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Thread: Mass Grave in Old Swan

  1. #61
    PhilipG
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sloyne View Post
    I understand Enid Blyton wrote good childrens fiction too. Do you think women are better at this sort of fiction?
    J K Rowling's doing quite well for herself.
    She only called herself that so people wouldn't know what sex she was.

    Oops, we've strayed off-topic.

  2. #62
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhilipG View Post
    J K Rowling's doing quite well for herself.
    She only called herself that so people wouldn't know what sex she was.
    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. . . .

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  3. #63
    PhilipG
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge View Post
    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
    Chris.

    She said so herself in an interview.

  4. #64
    Senior Member SteH's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge View Post
    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
    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.

  5. #65
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    But wasn't PhillipG trying a bit of a wind-up? But yes, we have strayed a bit off topic.

  6. #66
    PhilipG
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sloyne View Post
    But wasn't PhillipG trying a bit of a wind-up? But yes, we have strayed a bit off topic.
    No, it wasn't a wind-up.
    Just a response.

    Anyway, back on topic.
    Some of the graves were dated 1859, but as far as I can make out the closest epidemic was cholera in the summer of 1849.
    So, it's still a mystery.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhilipG View Post
    As if!

    Really.
    Some people.

    Etc., etc.

    Presumably the Irish Famine victims died in Ireland and were buried there.
    Yes, I know the Famine caused many to emigrate, but I don't think they emigrated to die wholesale at their destinations.
    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 02:33 PM.

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhilipG View Post
    Yes, I know the Famine caused many to emigrate, but I don't think they emigrated to die wholesale at their destinations.
    Has anyone ever wondered where these starving, pennyless Irish peasants got the money to pay for passage to Canada, Australia or the USA?

    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.

  9. #69
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    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.

  10. #70
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sloyne View Post
    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.
    Except that it is by no means proven that the bodies discovered in Old Swan were Irish famine victims. It would seem to me to be wild and irresponsible speculation to assume the bodies were those of Irish famine victims disposed of by the British government.

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  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge View Post
    Except that it is by no means proven that the bodies discovered in Old Swan were Irish famine victims. It would seem to me to be wild and irresponsible speculation to assume the bodies were those of Irish famine victims disposed of by the British government
    Yes, your right, I should have made myself clearer and included the word "IF" in my submission.

  12. #72
    Gnomie
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    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

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gnomie View Post
    I think the Irish would have chosen to stay in their homeland and be fed rather than be shipped all over the world.
    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 04:45 PM.

  14. #74
    Gnomie
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    Thats a sad story Sloyne. it must have been horrible to be Irish back then.

  15. #75
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    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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