During the Great Irish Famine, Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid declared his intention to send 10,000£ to aid the Irish people. However, Queen Victoria intervened and requested that the Sultan send only 1,000£. So the Sultan sent 1,000£, but he also sent five ships full of food secretly.

23 comments

  3. I never knew this! I knew that a tribe of Native Americans who had next to nothing themselves had sent a large amount of money to Ireland to help relieve the hunger, and I’ve seen the monument near Cork.

    But never knew about the Sultan’s contribution.

    Well done, that man.

  5. This was the first thing I’ve learned about Ireland when I was 8 years old. 20 years later, I moved to Ireland for my job. I’m Turkish by the way thats why this was the first thing I’ve learned 😂

  6. Did not know about the 5 secret ships of food. That’s pretty cool. cheers ottomans!

    Curious as to the value/cost if 5he 5 shops of food though. did the emperor just sneakily send 9000pound worth of goods instead of cash?

  8. Doubt that Victoria intervened or was even aware of it, most likely officials thought that because she’d only sent £1,000, it might be seen as an insult to her if a foreign monarch had sent more than she did.

  10. Must be one of the most successful pieces of propaganda ever produced this. 2022 and it still regularly does the rounds with zero evidence. Very impressive

  12. Don’t forget in 1847 the Native American Choctaw people sent $170 to help during the famine.

    Imagine more kindness came to this country from outside Europe then it ever did from within.

  14. I wanted to make a few corrections.

    **claim:** -The star and crescent on the Louth Golf Club and Drogedha flags belong to King John’s seal.

    **answer:** The King John(?) seal has 6 pointed stars, while Abdulmecid’s seal has 8 pointed stars. Just like Louth Golf club and Drogedha flags.

    **claim:** There are no sources about Ottoman aid.

    **answer:** The aid documents were published in the London Times on April 17, 1847 and in Nation newspaper on April 17, 1847. Details of the Turkish Sultan’s humanitarian aid to Ireland were also featured in the pages of the London Morning Post on Wednesday, April 21, 1847.

    Further reading: -Christine Kinealy, Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland

  15. they landed the ships in Drogheda, we took the star and Crescent as our town symbol as thanks, there’s a board outside the town centre that explains why he sent that money, Victoria sent 2000, and he couldn’t be seen to send more or the same, so sent 1000 instead, his chief doctor at the time was Irish and Informed him of the famine.

  17. I was chatting to the owner at a turkish kebab place in Helsinki, after he found out that I was from Ireland, he told me about this and said how he loves Irish people and gave me some extra stuff for free.

  18. This didn’t happen like that, and the queen didn’t personally intervene but sorry don’t let me get in the way of your “brits bad upvotes to the left”
    Party the past few days. Fair sad, go way and open a history book.

  21. This isn’t really true at all. I can’t get over the sheer amount of Brit bashing there is in Ireland. Its actually so stupid and immature.

    Sick of this pathetic country sometimes. I’ll get downvoted because I’m tired of us looking immature and we just can’t get over a past none of us alive have much to do with. The north will never Unite with us in this state.

    The mature thing to do would be to stop making our history an offshoot of Britain. I hear this all the time from visitors here – ‘so is there any Irish history that has nothing to do with Britain’. We are OBSESSED. Jesus.

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