Hi from Ireland.

1) most irish would consider the historical situation to have been exploitative.
Wondering why the irish did this, or that, should take into account the penalties offered by the occupying troops to those unwilling to work in slave-like conditions, sharecropping for landlords.
The british took these lessons on board and proceeded to do somthing similar in india within a few years (5+ million dead).
2) contraception was still illegal here in the 1980s, thanks to our 'catholic taliban'.
3) We were "highly leveraged"; already-small farms were repeatedly subdivided between children; a large nomadic workforce also depended on seasonal work. There were no schools, hospitals, industries, credit, or bail-outs for most of the affected popluation.
4) Ireland, brittany, newfoundland, scotland and galicia (NW spain) share geology, and were joined 200m years ago before the atlantic appeared. The terrain and landscape look strikingly similar.
5) as a young irishman, working menial jobs in london, I saw ample evidence of a culture, in britain, of treating irish as barbarian untermensch. Somewhat understandable due to our having been cut off from the evolution of general social fashions for several centuries, but also because dominance means not having to see oneself from another's point of view.

The wikipedia article on the indian famine above, and english media about the british empire in general, glosses over the excesses and brutality of the 'crown'; like the japanese imperial apologists, there is a prediliction to rose-tinted optics and the pretty groundless presumption that they meant well, knew best, and were doing one a favor by obliterating one's ancient language and culture.

Contrast the story of 'how the west was won' with e.g. Black Elk Speaks.

My father tells of his uncle's memory of his grandfather speak of seeing starved skeletal bodies by the road, mouths green from eating grass and leaves.
It's the lack of carbs that get you, not protein, so fish won't help as much as you think. Seal-blubber would of course be another story..

j