h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

thanks for a really good 'guided' tour. I enjoyed this, although I'm not sure I'll ever get to visit Dublin.

I was a bit disappointed that you only put up such small photos in your flickr album, though.

Good point. Originally I prepared them small so that they could be put into the Entry. But the Eds didn't want to do that. So I could restore the ones on Flickr to their original size.

More work!

Yes, but I think it is worth doing that.

This is a really great entry. Enjoyable for all, and useful if you're visiting. Thanks for sharing all this.

I've seen photos of the Dublin Famine statue. We have one in Philadelphia, as well. Thought you might like to see it:

http://www.irishmemorial.org/

(Most of Philly's statuary is far inferior to that of Dublin. The giant broken button is a case in point.)

That's a good statue, Dmitri, but the text on the website is slightly jarring "the millions of Irish immigrants who found here in the United States of America the freedom, liberty and prosperity denied to their ancestors in Ireland". I admit the emigrants had no prosperity in Ireland, but they certainly had freedom and liberty. That concept wasn't invented in America.

I've changed all the photos to much bigger ones now.

I agree that liberty wasn't invented in America. I suspect it was invented in Scotland. After all, we didn't get it until John Locke's publisher had to bring out all those cheap copies of his Discourses...

Sometimes those booster groups way oversell their products, don't they? It isn't as if Irish immigrants didn't face poverty, exploitation, and downright racism in the US. See the book 'How the Irish Became White', by Noel Ignatiev.

I appreciate the statue group, though, because very often - all too often - the Famine gets left out of the US history curriculum. And I want the kids to know. In Philadelphia, I could send the tourists round the corner to get a chance to understand something. If you have some thoughts on the subject of that website, tell 'em. Sometimes, it's just sloppy thinking. And sometimes, somebody from the other side of the Pond is just who they need to hear from.