Lessons from Irish History
on St. Patrick’s Day
In the latest issue of Orion magazine, Lacy M. Johnson writes:
When the next freeze or fire or pandemic or hurricane hits us, vulnerability will determine who gets to live, and who will die, and how. The disaster won’t be the weather, but the shape of the wound structural violence has already made.
This is a profound insight that history can help our students grasp.

For better or worse, St. Patrick’s Day is a brief period when people pay attention to all things Irish. It is a good time to revisit Ireland’s Great Famine and the refugee exodus it unleashed.

Studying the so-called Potato Famine can help students recognize that this was no natural disaster, it was the product of structural violence. As Bill Bigelow writes in his “If We Knew Our History” column, “The Real Irish American Story Not Taught in Schools,”
During the first winter of famine, 1846–47, as perhaps 400,000 Irish peasants starved, landlords exported 17 million pounds sterling worth of grain, cattle, pigs, flour, eggs, and poultry — food that could have prevented those deaths.
The shape of the wound of famine was British colonialism and the capitalist system, which prized profit over the Irish poor. See our role play, “Hunger on Trial,” which can bring this insight to life in the classroom — and help students consider the roots of today’s unnatural disasters.
The Real Irish American Story
Not Taught in Schools
By Bill Bigelow
“Wear green on St. Patrick’s Day or get pinched.” That pretty much sums up the Irish-American “curriculum” that I learned when I was in school. Yes, I recall a nod to the so-called Potato Famine, but it was mentioned only in passing.

Sadly, today’s high school textbooks continue to largely ignore the famine, despite the fact that it was responsible for unimaginable suffering and the deaths of more than a million Irish peasants, and that it triggered the greatest wave of Irish immigration in U.S. history. Nor do textbooks make any attempt to help students link famines past and present.

Throughout the Irish potato famine, there was an abundance of food produced in Ireland, yet the landlords exported it to markets abroad.

Like with today’s climate crisis, the capitalist market ruled, and commerce trumped need. . . .
Teach Climate Justice Giveaway
Our lesson on the Great Famine in Ireland and other lessons from the Teach Climate Justice Campaign help students see that environmental devastation is not simply a "natural" disaster.

Share your teaching story with us, about how you used any of our climate justice materials, and we will send you a copy of Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes.
A Peoples Curriculum for the Earth
A People’s Curriculum for the Earth is a Rethinking Schools publication with articles, role plays, simulations, stories, poems, and graphics to help breathe life into teaching about environmental justice.

The book features some of the best articles from Rethinking Schools magazine alongside classroom-friendly readings on climate change, energy, water, food, and pollution — as well as on people working to make things better.

At a time when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that life on Earth is at risk, here is a resource that helps students see what’s wrong and imagine solutions.
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