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ANYTHING THAT WIPES out or reduces nearly 25% of a country’s population is not funny. The deaths of a million people or so during the 1840s in our own country is not funny.
War is not funny. Between 1914 and 1916, sixteen million people died and twenty million were injured in a war which was largely needless. World War One was one of the great tragedies in history. It was not funny.
Ben Elton and Richard Curtis did not find the bloodshed of 1914-18 funny. Intelligent men, just as their cast of Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Tony Robinson, they were horrified by the period. And yet, they wrote a comedy based in the trenches. A comedy that did not mock the dead or poke fun at dying. What Elton and Curtis created in Blackadder Goes Forth was 30 minutes a week where we laughed at the ineptitude, the poor decisions, the sheer futility of the war – but we never laughed at those who died.
What Blackadder Goes Forth gave us was a respect of those in the trenches who maybe weren’t quite sure of what they were fighting for. It gave us a sense of the fear these men faced. It was a comedy and yet it hammered home a respect for those who had given their lives. The very last episode, the last minute and the closing titles are funny and horrific, and, 26 years after they were first aired, remain poignant.
A comedy about the Great Famine?
Channel Four has commissioned Hugh Travers to write a comedy based on the great tragedy of our nation, the potato famine. People are complaining, a small group protesting. Tim Pat Coogan compared it to making a comedy about Auschwitz or Belsen.
Maybe the programme will be insulting and make a mockery of the dead and the people who suffered. Maybe. Or perhaps it will follow in the tradition of good comedy and give us respect for those who suffered, while also finding humour in the ineptitude and stupidity that led to the situation.
Maybe the fuss is because it’s being made by Channel Four, a British company. Sorry, but RTE does comedy as well as I do brain surgery. Twenty years ago, Channel Four, with the help of Arthur Matthews and Graham Linehan, put three priests and a housekeeper on an island. A lot of people thought it offensive without seeing it. Now it’s a comedy classic. Ireland’s two best comedy programmes, Ted and Moone Boy have both been produced by British companies.
Channel Four can still be a bit of a risk-taker at times. But it had grown up, even since it broadcast Ted. We no longer go to Channel Four late at night expecting something salacious. Instead we go expecting good comedy or drama, or a genuinely hard-hitting documentary.
Our famine was not funny. But there is no reason that, handled properly and with respect and dignity, we can’t have a good comedy programme about the era.
Mark Farrell lives in Kildare with his wife, Carrie, and their dogs.
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I don’t think I would really mind, but it was more of a genocide was it not?
Apart from what Irish people feel about this I’m wondering what will British citizens feel watching what will be comedy about s genocide of them British people by British government
Yes Donaill it was genocide. Sometimes, somethings are best left alone. This is one of those times.
When you remove food from a starving country its genocide. No doubt this “comedy” will avoid that fact..
More of a Genocide?
That is like saying the shooting of JFK was more of a homicide than a shooting, or the Omagh bombing was more of a multiple homicide than a bombing, not really the best use of logic, especially when the cause of a famine is quite irrelevant in whether or not you call it a famine..
What is relevant in whether you call something a famine or not is whether or not a bloody famine took place and a famine sure as hell took place here in the mid 19th century.
My heart goes out to the poor souls who red thumbed the above comment because they must think the famine, which was used here in the mid 19th century to commit genocide, wasn’t actually a famine because it was a genocide. WOW!!!!
Mark, there was plenty of good food and viable land. We were just left with the bad food. It was genocide. Now ask yourself, why was I not told this in school?
I am making no comment about whether it was a genocide or not, I’ll leave that for others to slog out.
What I am saying is that calling it “more of a genocide” or “not a famine because it was a genocide” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The (so called) genocide was CAUSED by famine so saying there was no famine is just plain stupid (and utterly illogical).
It was a an opportunistic genocide facilitated be a famine. When the population were starving in the streets rather than give them the abundant food that was being grown in other parts of the country that food was exported for profit and the people left to starve! Even the do gooders with their soup kitchens took advantage forcing many people to change their religion before they would feed them. Can’t see that being talked about though. So yes it was a genocide but only because the opportunity caused by a famine was there. And let’s not forget the exploitation of the situation of the mostly British owners of the coffin ships, they made fortunes sending people out on ships they new were death traps!
It was not a genocide because the British did not aim to make people die as a people, that is, because they were Irish. They were (mis)guided by laissez-faire ideas of free trade and non-governmental interference and yes, the British did export food, this exacerbating the famine. But the motives were economic, however weird and wrong they were, not national or eugenic.
Ian here are some quotes from Charles Trevelyan, who was in charge of British relief during the Irish famine.
“The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.” He also described the famine as an “effective mechanism for reducing surplus population” as well as “the judgement of God”. These feelings don’t seem economic to me but as the thoughts of someone who saw this event as chance to reduce the Irish population. Also there was just as bad of a potato crop failure in Scotland yet the areas of Scotland dependent on this crop suffered miniscule casualties in comparison to Ireland. I wonder why??
Exaclty, they will just do their usual skit of the Irish starved because they were either lazy or drunk or both. Can’t see many actual “facts” making it past the edit suite.
After what happened in France, best response is to shrug it off, I’m all for free speech even if it’s in bad taste. People will come to their own conclusions. In the end, words can’t hurt people.
Of course words can hurt people.
Especially if you write them on rocks… Ouch!
Free speech means you can say what you want. It also means someone else can say what they want about what you just said.
Not sure about this one…would certainly look at it. But the point in this article about Rowan Atkinson making us laugh at what was going on in the trenches is a moot one…..first of all he was a victim of his own countries policy and the ineptitude was symbolic of the ruling classes detachment from the action. I’m not sure who would replace those characters in an Irish famine situation. Also remember the very last scene of Rowan Atkinson’s series when it ended in a still of those men going out over the trenches, presumably to detach the horror from the comedy. Let’s see,
I think they detached the horror from the comedy as it was a comedy. I would assume this famine comedy won’t be some dark toned documentary either.
Agree Simon, sticks and stones we all know how it goes
Agree Simon, sticks and stones we all know how it goes
The fact of the matter is you’d be hard pushed to find someone in the UK right now who is familiar with the Irish potato famine and Cromwell’s adventures in Ireland, I remember being stunned when I discovered one person who knew of these things in a British pub many years ago. The only problem was that he was Indian. Everyone else that day hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, even when he reminded them of their own history.
We can’t underestimate the educational value a comedy like this may have, it has the potential for a little ridicule, sure, but it also has the potential to educate and teach an otherwise ignorant audience about an appalling part of our history. I don’t mind having a laugh now and again, but I really enjoy knowing the British are learning about my country’s history while doing it.
C4 must do a comedy on the Bermingham bombing or in a gas chamber,the missing Malaysian plane even the Charlie Hebdo massacre as they seek new frontiers to amuse us, why stop at people dying from hunger ?
Jesus….no one’s forcing you to watch it
As far as I recall Kate Ellen Egan, Chanel 4 don’t take orders from you. Now you have the freedom to do a comedy on the Bermingham bombing or in a gas chamber,the missing Malaysian plane even the Charlie Hebdo massacre as it seems you only assume yourself.
I will certainly piss myself laughing watching our people eat grass and beg for food off the landed gentry. I will particularly enjoy scenes of desperation while some English toff with a scented hanky squeals about his rent and the disgusting middle-man gombeen who in these times ,would probably be one of our elected representatives, puts in their thatch and leaves them to die on the roadside.
just a little reminder of the level of free speech in the UK when it comes to sensitive matters. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244091/Man-arrested-Twitter-joke-bombing-airport-Terrorism-Act.html
The wounds caused by sticks and stones heal, the wounds caused by words never do. A sharp word can wound for a lifetime. A broken leg heals in six weeks.
I think most of the outrage comes from the fact that it’s our former oppressor making the show. It it were an rte production, ppl would still be irate but I doubt it would have gotten as much coverage. I don’t care if it’s made tbh.
The Savage Eye lampooned the Irish famine and nobody batted an eyelid. I think you’ve got the nail on the head there.
Ahh yeah, But that wasn’t comedy.
Stop calling it a famine it was a genocide. Ireland was a breadbasket then as it is today, the British simply saw the opportunity to try and starve us out of existence and they took it.
no I won’t because your statement is an opinion rather than a categorical historical fact.
Explain how it is an opinion? They exported a vast quantity of food while people starved in the street. Did they not have the intelligence to understand what that meant?.
I’m absolutely not getting into a debate about this because it is clear that the British government behaved abominably.
You are insisting that we rename it because of YOUR assessment of the motives and extent of the British actions – that’s your opinion, fairly held I’m sure, but it is not a categorical indisputable fact that it was a deliberate genocide.
Famine is often mistaken as a natural disaster when it actually just means a shortage of food. It has nothing to do with how that came about but generally famines always have political motives and id completely agree that is a form of genocide, just as I would consider any famine a form of genocide. Plenty of famines happening right now we could easily stop, so I disagree with changing the name.
The words Famine and Genocide are not mutually exclusive, just like “shooting and homicide”, a shooting can be the means of a homicide and a famine can be the means of a genocide.
Where the hell did this nonsense of Famine v’s Genocide come from?
IF it was a genocide then the cause was Famine. Quite simple really.
Where did this “genocide or nothing” brigade come from? Why will they be satisfied by nothing else? Genocide means the deliberate extermination of a people because they are that people. See: the Holocaust, Armenians by the Turks in 1915, Rwanda, etc. The British may have exacerbated the famine by exporting food and denying aid, but they did it for economic reasons, not racial ones. When did the British have the aim of wiping out all the Irish? Who said that and when?
I imagine a large proportion of British people are probably not aware of the history of the Irish famine (or British famines for that matter of which there were a good number in the 16 – 18th centuries). They’re periods in history that don’t get too much airtime for whatever reason, unlike say the Holocaust or Hiroshima. I think, like Blackadder anything that improves peoples knowledge of historical tragedies (even through the media of comedy) is a good thing?
Agreed. For something to be funny, it has to be true. If it is true then it will be of service.
@Pontius
Well it was more of a genocide than a famine. We had plenty of food but it was exported.
Everyone keeps quoting black adder goes forth but it’s comparing apples and oranges. Black adder was a British company of British comedians poking fun at the British army and the futility of war. Fair enough. But I suspect that if a German tv company had tried to make the same show there would have been outrage in the UK. Winner or looser you don’t get to laugh at the other groups pain. That is one of the rules of civilisation. That’s what allows us to put things behind us and move on. How would the British feel if the Japanese decided to make a comedy set in a Japanese WW2 prisoner of war camp? After all, as they keep saying comedy can be found in tragedy, can’t it? The irish famine is just one of those things the British NEVER get to joke about. It’s an unwritten rule of society that the perpetrators of an atrocity never,ever get to make light of it.
It was not a genocide. The British government did not have an explicit aim of wiping out the Irish as a people.
Colm, most British people would not care in the slightest if the Japanese made a comedy about the prisoner of war camps. It was a long time ago and if the comedy is good we would love it.
And to be clear, the British administration who were responsible for the famines in Ireland are not the same people who are in power now. I’m not sure about the House of Lords, though…
Free speech is in the air at the moment, and it is interesting how the gauge for how free expression can be depends on how close the subject is to a particular individual.
Also, Irish people are not obliged to watch a program made by a foreign broadcaster in a foreign country.
Finally, I am also fairly certain that Channel 4 do not embody 19th Century British imperial policy.
Spencer, I don’t believe for a second that if the Japanese made a comedy about their prisoner of war camps in Burma with the British prisoners as the butt of the jokes that the british would sit back on a saturday night and roar with laughter. There would be letters in the times and questions asked in parliment. Ok, there wouldn’t be demonstations outside the Japanese embassy because we know how you hate to make a fuss in public. But at the very least it would be considered bad taste. The people/families who run Britain now are the same ones that have been running it for the last 400 years. Decisions are made behind closed doors. It’s only how that decision is dressed up, paraded around and sold to the public that ever changes. But the names at the clubs and house parties are all pretty much the same as they ever were. Yes, the actual potato blight was an act of nature but the famine itself, the people that died of starvation or had to emigrate and died en-route happened all because, rather than feeding the starving population, the ample food that was grown here, was exported out of the country. And the reason the native population were so dependant on the potato as a crop was because it was the only thing which would grow and provide enough food on the near barren scraps of land that were left to them. So when that failed, everyone starved. Call me a bit slow but I just can’t see how you can wring comedy out of that? Maybe chanel 4 should try the format in somewhere like Ethiopia or Sudan and see how it works with that first? And no, were not obliged to watch it, and given the track record of the portrayal of the Irish in British Comedy, or foreigners in general for that matter, it really doesn’t inspire confidence. It will be a brave Irish channel that buys it. But that’s really not the point.
Brilliant stuff, Colm. You have all the answers, ha :-D
There’s a lot of scope for this to be in pretty bad taste. There’s little humorous about people dying of starvation or malnutrition. There’s not many laughs at people forced to go to filthy workhouses that were overcrowded and filled with diseases. Its difficult to crack jokes about hundreds of thousands of people forced to abandon their homes and emigrate to the New World on an overcrowded coffin ship.
This might be good it might have clever and witty Swiftian writing. Or it could be making bad jokes about an appalling genocide. I’ll judge it when I see it.
That’s the bit that gets me.. Can we not wait until we have seen it before we get a bee in our bonnets?
As you say – if the writer is clever enough he might make it a scathing satire. If it’s in bad taste or terrible it won’t last long.
We do little or nothing to honour our war dead, never mind the victims of our great famine. Spend some time in England, Australia and the U.S. And you will see how to honour your war dead.
I agree about not remembering our famine victims. We don’t have to hold a grudge forever against the Brits for their role in the famine, but it was one of THE defining events in our history and not really so long ago either. The victims should be honoured on an annual basis with a national Remembrance Day ( I know there are some local events)
Best way to honour your war dead is to make sure their children don’t have to suffer the same faith.
I fear in America they do little to honour their war dead by continuing wars destined to fail. If you make it without dying you can be sure you’ve a higher chance of PTSD and suicide than any other profession in the country.
True, but unfortunately “most” irish people are more concerned about themselves and are just itching for the arrival of Celtic tiger 2.
1) humour shouldn’t have boundaries – otherwise we look foolish being outraged at the Charlie hebdo attacks
2) the economic policies that led to the Irish famine are still being used all over the world so we haven’t learned from our past
3) as outrageous as the famine was – it was also inevitable. The population of Ireland exploded at the beginning of the 19th century it was roughly 2 million and it peaked at 8 million just before the famine.
A comedy on the famine is likely to be widely watched and may hopefully lead to awareness and discussion of the above points which are very relevant today
The famine was not inevitable. The island is big enough for 8 million people. We’re currently at approx 6.5 million, with one of the lowest population densities in Europe. We were a constituent part of the United Kingdom which ruled one quarter of the globe. The famine could have been prevented if the political will was there.
John it has nothing to do with a population explosion and more to do with british landlords exporting all food stuffs to England. People may have gone hungry but we would not have had 1,000,000 die of starvation.
This is awkward. Remember us in the North cut off a few decades ago (after the famine)? Well together we make up over 8 million. Famine time again? I’d agree that it was genocide; read Tim Pat Coogan’s The Famine Plot. Do I agree with free speech? Yes, but I also agree to a bit of common sense – a German comedy about life in the Holocaust wouldn’t be well received etc.
If you dont agree with it, don’t watch it. Just like Paris If you dont like depictions of prophets then don’t buy the paper
It’s not about being obliged to make it or not, it’d just be common sense and decency to give it a miss
But James, what if it’s good? Would it not make sense to watch it then?
It should have been common sense and decency for the Charlie Hebdo artists not to insult Islam by drawing Mohammed. But they used their free will and rights to free speech to lampoon all religions and sensibilities
Why are some targets fair game, but not others?
Complete overreaction! Faux moral outrage! There’s an evolutionary imperative why we give a crap about our family and friends. And there’s an evolutionary imperative why we don’t give a crap about anybody else. If we loved all people indiscriminately, we couldn’t function.
I’d hazard a guess that a lot of those calling for censorship and denial of C4 and Hugh Travers right to free speech were the loudest “JeSuisCharlies” last week.
We’re Irish and unique, we have the ability of laughing at disasters (and even ourselves)
After most disasters there are jokes going around about it.
Why not our history.
We cant change the past and it was a pretty horrific time in our history. Maybe humour would undermine the tragedy as i am sure there there wasent any humour at the time of million of our people died horrifically of starvation. We have lots of memorials dedicated to the famine, and i believe it will never be forgotton.
Yes, the people who are outraged are over reacting. One of Alan partridges funniest piece is when he makes a series of Irish jokes in one episode, including joking about the Irish people being “fussy eaters” during the famine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3gfjpcgZmw
Once the joking is not too serious in nature then we should all have a good laugh at it.
Spike Milligan always described himself as Irish.
Why such predictions of offence before the thing is even scripted?
Are people just itching to be outraged?
I’ve no issue with it. However, I think RTE should commission a couple of new comedies. One should be about the abduction of Madeleine McCann, and the other should be a series of half hour comedies about IRA bombings on the British mainland. They could start with the Warrington bomb and achieve maximum comic value from the remains of the child victims splattering all over the faces of onlookers. The British would love it – with their goofy and sophisticated sense of humour.
Top of the mornin’
begorra don’t dem inglesh jusst luv laffin’ at d’irish.
I’ll bee away now sir to amuse ye on me genoslide.
The rule in comedy these days seems to be to only go for soft targets and the Irish are a self-deprecating people. Open season then!
This is the same channel that brought us “father ted” back then who saw anything funny about three priests living on a island. Channel four is in the money making business and even if it’s a bust it will cost us nothing.I wish them every success with the venture.
Only in Ireland would we call to ban something that we only have a vague understanding of what it actually is. Nobody has read the script so stop moaning.
We had a great famine but what we never read about is that we had a number of famines in this country before & after the Great one, it is nothing to laugh at especially that this Country is a land of abundance when it comes to food which was continually exported by our rulers while the people of this country starved. Has anyone started to write a comedy about the balkan war & the genocide that took place over there??
How is the script taking shape for this so called comedy, are we going to have stereotypical characters of irish people in it such as what the british press published back then. How funny is it going to be portraying Irish people starving, getting evicted, forced to emigrate etc. Its going to be a barrel of laughs
(scene 1, a week before eviction and Paddy O’Shaughnessy is delirious with hunger)
Paddy: Mary our youngest child keeps starrin at me
Mary: Paddy the poor soul is dead from the hunger
You obviously don’t write comedy!!
It is distasteful to mock a genocide, even if only Irish people are willing to face the fact that the so-called “famine” was just that. I won’t be watching this, obviously, and Channel 4 has gone to the dogs anyway with it’s constant poverty porn and lowest common denominator “entertainment”. What really irritates me though is that the fact an Irish company is involved in the production of the series which, according to some people, makes mocking the “famine” fine. Ireland never produced West Brits before then, no? Ireland never produced people with sycophantic, pro-British tendencies? John Bruton, et al, looking in your direction.
Yes, it was genocide – genocide by famine.
Seeing as how it hasn’t been made yet, and you won’t be watching, aren’t you just getting offended by what you imagine it will be?
What if it serves as a way to educate a lot of younger British people about their role in this genocide? A lot of them still think we only ate potatoes and the crop failed!
What if the show made a mockery about the pig headedness of the “Empire” believing that it was fine to leave us to starve?
If people in the UK got to see that there was actually lots of food but it was all being sent elsewhere then they might learn something. That can only be a positive.
I’m looking forward to it, it’s an interesting time in Irish history and history told through comedy can be an excellent way of looking at events from a different angle. I’m sure it’ll be dark and it certainly won’t be for everyone but surely the point of good quality TV and particularly comedy programs is to push the boundaries. Let the audience decide if there’s a market for it and judge it on it’s merits.
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Some of the goons posting here will probably be burning Union Jacks and effigies of John snow. It’s a tv show. You don’t have to watch it. This is why England gets Monty Python and Blackadder and we get Mario Rosenstock
I wouldn’t sign any petition or protest to stop the making of this comedy, but it does worry me that it’s being made by the British. Will they give a completely biased view of the events or have it laden with bad stereotypes? A lot of people keep on mentioning Blackadder as a sort of template, but the writer mentioned it would be more like Shameless. Are we going to have a heavy drinking Frank Gallagher style patriarch in the show, i’m not sure his character gave British working class culture a great image. Still outrage should be saved until after the broadcast if there is to be any.
‘If it was just the potatoes that were affected, at the end of the day you will pay the price if you’re a fussy eater.’
It wasn’t a great famine, at all at all!
What do you mean “we”? A few butthurt knobs are – most don’t care.
My mother was an english catholic. Her great-great-grandparents (might need another great there) left Sligo in the 1840′s and moved to the north of England to escape the famine. There are more than a million people today in GB born in Ireland and more than two million with at least one Irish parent. Eight or more generations after the famine a very large proportion, if not a majority, of British people must descend from at least one migrant/refugee. If there’s a comedy in this I’m guessing that it’s going to borrow from Swift and be a satire on mercantilism, laissez-faire economics and colonialism. It’s going to make points relevant to today’s right wing trickle down / get on your bike theory and it’s going to use a previous British government as the butt of the humour. Nineteenth century Irish history isn’t just a history of colonialism for twenty first century British people. For a lot of them/us it’s family history.
My only concern is that they actually make it funny rather than any issue of poor taste. I have a vision of the same tired potato gag being repeated over and over again.
I cannot imagine many hilarious situations that could occur during the Famine, if the writers of this show can make even two episodes worth of material they are very talented people.
Shocking altogether making fun of the deaths of millions!
Have they? It’s not even written yet, who says it will be poking fun at those who died?
Yes.
Surely the logic of “no topic should be taboo for comedy” is that Tim Pat Coogan is right. A comedy about Auschwitz would be fair game. I don’t think that’s quite what he meant, though. Appeals to good taste are never very impressive. Taste is subjective.
I hope that this government do the decent thing and complain to Chanel 4 and the british government the British could have helped then and didnt so many people died as a result so insulting and disrespectful to the irish people and the people who died.
I loved Allo Allo
As long as its true view of what happened And the English now the truth and they take the pee out of them as well then it might be a bit of fun
So is it a famcom?
Just crack a joke about Ebola I mean there was no malice involved in those people finding themselves victims. Unlike the callous malicious neglect practised on the people in this country. The Brits owe us hugely this is just more of that wilful indifference.
out of all the flavours you have to be, commenters. you all had to be salty
There was no famine only a great hunger as the food here was harvested and paid in tax to the English to fee their armies off fighting wars in France etc. To me, the most offensive part of this whole debacle is the that most Irish people still call it a famine. Do you people really think there was only one type of food grown on this entire island? Really?
There was plenty of food, it just wasn’t distributed to the Irish. Grow up, learn your history and then let them make this show and then decide whether it is funny or not. Famine my feckin arse.
Anyone who tries to say there was no famine is doing more of a disservice to those that died than any TV prtogramme ever could.
I would love to know where this idiotic nonsense of The Famine not being a famine because there was food around but not being distributed. The word famine comes fron the French for HUNGER not scarcity, therefore if as you say there was “great hunger” with people starving to death then there was famine, that is what the bloody word means, the cause is irrelevant in whether you call it a famine or not.
You are telling people to learn history, maybe you should pick up a dictionary and learn some English.
Absolutely disgraceful, where the target audience hasn’t got an iota about the causes and effect that was so detrimental to the population of Ireland. We were all taught about the holocaust, WW1 and WW2. We all knew about the catholic church in Ireland hence why Fr Ted was funny. This is insensitive to say the least. Tim pat Coogan was right.
To Be or Not To Be (1983) – a damn funny story about Jewish Persecution in Nazi Occupied Warsaw. Directed by Mel Brooks (a Jew in case you didnt know).
If the Jews can produce comedy about the Holocaust, perhaps its time we can have a comedy about our own Holocaust.
Difference is Stephen, the whole world knows about the holocaust. The whole world does not know about the famine.
If the last month has taught us anything its that we shouldn’t allow certain sensitivities to dictate what can and can’t be made. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
Simple
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