According to the United Nations, the term "genocide" is very clear. It is "...the systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy a whole national or ethnic group..." This definition very clearly describes such modern horrors as Auschwitz and Dachau, or more recent ones such as Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. Yet this clarity breaks down when discussing such events as the Irish potato famines of 1845 to 1849. The term "genocide" has been …showed first 75 words of 977 total…

…showed last 75 words of 977 total…killings of about a million people, and the forced emigration of more than a million more (most of the ancestors to the present-day Irish living in North America). Whether the United Nations would have condemned the British for genocide had it been in existence back then is questionable, but one thing is unambigiously clear. The British were guilty of the wrongful death of about a million people, and the forced emigration of a million more.