IT HAS taken a Government minister, Ms Avril Doyle, to put Irish-Americans straight about the Great Famine. Speaking "as a member of the Government," shed told an audience in Washington, that "the Irish Famine was not genocide".
Ever since Mr George Pataki, Governor of New York, signed a law last October ensuring that the state schools must provide a course on "mass starvation in Ireland from 1845 to 1850", the controversy over whether the Famine was genocide or not has raged.
The British ambassador Sir John Kerr, has been drawn into the controversy, perhaps unwisely, to defend a long-forgotten administration against the charge of 19th-century genocide against the Irish people.
What upset the ambassador was that the teaching of the Famine to New York children would be linked with studies on "the inhumanity of genocide, slavery and the Holocaust" as part of a human rights course. A similar course is being taught in New Jersey.
Mr Pataki signed the new law on October 9th after hosting a breakfast in New York for the President, Mrs Robinson, who, of course, makes frequent references to the Famine and how it has made Irish people today sensitive to starvation in parts of Africa.
In his speech, the governor said: "History teaches us the Great Irish Hunger was not the result of a massive failure of the Irish potato crop but rather was the result of a deliberate campaign by the British to deny the Irish people the food they needed to survive.
Mr Pataki went on to draw the lesson for today's Irish-Americans. "This tragic event had dramatic implications on the United States, where millions of Irish immigrants had significant impacts on every facet of Irish life and culture."
Correspondents of some British newspapers revealed that British diplomats were "dismayed" by the references and that the ambassador felt obliged to write to Mr Pataki - whose grandmother was an illegal Irish immigrant - to protest.
The ambassador apparently told Mr Pataki that it was "insulting to the many millions who suffered and died in concentration camps across Europe to imply that their man-made fate was in any way analogous to the natural disaster in Ireland".
But Irish-Americans sprang to the defence of Mr Pataki. The New York Assembly member, Mr Joe Crowley, who sponsored the law, pointed out that it would not have passed without support from Jewish legislators.
Asked if the Famine could be compared with the Holocaust Mr Crowley said there were elements such as the Irish being viewed as sub-humans, mass graves and workhouses which were "reminiscent of things that took place in Nazi Germany".
Another New York Assembly member, Mr Jack McEneny, who is also a historian, compared the Famine more to "ethnic cleansing" which is "when one people stand by and do nothing or contribute to the destruction of another."
A blistering response to Mr Pataki came from Prof Robin Popplestone of the University of Massachusetts, who wrote that professional historians do not teach the "deliberate campaign by the British" view.
This "emanates from the extremist fringe of Irish politics where it serves as part of the ideological underpinning of ... terrorism".
Into this heated atmosphere arrived Ms Doyle, who heads the Government's Famine Commemoration Committee. In a coast-to-coast tour of the US, accompanied by two experts on the historical and cultural effects of the Famine, she aimed to convey - "the pivotal role which the Famine played in creating the modern Irish-American community". "Descendants of Famine emigrants" were invited to attend the meetings in Indiana, California, Washington, New York and Boston.
The detailed expositions were left to the Wexford historian, Dr Kevin Whelan, now a visiting professor at Notre Dame University, and Dr Luke Gibbons, Professor of Communications at Dublin City University.
They, and a guest moderator at each of the six venues, were acclaimed for their contributions.
At Catholic University, Washington, the "genocide" question came up but this was not handed on to the experts.
With her card well marked by the Irish Embassy as to the current row, the Minister announced in her firmest tones: "I'll deal with that question myself." And she did.
Speaking as "a member of the Government", she said, "I don't call the Famine genocide". The "historians have disproved that", but there was "an appallingly inadequate response by the British administration" to the failure of the potato crop. "So the British authorities are to be blamed."
She told the audience that calling the Famine genocide "lets the British off the hook as it clearly was not genocide".
She had no problem allowing the Famine to be taught to American children in a Holocaust/genocide context "as long as it is accurate" and in "an unsanitised version".
So it was not genocide but an "appallingly inadequate response".
That is the political message of this tour and it had to be said and not simply left to a British ambassador to give his version.
But whether the official version from Dublin is what Irish-Americans want to hear remains to be seen.