadequate response, failed (Laissez-faire) ideology – but labelling it has a genocide is entirely incorrect. This is why, for example, you don’t see any references to actual credible Irish academics in the footnotes but instead a reference to the likes of Tim Pat Coogan.
Yeah the guests make this unlistenable with their constant search for jokes. If it was someone like Dan Carlin I’d be all over this but not from these guys.
This is very hard to listen to. I’m 20 minutes in and they are still doing their impressions of English accents. I’m not sure what the two additional hosts are supposed to add apart from witty interjections?
It’s more like a recording of their reaction to learning about this stuff than it is a dissection of the topic.
I just find it depressing that none of this stuff was covered in school. None that I can remember anyways. I’m 34.
I also can’t stand the woman on this podcast. She’s the producer so doesn’t need to talk but yet always does and never has anything to add. I complained about this on their subreddit after the episode on the catholic church murdering babies but it got deleted by a moderator for being overly mean to her.
Not available in the UK.
“The country you are located in is not supported. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we do not allow access in your current location.”
They did one about the catholic church murdering Ireland babies
There was an excellent RTÉ doc last year covering this called ‘Hunger’. Most interesting part for me is that the only reason it wasn’t classed as a genocide was a technicality; the British wanted an entire ‘cottier’ class (peasant farmer) wiped out but not on the basis of their nationality/religion/ethnicity.
Britain intended to let people die off to pave the way for improved farming.
Doc here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SNk1gBNfYBhFHXnd_mgE1H0ezQKkSMck/view?usp=sharing
If anything, Crown campaigns during the Desmond rebellions or Nine Years War would be the ones you’d compare to a genocide. That or the Confederate Wars (with sectarian slaughter by Catholic and Protestant) followed by the Cromwellian Conquest, didn’t Ireland lose a third of it’s population over that decade?
An Gorta Mòr was not intentional but the british certainly could not of cared less how many died at the time. They had a generally racist and heartless attitude toward the Irish (alot of them still do today) from the beginning which made such disasters worse than they should have been. The landlord system installed by them was run by protestants with english surnames who rackrented the poor Irish to the point that the Irish just about survived by planting high yielding potatoes. When that crop failed, they had nothing to fall back on and were evicted on mass to starve or die from disease or exposure. It is little wonder they kept rebelling.
There were previous attempts at genocide by the English in Ireland but that was mainly the 1600,s and they very nearly succeeded; Chichester in Ulster being a prime example in the early 1600s followed by Ollie Cromwell 50 years later. Those were tougher times to be Irish (slightly).
The British did not commit genocide in Ireland.
Ahem.
During the period currently under discussion.
Singular?
I listen to this pod a lot and like Evans but my god the guests are 90% brutal and ruin it. Also the producer, Sophie….. God damn she is so annoying. Can’t stand the eps with Prop as the guest, there’s only a handful of regular guests who are decent