It's probably never going to be okay for a British person to joke about the Great Famine.
Alice Beer was in the middle of a rather mundane segment on ITV's This Morning, chatting about where to store your eggs in the fridge, when by some terrible malfunction of culture and couth she started to mock presenter Eamonn Holmes' Irish accent, saying 'oooooo poh-tay-toes'.
It proceeded to go distastefully downhill from there. Beer's remark: “you want to preserve the life of your potatoes. You Irish should know that. There was a bit of a shortage once upon a time”, has incurred considerable backlash.
Skip to 4.55 in the video below for the fateful comment from Beer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDnoY-WVfA
Clip via; This Morning
Considering Britain's role in the starvation of millions of Irish people and the demolition of a population yet to recover its pre-famine numbers, it was, undeniably, a distasteful thing to say.
https://twitter.com/emeraldguy15/status/765864829492035584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/LeanneWoodfull/status/766980701627514880
People picked up on the remark quickly and although Alice Beer has apologised on Twitter, it's unlikely that this example of inherent racism towards Irish people will fast be forgotten.
