Although I don’t want to throw a damper on anyone’s enjoying a Green Beer on the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, it is sobering to realize that many countries in the world today are still battling against circumstances identical to those which caused the famine in Ireland in 1845. Reliance by the poor on a single staple crop for survival, governmental reluctance to pay for aid to the poor, widespread incurable disease, and foreign ownership of land by rich individuals set the scene for the death of almost 2 million Irish people between 1845 to 1850. As The History Place website details, these very same conditions were the basis of all the major famines of the past century throughout the world!
We visited Ireland around this time a couple of years ago. Everyone there seemed very happy to make elaborate preparations for “St. Paddy’s Day”. Great fun was had by all as we got ready for parades and neighborhood events. We had some serious discussions about what it was St. Patrick actually did while he was in Ireland, and other topics, but those terrible years when famine killed off almost two million people still seems out of bounds as a topic for conversation there.
In spite of that silence, the terrible suffering of the Irish during the Great Hunger is still somewhere in the “Irish DNA”. Maybe that’s what adds a joyful energy to the traditional Irish insistence that, when you visit any home there, you are obliged to join with the family for a hearty Irish meal. I love that about Ireland.
The facts about world hunger are daunting, indeed they are similarly daunting about hunger in the United States. But there is no time like the present to begin. Home Grown Food Network was established not to fight the problem, but to solve it. We are encouraged by the support we get from people all around the world who believe we have the resources and the will to do so.
So what has this got to do with St. Patrick’s Day? I have had the pleasure recently of meeting with a few Irish students who have fanned out across the globe, not as their starving ancestors did, to find food, but to aid organized efforts to end global hunger. Through long conversations with them I sense that they are enthusiastic and confident about our ability to solve this problem.
One of these brilliant young Irish workers suggested that we need to have certain days-such as St. Patrick’s Day- allocated for honoring the efforts of all those who are working to fight hunger. In America alone, over 40 million people claim Irish ancestry. Millions more do so in countries all around the world. If every one of them pledged to start a vegetable patch in their back yard, and actually planted a food plant on St. Patrick’s Day, we would have lots of food to show.
I’m sure St. Patrick would approve. What do you think?
Peter Naughton, Manager, Home Grown Food Network
March 9, 2009
Filed under: Gardening for the Baby Boomers, Partnering with Nature, Teach your children, YAWNS
