Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter comes to the defence of Charles Trevelyan, who he says oversaw London’s response to the Famine and mentions a figure of €500 million in today’s money which might buy you 600 or 700 houses in modern Dublin (“Notion that Trevelyan family should throw us a few quid is a farce”, Opinion & Analysis, May .
But to quote the Daily Telegraph on the subject: “Sir Charles said the Irish deserved the famine in which around a million died saying it was a ‘punishment from God’ for being ‘idle’ and ‘ungrateful’”.
These were hardly words to encourage the giving of private charity and no doubt would land him in trouble with incitement to hatred legislation today. – Yours, etc,
NOEL COSTELLO,
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Sutton,
Dublin 13.
