On the Burren, an astounding natural beauty holds the scars of genocide - furrowed ridges emerge like dry bones, abandoned bothies and stone walls lead to nowhere. Yet, across the bog meadows, tiny spring flowers emerge, their vibrant colours a testament to Irish resilience.

Under the yoke of British occupation the Irish were systematically starved. Between 1845 and 1852, the British overlords watched more than a million Irish souls perish while they exported from Irish shores prime agricultural produce to fill the greedy mouths of the English. Hundreds of ships carried away Ireland's lifeblood - cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, and the West Coast's rich ocean bounties of salmon, oysters, mussels and herring. Irish farmers starved as their own crops; peas, beans, onions and oats, wheat and barley and sweet meadow honey fattened British bellies.