National Famine Memorial Day

Skibbereen, by James Mahony

I think we all know that Ireland had a potato famine, but probably don't know that many details about it. Allow me to try and quickly fill you in. During the 1600s and 1700s Ireland was controlled by Great Britain, who exacted very cruel penal codes against the Catholic population (you couldn't own land, vote, hold office, live within five miles of an incorporated town, get an education, enter a profession, etc). By the 1800s most of these restrictions were lifted, but the people were still impoverished. Though they could finally own land, most of it was already spoken for. The British had taken all the best land to raise beef and most of the rest was most of the rest was taken by absentee landowners who lived in England. The poor Irish farmers would work the land and send nearly all the profits to Britain. In return, the landowner would let them use the poorest bit of land to raise food for themselves, and the only thing that could grow on it with any efficiency was potatoes.

Famine Memorial in Dublin

Potatoes, apparently, are subject to a handful of diseases that can ruin the crop, and every ten or fifteen years one would come in. In the 1840s a brand new potato disease, referred to as blight, began to sweep across Europe, but the policies that had been set in place made it hit Ireland the hardest. Quickly, potato crops across the country were destroyed. The irony, of course, was that the country was still full of resources. The people, in fact, would continue to work the land all day, producing all sorts of food, only to send it on ships bound for England. This is what led John Mitchel to pen the phrase "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine."

Emigrants Leave Ireland by Henry Doyle

So began the Irish diaspora. Those who could began emigrating to other parts of the empire (Canada, Scotland, or Australia) or to the United States. By the early 1850s the Irish represented a large demographic in most major North American cities--about 1/4 of the populations of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and over 50% of the population of Toronto. This emigration was compounded by tenants being evicted when they couldn't pay the rent. Did I mention there was also a cholera outbreak around this time? Canada set up an immigration station on Grosse-Île on the Saint Lawrence River. It was here over 6,000 would-be immigrants died and are buried. The memorial that was set up in their memory in the early 1900s reads in English, French, and Gaelic, though the Gaelic is apparently the most bitter. It reads:

Children of the Gael died in their thousands on this island having fled from the laws of the foreign tyrants and an artificial famine in the years 1847-48. God's loyal blessing upon them. Let this monument be a token to their name and honour from the Gaels of America. God Save Ireland.

 
After learning a bit of the history we put on some traditional Irish music (might I recommend the Chieftans, or the Dubliners rendition of Skibbereen below?)



I'm not Irish, but my wife is 1/8, so we looked a bit into her genealogy and found her great-great-great grandfather Michael Lamb, who was born in Clara, Ireland and who lived at the time of the famine. We don't have any record besides his name, but it was good to imagine and wonder. 

Coddle

Our celebration of course culminated with dinner, and so I prepared some classic Irish comfort food, Coddle. It's easy to make too. The recipe I found just calls for sausage, ham or rashers (which is bacon from the back of the pig, but we just used the halal turkey bacon we can get here), onions, and a lot of potatoes. It turned out really well, though it probably would have been better if I hadn't cut the potatoes so small. As a result I think I slightly overcooked it. But that's a testament to how good this dish is--you can totally mess it up and it will still be delicious. 

Let's thank the good Lord that we have something as simple as potatoes to eat regularly. God bless Ireland, or as Google Translate tells me, Dia beannaigh Éire!

Jerusalem Day

Jerusalem - A place worth dying for

Sorry it's been a while. We all got sick for a few weeks and had been living off of chicken nuggets. Then I was out of town visiting Lebanon, but now it seems like we're in position to get back into the swing of things. So I took a look at the calender to see what days were left in the week and noticed that Israelis would be commemorating when they were able to retake the divided city of Jerusalem on June 7, 1967. In a sense it's pretty noteworthy, since only a few days earlier I had been touring around Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, and was definitely thinking about Israel's military might from when they bombed the whole country in 2006. I don't want to get political or take sides in the whole mess, but needless to say I can't condone the actions of either side. It's reached a point where I see all the belligerents as the bad guys, regardless of which flag they're fighting under. It also doesn't help my image of Israel when they continue to build settlements in occupied territories, shooting a "what are you going to do about it?" attitude at the international community.

But back in 1967, it seemed things were different. Up to that point Jordan had been occupying the Eastern half of Jerusalem, and had made a point of desecrating Jewish synagogues and sites. Jerusalem was supposed to be an international city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians enjoyed equal rights. Then the neighboring Arab nations invaded. It's much easier for me to see Israel as victims at this time (certainly much more so than when they're shooting cluster bombs into urban areas). Finally in 1967, the Israeli Defense Forces were able to retake the city. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said the following:

This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour—and with added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.

That's something I can get behind. That's the Jerusalem I hope to visit some day--one without the security checkpoints and armed soldiers, one where respect for the rights of others is the rule.

Israeli Salad

So on the topic of food, it's tricky to make distinctly Israeli food, since the country's only existed for about 60 years and is comprised largely of immigrants. So we bought some pita bread, hummus, tabbouleh, an assortment of vegetables, and some chicken kofta at the store and ate it with some homemade Israeli salad (which is, to be pedantic, Palestinian in origin). It's simply finely chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, with a dressing made of olive oil, salt and pepper, and lemon juice. It can be eaten on the side, or put into the pita as a dressing for the sandwich.

After blessing the food in Hebrew with one of the prayers I remembered from taking 3 years of the language in college, we enjoyed our bountiful feast. I got on grooveshark and put on the song "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" (Jerusalem of Gold), which is a song I had learned before while studying Hebrew, and which was written on the occasion of the 1967 war. You can see the English lyrics to it at this website, along with a catchy MIDI version of the song.

מזל טוב, ירושלים