The picture above is of the Great Famine Memorial in Dublin, Ireland.

Year after year between 1845 and 1849, the Irish potato crop failed which caused mass starvation, disease and emigration. During the famine, over one million people died and two million more emigrated from Ireland to the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. It was the beginning of the Irish diaspora that has continued to the present day and made the Irish one of the great transnational influences around the globe.

At the time of the Great Famine, Ireland was ruled by Great Britain. Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, the Assistant Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury, was in charge of administering relief for the millions of Irish peasants who were suffering and dying of malnutrition. As the death toll mounted, Trevelyan was credibly accused of withholding stockpiles of badly needed food instead of distributing them to the starving. Speaking of the Great Famine, he famously wrote that “the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson. That calamity must not be too much mitigated.” So, as you can see, Trevelyan was all heart and, as far as he was concerned, by withholding the relief supplies, he was merely helping God put the troublesome Irish in their place.

Trevelyan presided over a million Irish deaths and starved another two million out of their homeland. So, in a very real sense, we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day throughout the world in no small measure because of Trevelyan’s cruelty.

In the 1970s, Irish folk singer Pete St. John wrote a ballad about the Great Famine titled The Fields of Athenry. It’s about a fictitious young man from Galway who gets caught stealing food for his starving family and winds up on a prison ship bound for Botany Bay, the Australian penal colony. In the first verse, his young wife Mary is heard singing to him “for you stole Trevelyan’s corn, so the young might see the morn”. In the second verse Michael is heard singing to Mary that “against the famine and the Crown, I rebelled they cut me down”. Here’s a link to a video of the Dubliners singing the song. It is sad beyond words. If you can listen to it without a tear coming to your eye, you should drink a pint of Jameson’s and listen to it again. If you still don’t tear up, immediately consult a clinical psychologist.

The Fields of Athenry brings home Ireland’s tragic history which is the inescapable backdrop for the fun and celebrations on Saint Patrick’s Day. For at its core, the story of Ireland is one of tragedy.

But there is, of course, another side to Irish history. What would Saint Patrick’s Day be without rebel songs extolling bloody mayhem by the Irish Republican Army? So here’s a link to Charlie and the Bhoys  singing Sean South of Garryowen before a crowd of enthusiastic young drunks at the Barrowlands Ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland. Whether or not you approve of the IRA, it’s a terrific song and Charlie and the Bhoys do it proud.

So Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Erin go bragh!