The Great Hunger
- Episode aired 1998
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A handsome but flawed account of the famine Irish
Elegantly presented with insightful interviews with Irish historians and story tellers, "The Great Hunger" is substantially undermined by its considerably generous treatment of British involvement in the circumstances that rendered one of humanity's greatest calamities. This notably includes an entirely inadequate explanation of the system of land ownership which found native Irish dispossessed of their lands and left them to labor as tenant farmers who tended multiple crops only to pay excessive rents, restricting the peasant diet to the potato because of its ability to produce sizeable yields on small plots of marginal lands. It hails the British importation of maize, which actually was brought not to feed the poor but to suppress prices, a strategy that proved ineffective when peasants couldn't afford food at any price. It fails to make any reference to food grown in Ireland exported off the island. It overstates the value of other British relief efforts - even overstating the quality of soup provided in short lived soup kitchens - and is overly generous to their orchestrator, Charles Trevelyan, and greatly understates his disdain for the Irish. These historical shortcomings simply can't be overcome by production value.
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- candsmule
- Sep 26, 2019
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of The Great Hunger (1998) in Australia?
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