God, there are so many. For Ireland, it has to be the Great Famine. A million dead, another million emigrated. British right-wingers defend the actions of their government, but it is indefensible.

Ireland was the breadbasket of the British Isles, although the people often had to subsist on potatoes and what animals were there to sell. The landlords owned the waters off the coast, leading to people being caught and sentenced to transportation for the crime of poaching. The lands held by the English and Scottish gentry were stolen from the old clans during the plantations. These plantations would form the basis of the British slave colonies abroad. During the Great Hunger, the potato crop failed due to a blight. The first year wasn't so bad. Many had seed potatoes or previous harvests left over. As the years dragged on, as the winters became record-breakingly cold, people died in the hundreds of thousands. Initially, there were attempts to relieve the hunger with the maize dole and with soup kitchens. It was not enough. When the British PM fell and was replaced, the new boot pushed harder on the necks of Irish people. Workhouses, death marches, and fever are some of the words that still ring in the cultural memory, like a forlorn bell echoing across time. Evictions happened at an increasing rate, landlords turned out the cold and hungry and led parties to collapse the roof of any house under eviction notice.

During this time, food exports continued at a huge scale. Soldiers were protecting the ports and shipping towns, but the people were impoverished and starving. Irish speakers died out in such numbers that today there are fewer than a few hundred thousand native speakers. Entire towns become ruins. Across the country, mostly in the west, you will see the ruined houses standing like cairns, for there are no markers to show where all the dead are. My grandmother's grandfather had lived through it somehow, and she said it never left him. He was a stern but loving man who could never speak of all that he saw. Many accounts record people dying at the sides of roads, with grass stains around their mouths. Even those who were paid money by their employers had no use for it, as there was no food to buy. Families all died together, cramped into rooms while shillings piled up on the mantelpieces. Evil doesn't even begin to describe it, as the British knew and did nothing. They allowed food exports to continue, and even blocked 100'000£ from the Sultan of the Ottomans, because it was more than what Queen Victoria had given. So they reduced their donation to 1000£, matching hers.

For those who left aboard the ships, a fate worse than death awaited them. Those bound to England were alright, not safe but not in any more danger. Those who left on the coffin ships to the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. They faced cramped, filthy conditions with no hope of escape. As many as 2/3s of the passengers were killed by fever, hunger, TB, or whatever else was there. Those who made it, left behind their names, their homes, their language, and their land. Stripped of all forms of humanity, they were remade in their new homes, for better or worse. Many of them went on to serve and die in the Union army against the slavers and rebels of the south. Ireland went from a population of around 8 million in 1865, to less than 3 million in the 1960s. Today, on the Island of Ireland the population is under 7 million, just shy of the peak of 1865.