Elwyn, Michael
I largely agree with Elwyn on this. My reading of the primary sources at the time (including the several poor inquiries that preceded the great famine) shows that the English authorities wanted to solve the poverty problem from the early 1800s - because potato failures were occurring every few years (especially 1816 and 1830); starvation posed a major security threat; and also because an increasing number of Irish were coming to England, undercutting English wages, and asking for relief there. (As an aside, I've been surprised by how tolerant local English parishes were of this).
But they kept coming up against the same problem - there was not enough work to occupy the huge population, which had been able to grow far beyond normal limits because of the amazing potato which could support large families on small plots. The land was also highly fragmented with multiple layers of middlemen, making it almost impossible to consolidate land to profitable sizes and introduce farming efficiencies. It was a very unique situation where so much of the population had little or no work.
One solution was draining, to create more land, but I'm guessing they thought this would only buy a short period before the overcrowding reappeared. Another solution was emigration, but that was fairly costly and could not be done in the number required to make a difference.
When the famine hit, the official records suggest that the main concern of the authorities was to avoid turning Ireland into a basket case, where the vast majority of the population depended on relief, and that it was this which caused them to restrict aid fairly early on. I'm not defending their actions - it's unforgivable that so many people died in appalling circumstances - but I think there is no case for calling it genocide. If it had been genocide, then the English would not have put so much effort into earlier inquiries, they would have tried to prevent the growing of potatoes, without which the population could not be sustained, they would have restricted the subdivision of land, and they would have prevented Irish people from going to England for work. They didn't do any of those things.
When it comes to county Down, I'm not quite in agreement with Elwyn, at least in respect of my research area of Mourne, which I've studied in depth. Certainly, fewer died there than in the south, but I don't think linen had much to do with it. The evidence to the 1836 poor inquiry was that the collapse of the home spinning industry (due to mechanisation, chiefly) was the chief factor in impoverishing many who had been managing well in 1815. So for the poor, linen didn't provide much of a safety net by 1845. In Mourne, the poor were small farmers and fishermen (and both). Fishing at least provided an alternative food source, but it wasn't free and fisherfolk were among the poorest to start with. There are stories of many people starving in Mourne. I think the main reason fewer people died in Mourne was that there were fewer poor people to begin with.
in any event, I think we need to avoid emotive language when discussing this.
