How Ireland Averted Famine in 1925

and how the crisis became something of an international propaganda war

Still in ruins for the War of Independence and the following Civil War, there was a near famine in remote regions of Ireland in 1925. Fortunately, the government of the new Irish Free State managed to avert a major catastrophe by supplying these communities with bread, margarine, and drinking chocolate. Coal was also supplied for cooking and heating. This goes to show how the Great Famine of 1847-49 could have been averted.

The 1925 crisis was also capitalized upon by critics who claimed it was proof Ireland could not survive as an independent nation outside of the United Kingdom. Even though millions had actually starved to death - with little or no relief - when Ireland was still in the UK only 80 years previously. In the Soviet Union, propaganda surrounded the notion of the Irish rural and island communities starving to death while the Catholic clergy got fat eating lavish meals from silver dishes.