Irish Eyes Were Crying

"The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad." - G. K. Chesterton

Back in 2014 I did a DNA test through Ancestry. As they have added more people to their data base, they have revised the results several times, refining them. The most recent results came yesterday.

All along Irish has been my dominant DNA ancestry, and that proved true once again. I have also had a bit of Scottish mixed in; after all, my mother was from Scotland, though she clearly had Irish roots. This time around the results were further broken down, and some new ones added in and organized under the general category "Celtic & Gaelic", which totaled 57% of my DNA..

Donegal, Ireland - 29%
Central Scotland & Northern Ireland - 23%
Northern Wales & North West England -3%
Munster, Ireland - 2%

Yep. Irish and Scottish. I like the Welsh added in - I've always been a fan of the Brother Cadfael mysteries.

There are also English/Dutch results through my father, but my focus today is on matters Irish.

Interestingly, I'm current reading a book about the Irish Potato Famine - Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-50 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti - and I recently read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. 

I wondered if Chesterton had written anything about the Potato Famine, a tragedy that led to an estimated more one million deaths due to starvation and disease, and to more than two million Irish to emigrate. I knew he had written a book about Ireland - Irish Impressions - but I do not have a copy. I checked online about Chesterton and the Potato Famine, but found nothing. I glanced at Irish Impressions on Gutenberg, but didn't see anything mentioned (though it was a cursory glance). I then checked to see if our library had a copy of Irish Impressions. My local library does not; the central library has the only copy in the county library system, but it is restricted from circulation! I even checked Ignatius Press to see if they have a copy: Nope. I did finally find it in the Society of G. K. Chesterton store in Volume XX of the Collected Works. 

Phew, who know it would be so hard to find a book.

I'd like to read the book anyway at some point, but the focus here is on the Potato Famine. 

One of the factors that made the famine worse were the economic polices of the English and the landlords. In particular, the laissez-faire economic policies embraced by the English government led them to be reluctant and slow to offer aid. People died because of these policies, and various bad decisions by the London government. Compounding these policies were the greed of some landlords and landowners who in the name of capitalism put profits above people.

If G. K. Chesterton's distributism (localism) had been in effect the tragedy could have been averted. Local ownership, ownership by individuals and families, subsidiarity, policies that emphasize people would have saved lives.

Maybe the songs would have been less sad.