10 January 2009

Fate Worse than Death?

Earlier today I watched Part 2 of Fleeing the Famine, a documentary about Irish famine refugees emigrating to Canada.

Overall it was well done and quite interesting. But it did have one phrase which I thought could have been stated a bit better.

The Irish famine victims had to make "an impossible choice: Death or Canada."

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Canada doesn't sound so bad.

Twelfthknit said...

Well, I guess when you take it in the context of the times, it probably did not seem the great choice we might take it as today.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... this quandary reminds me of the last election in the USA, as framed by David Sedaris... I'll let you search for it if you want to read it (it was in The New Yorker).

Personally, I'd go for Canada.

Queen of France said...

i would agree with Twelfthknit - when my da's family came to the US - it was almost like death because they, most likely, never saw their loved ones again. Also the climate in Canada is more severe than many places in Ireland.

Though i would've chosen Canada too..i can well understand that sentence.