Tony Blair's symbolic apology for the Famine received a "warm" reaction in Irish official circles, British archives show. The former British prime minister said the people had been failed by the government in London in their hour of need during a disaster which reached its nadir in 1847. A restricted letter from Donald Lamont, an official in the British government's Republic of Ireland affairs section, dated June 2 1997, discussed Mr Blair's statement that month on the Famine. PainIt caused an estimated one million deaths and forced two million starving and destitute Irish to emigrate. Mr Lamont wrote afterwards: "The most obvious downside would be attempts by the Irish to exaggerate the potential parallel with Bloody Sunday.

Source: The Herald December 29, 2020 02:26 UTC