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

Kinealy, Christine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157098140X ISBN 13: 9781570981401

Publisher: UNKNO, 1995

Synopsis

The Irish famine of 1845-52 was the most decisive event in the history of modern Ireland and the last great sustenance crises in European history. In a country of eight million people, it caused the deaths of one million and the forced emigration of another million. This book surveys the famine, looking at the ways in which it changed things in modern Ireland. Its psychological effects were most keenly felt in the development of an anglophobic nationalism, especially among Irish emigrants to the USA, which effected the political history of 19th and 20th century Ireland. It also contributed to a sense of fatalism and despair that remained a pronounced feature of Irish life for generations.

About this title

About the Author

Professor Christine Kinealy is a highly regarded writer and lecturer. In 1984, she earned her Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, writing on the introduction of the Poor Law in Ireland. Kinealy has written extensively about the Great Hunger and its impact, most notably in This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52, and has spoken to both the US Congress and British Parliament on the Famine. In addition to the Great Hunger, her topics include nineteenth-century Ireland, the revolutions of 1848, Daniel O'Connell, Irish-American nationalism, and memory and commemoration in Irish history. Since September 2007, Kinealy has been a tenured professor at Drew University's Caspersen Graduate School in Madison, NJ. She has written over 16 books on Irish and Irish-American history and numerous scholarly articles.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: UNKNO
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 157098140X
• ISBN 13: 9781570981401
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 450