We didn’t save the banks so they could drive people into despair

WE all know Charles Edward Trevelyan, created a Baronet in 1874 for his services to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

We didn’t save the banks so they could drive people into despair

At least, we sing about him all the time. For reasons that are hard to fathom, he’s celebrated at every major sporting event, especially where the Irish team is playing. If Ireland is playing well, and even if game isn’t going well and the crowd senses that the team could do with a lift, Lord Trevelyan is called on.

Perhaps, to be more accurate, it’s not Trevelyan we’re celebrating, but Michael, the man who stole Trevelyan’s corn and was sentenced to Botany Bay for his troubles. Michael, of course, stole the corn because his family was hungry, and his punishment was never to see his family, or the fields of Athenry, again. Trevelyan didn’t actually own the stolen corn. He was just the British civil servant in charge of administering relief to the people of Ireland during the years of the Famine. The only trouble was that neither Trevelyan nor the government he worked for believed in relief.

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