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And while this was happening, oats, one of rich Ireland's prime exports, were being shipped out.
當西部發生災難時，燕麥，東愛爾蘭的主要出口產品，正在被運送出國。
The man executing government policy at the Treasury was Charles Trevelyan.
執行當時財政政策的人正是查爾斯·屈威廉。
Someone who could see a catastrophe around the corner wrote to Trevelyan, begging him to stop the export of oats.
預見到滅頂之災即將到來的人給屈威廉寫了封信，請求他停止出口燕麥。
I know there is a great and serious objection to any interference with these exports, yet it is a most serious evil.
我明白干涉燕麥出口肯定會遭到嚴重的抗議，但出口燕麥卻是最嚴重的罪行。
Trevelyan wrote back: We beg of you not to countenance in any way the idea of prohibiting exportation.
屈威廉回信道：我們勸你想都不要想制止燕麥出口。
The discouragement and feeling of insecurity to the trade would prevent its doing even any immediate good.
勸阻出口和對出口的擔憂，對現狀不會有任何立竿見影的改善。
If the peasants of western Ireland weren't able to grow potatoes, perhaps by labouring on public works, they could earn money to buy food.
如果西部的農民沒法種土豆了，也能通過參加公共基礎建設賺錢買食物。
This is one of those relief projects -- a road in the Burren in County Clare which goes absolutely nowhere.
在克萊爾郡的巴侖修這條不知通向何方的路就是其中的一項扶貧工作。
But it didn't matter, even these futile jobs got closed down.
其實這些并不重要，因為這些無用的工作也停止了。
So too did the soup kitchens which the government briefly provided, following the example of the Quakers and others.
和教友會等地方一樣，原先少數由政府資助的救濟處也關門了。
Now there was only one place to go -- the workhouse. Even if you had typhus or dysenteric fever.
貧農們只有一個地方可去了--作坊。傷寒和痢疾患者也不得不出外做工。
Workhouses like this one at Portumna in Galway were filled to overflowing.
在戈爾韋市波塔姆納這樣的作坊里，當時人滿為患。
Now workhouses had always been deliberately designed to be as much like prisons as possible to deter anyone who had the slightest chance of a job.
作坊都是盡量設計得像監獄，但凡還有去向的人都不會來此工作。
As the famine developed, the situation here got much much worse, the sick and the healthy placed side by side.
伴隨著饑荒的惡化，這里的情況也日益趨緊，健康的人和病患并肩工作。
You'd have to be off your head to want to cross the threshold, but when the alternative was starvation, multitudes were banging at the doors begging to be let in.
除非你不要命了，才會去作坊里做工，但是除了餓死和去作坊別無他選，許多人在作坊門口求著要工作。
After June 1847, to get any relief you had to prove you were at the bottom of the heap, with no more than a quarter of an acre to call your own.
1847年6月后，為了獲得補助，必須證明你確實是個貧農，連四分之一英畝地都沒有。
Of course, renting one acre of bog or heath didn't exactly make you middle class.
當然，租一畝的沼澤或荒地并不能讓你成為中產階級。
Hundreds of thousands of peasants of course were clinging to their cabins and patches of land, on which they hoped be able one day to grow potatoes again.
幾十萬的農民當然舍不得他們的草棚和田地，希望有一天能再種上土豆。
Now they were faced with a terrible choice: either turn in that extra land to the landlords to get poor relief, or stay put and starve.
他們面臨著艱難的決定，要么將多余的土地交給地主以此獲得補助，要么就守著地餓死。
It was no choice at all.
其實他們別無選擇。
The hungry converted themselves into the officially landless just to get something to eat, travelling miles to the widely-dispersed workhouses, leaving their plots behind.
饑餓將他們逼到為了吃口飯徹底失去了所有土地，背井離鄉徒步行走數公里來到偏遠的濟貧院討生活。
It was just the opportunity Irish landlords had been waiting for.
這對愛爾蘭的地主們真是天賜良機。
Tenants who tried to stay were forcibly evicted, their roofs smashed in to make sure they didn't return.
想要繼續留守的佃戶被強制趕走，地主為確保他們一去不回，掀了他們的屋頂。
Now the landlords could stock their acres with sheep and cattle, so much more profitable than peasants and pigs.
這樣地主就可以在土地上放羊養牛，比租給農民種土豆養豬賺錢多了。
At the height of the famine, there were too many babies dying either at birth, or in early infancy, for the priests to be able to baptise them all.
在饑荒最嚴重的時候，許多孩子不是出生時死亡就是過早夭折，牧師都來不及為他們洗禮。
Denied consecrated ground, their fathers carried them to a piece of no-man's land like this,
因為無法入葬于教堂墓地，他們的父親只能將他們帶到像這樣的荒涼之地，
on the very rim of the island on the Atlantic shore, and put up a rough stone marker to mark their short, sad life.
在面對大西洋的海岸邊簡單地豎起一塊石頭，以此祭奠他們短暫悲慘的命運。
