President compares current day refugee crisis to Famine

European nations failing to respond to their humanitarian obligations to refugees should learn the lessons of the Irish Famine, President Michael D Higgins said.

He claimed some of the rhetoric used today about those crossing the Mediterranean “marine grave” was similar to the British media’s during the worst period of Ireland’s 19th century catastrophe.

Mr Higgins unveiled a Celtic cross memorial to the one million Famine dead following the failure of the potato crop.