This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52 - Hardcover

Kinealy, Christine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1570980349 ISBN 13: 9781570980343

Publisher: UNKNO, 1995

Synopsis

A new assessment of the Great Famine of 1845-1852--the most significant event in modern Irish history--thoroughly explores the complex economic, social, political, and cultural factors involved, and looks at the Famine's legacy in the modern world. IP.

About this title

About the Author:

Dr. Christine Kinealy lectures in Irish and British history and is a Fellow of the University of Liverpool. She was formerly the assistant director of the Ulster Historical Foundation in Belfast.

From Publishers Weekly:

An estimated 500,000 to 1,500,000 died during the Irish famine; the peak year, 1847, is known as "Black '47." Some 1,500,000 emigrated, with 2,000,000 more leaving during the subsequent 20 years. The potato was considered "the lazy crop" because it grew everywhere. The locution perhaps reflected the British attitude that the potato was eaten by a lazy people, a people who, according to a British economist, "propagate their species like brutes" and were "too indolent to give their dead a 'decent Christian burial,'" (a criticism made during the famine as Ireland's streets became strewn with the dead). Relief was finally enacted when British Prime Minister Robert Peel secretly imported Indian corn and cornmeal from the U.S. (in violation of the Corn Laws); his gesture was referred to by the Irish as "Peel's brimstone." Other forms of relief were the workhouse, the Poor Laws and the Temporary Relief and Soup Kitchen Acts. There are many villains in this story, such as the absentee landlords and the coldhearted British bureaucrats. But there are also such heroes as Church of Ireland minister Richard Townsend, who publicized the misery; the local Quakers, who imported food; and even Queen Victoria, who donated a not insignificant amount of her own money to the famine relief. Kinealy, a fellow of the University of Liverpool, has written a comprehensive if dry study packed with statistics that will be of interest primarily to scholars. History Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1570980349
• ISBN 13: 9781570980343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 450