Well, maybe that was the reason. There's quite a tradition among English writers to only use initials - W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, etc., etc. She may have thought that her using the initials might give her the cachet of being a top writer. . . .
Chris
Christopher T. George
Editor, Ripperologist
Editor, Loch Raven Review
http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
Chris on Flickr and on MySpace
Does anyone know if there's any truth in the story that a great rival of T S Eliots said in a radio interview "dont you realise that T S Eliot is almost TOILET backwards". I've always wondered if its genuine or something our English teacher made up to try and liven up a lesson.
But wasn't PhillipG trying a bit of a wind-up? But yes, we have strayed a bit off topic.
But not beyond the realm of posibility when you consider Britain was the originator of concentration camps. But I think it implausible for the reasons given above. However, thousands of famine victims died, not just enroute, but in places like the quarantine station at Grosse Ile, QC., Canada. In 1847, 50 ships arrived from Liverpool filled to the gun'nels with Irish famine victims who were discharged at Grosse Ile in the St. Lawrence River. That same year 5,424 people died of various deseases, but mainly typhus, at the quarantine station.
Liverpool, the largest port for transportation of Irish famine victims to the colonies, sometimes picked up victims at Irish west coast ports and transported them to Liverpool, with some voyagers taking between two and four weeks, depending on weather and winds. Those passengers were landed in Liverpool in various stages of ill health, then transported to quarantine camps outside the Liverpool municipal boundry. Could this gravesite be on one of those ancient camp sites?
Canada, Australia and the USA have elevated thier quarantime camps to National Historic Site status. It would be very understandable for the UK, given the "Irish Troubles" of the passed 4 decades, to want to keep such a site, as a concentration camp for famine victims, quiet. However, nothing of this magnatude can remain hidden for ever and, just like the Sarpedan affair after WW11, truth will, eventualy, out.
Last edited by Sloyne; 01-21-2007 at 01:33 PM.
Has anyone ever wondered where these starving, pennyless Irish peasants got the money to pay for passage to Canada, Australia or the USA?
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Irish emigration during the famine was NOT entirely voluntary. When the British parliament passed the law making landlords responsible, through taxation, for their starving, destitute tennants, they (landlords) found it cheaper to charter ships and dispose of their charges by shipping them abroad. And just who would refuse to go when they were starving in their homeland? So, for all intents and purposes the emigration of Irish famine victims, in the vast majority, amounted to forced transportation.
Further to the above and with reference to todays BBC news concerning RUC and Special Branch collussion in the murders, by "Loyalist" para-militaries in Northern Ireland, of a number of catholics. One can readilly see why the UK government would want to keep a grave site, containing thousands of Irish famine victims, very quiet.
Christopher T. George
Editor, Ripperologist
Editor, Loch Raven Review
http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
Chris on Flickr and on MySpace
I think the Irish would have chosen to stay in their homeland and be fed rather than be shipped all over the world. my ancestors came over in the 1840`s from Dublin,Mayo and Roscommon. they lived in and survived the courts of Vauxhall.
As for the mass grave in Old Swan . there are rumoured to be a number of sites around the city containing Irish. They called it the Irish Holocaust. nothing connects them to Old Swan, its just another suggestion. Funny thing i heard once in the Red House pub in the 1980`s . an old fella was talking about the graves and swore blind it was Canadian Soldiers in there? ive never heard anything on this mind? maybe to much beer
mind you read this. Canadian!!! Old Swan!!!!
http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=37876
Really i doubt we will ever find out
Goes without saying. My ancestors also arrived in the mid eighteen hundreds escaping deprivation and starvation. And they settled in what is now known as Vauxhall. According to stories told by my granddad Fitz (Fitzpatrick), the English were less than welcoming and treated the Irish like lepers. He too told stories of Irish immigrants being kept aboard ships in the river then landed at night and herded through deserted streets to the outskirts to, presumably, camps. He told me a story of renting a house for himself and his new bride, Mary Anne O'Brien, at the top of Rose Vale, Everton, and having the house dowsed in parafin oil, by religious bigots, and set ablaze while they slept. They escaped with thier lives and nothing else. He would say; "They made a bonfire of our few little pieces and sticks, just because we were Irish and catholic".
Last edited by Sloyne; 01-22-2007 at 03:45 PM.
It is in fact true and recorded that many who came to the inner city liverpool from Ireland and in particular the Scottie road area did die of their illnesses and in fact if you check out the grounds and crypt of St. Anthony's - over 2,300 are buried there.
I also have an history dvd with Cliff Hayes, Historian and author of a couple of Liverpool books being interviewed throughout it, saying that the Liverpool authorities were actively paying ship captains to discharge the Irish emigrants at Anglesey as Liverpool was getting beyond the bounds of coping with the influx.
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