A Famine Board Game… Really?

We’re not so sure about this one…

A quick look at Irish socials this week tells us that we still have a way to go when it comes to education. An American company Compass Games is looking for funding for a board game. Nothing controversial about that. The board game is not unlike monopoly, except the board is a map of Ireland. Again, not problematic on its own. What’s the game called, you ask?

The Great Hunger.

Surely, it’s not a board game about the Famine, I hear you cry. But yes, dear reader, I’m afraid to say that’s exactly what it is.

To give the board game makers the benefit of the doubt, we can see that this is their way of trying to teach players about the famine. This period has often been minimised to an unfortunate and unavoidable blight of the potato, leading to the death of 1 million people, and the mass emigration of a million more. It’s less common to look at its wider context, particularly where the British were concerned, so we can see where this misguided attempt at education emerged from.

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The game is described as such:

“The Great Hunger begins as a game that simulates good times in Ireland at the start of the 19th century, as the Irish population expanded – thanks to the potato. This new crop was a godsend, allowing people to raise enough food for a whole family on a small, rocky plot of land. They became dependent on the prolific tubers. But in 1845 the blight arrived, utterly destroying the potato harvest.

Dependence on a single variety and growing on marginal land helped the blight; soon hunger and disease spread through the island. British economic policy discouraged assistance, fearing a collapse of farm prices and a population dependent on public welfare. But assistance did arrive, often from unexpected sources. Some people found work in new industries, or on the expanding English estates. Millions emigrated, booking passage on dangerous “coffin ships”, usually heading to America. The famine was a defining moment in the history of Ireland, as well as the USA and other countries. Today it is remembered by the Irish people as “an Gorta Mór” – The Great Hunger.

Players represent families of tenant farmers and itinerant field hands. At first, your people will grow, using the events on the top half of your cards to help add more population cubes to the map. But then the blight arrives, and you use the events on the bottom half: finding aid or employment for your people, scrambling to the emigrant ship, or representing the spread of disease and English estates.

The game ends when the “Blight Abates” card is drawn. The player with the most population wins.”

EPIC’s response

EPIC’s Head of Exhibitions & Programmes, Nathan Mannion, said this of the game upon review:

“No one living in Ireland in the early 19^th century, particularly those dependent on the lumper potato to sustain themselves would have referred to that period as “the good times”. In the 1830’s one third of the population was reliant on the potato for 90% of their food requirements. This was basic survival, with Irish families doing what they could to keep those they loved alive. The colonial land confiscations that led to the dire set of circumstances that preceded the An Gorta Mór are hardly mentioned and the very idea of the hundreds of thousands of stories of suffering being reduced to mere ‘population blocks’ does not sit well with me.

That said, we all learn in different ways and board games can serve as a learning tool when thoughtfully developed by those who know their subject matter well. Otherwise, they’re often simply an ill-conceived commercial product that may very well do more harm than good. Unfortunately, this offering falls into the latter category.”

“Blight Abates”

The trailer that accompanies the video of gameplay, funnily enough, uses the same track that we used in our fake movie trailer Dear Erin, with the intention to be as stereotypical as possible. We’re not off to a great start.

The creator of the game, Kevin McPartland, spoke on Liveline on January 15^th to explain his reasoning:

“Instead of watching a documentary or book, you’re there!” he says, calling it an “immersive” experience.

There are some key facts in the game’s description, facts that it would be good for more people to understand. It hints at the British Empire’s involvement in making these dire conditions worse and the rulebook that accompanies the game online goes further to put blame on the British for their part – it even opens with a quote from John Mitchell, a controversial figure in his own right:

“The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine.”

However it doesn’t fully grapple with the British Empire’s wider culpability. Having a card called “Blight Abates”, which ends the game and “The Great Hunger”, does lend the overall reason for the famine being the failure of the potato crop, which inevitably simplifies it. The catastrophe of the Famine, and what caused it to end cannot be reduced down to one card, which begs the question of should a game that can’t fully engage with the topic exist at all?

But this all makes us wonder whether a game is an appropriate medium in which to learn about the famine. Does something like this need to be immersive? Is this logic not a little misguided? Is it an effective or appropriate way of building empathy for a people suffering tragedy? While there are immersive ways of learning about the famine (those who walk the National Famine Way for example) this doesn’t seem to quite cut it, and ultimately game-ifies one of the largest disasters in Irish history.

It’s impossible to ignore that famine is not confined to the past. As people in Gaza currently face a man-made famine, the idea that famine can be turned into a board game feels not just uncomfortable, but profoundly out of step with the world we’re living in.

While the events in Gaza and what happened here in 1845 are not the same, they are often compared – particularly in Ireland, where there is a strong awareness of how hunger can be used as a tool of suffering and control.

Board-Games as Education

The Great Hunger board game is clearly a means of education. In his Liveline interview, the creator explains that it was a way of engaging the audience on an important historical topic. Nathan Mannion spoke with NewsTalk on January 16^th to interrogate this approach, and while he could see that someone had clearly picked up a book or two with regards to researching this topic, “no historical consultations” were made in its creation, and that elements of the game simply don’t make sense.

However, that’s not to say this isn’t a medium that can be used to teach where appropriate. EPIC itself has used this very method for education with a board-game called Around the World in 72 Days, following Nellie Bly’s record-breaking journey around the globe.  

It’s all about ensuring it is done appropriately, and only with specific historical events – who can say where the line is, but at EPIC we would draw it at the Famine.

The Irish React

Irish culture and history are often simplified or reshaped to fit familiar narratives – it’s what our campaign This Is Not Us is all about. Calling out stereotypes in movies, tv, media, and there’s no shortage of examples. PS I Love You, Leap Year, Wild Mountain Thyme, any iteration of an Irish person on The Simpsons, Paul Rudd’s terrible Irish accent in Only Murders in the Building – it goes on and on.

We can rely on people getting it wrong. We can also rely on Irish socials to respond to it. Naturally, the comments were not subtle in how they shared their opinion. On the District Instagram post, these are just a selection of the comments:

“Genocide the board game”

“Having a card called “luck of the irish” in a game about the famine is crazy 😭”

“They have one about the Troubles as well… But making a game where the goal is to have as many kids as possible in the face of genocide seems worse.”

“The fact they didn’t even hire an Irish person to do the ad (I’d imagine nobody wanted to).”

In a discussion thread on Board Game Geeks, there was a more balanced discussion. Many pointed to the intent being educational, and there being no active disrespect. However, this comment might say it best:

“From what I’ve seen I don’t get the impression that this game will add any value or accuracy with respect to the Irish Famine.”

There are different ways we can learn about this topic without trivialising it. Documentaries, books, tv series, movies… while many of these are considered entertainment too, they perhaps aren’t as inflammatory. Having “players” simulate being in the famine seems to be the issue, and simplifies the events in a way that is, as the above person commented, “seems both disingenuous and insensitive.” And if it’s a game, that means someone can feasibly “win” at the Famine, which also feels uncomfortable.

Final thoughts

At EPIC, so much of what we try to do is tell the real story of the Irish. Our ad campaign, This Is Not Us, of which there are multiple iterations, takes on the harmful stereotypes and clichés about Irish people. As a people, as a diaspora, we’re quite used to it. Most of the time, for lack of anything better to do, we laugh it off and accept it for what it is. Ignorance.

But occasionally, we think it’s worth calling out – if any good can come out of a board game being made about the Famine, maybe it’s the educational moments that come that come via the backlash. Maybe that makes it partially worth it.

Truthfully, the game-maker probably didn’t mean any ill intent with this game; it appears he really did think that he was raising awareness about a deeply sensitive topic. He admits himself that to not understand history is to repeat it, and as we’re currently seeing that happening in Palestine, that does prove to be true. But there are better ways at sharing these histories. There has to be.

Written by Katy Thornton, Marketing and Communications Executive at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum