Past Imperfect episode 23: Padraic X. Scanlan on why Ireland’s Great Famine matters

Past Imperfect Episode 23 features Dinyar Patel, Associate Professor of History at SPJIMR, in conversation with Padraic X. Scanlan, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto and the author of Rot: A History of the Irish Famine. Between 1845 and 1851, a famine of unimaginable proportions ravaged Ireland. At least a million people died and at least a million more Irish emigrated. The Great Famine, Scanlan argues, was a product of both colonialism and global capitalism. A rigid adherence to free market principles utterly blinded British policymakers about relief efforts. Stunningly, as Ireland starved, the country continued to export agricultural goods. Relief operations even discouraged Irish from growing their own food, lest such food interfere with market forces. Scanlan’s narrative of the Great Famine reminds us that this was a thoroughly modern event: one that was repeated in other parts of the British Empire, including in India.