The Silent People

Irish Trilogy #2

by Walter Macken

Continuing the adventures of several generations of one Irish family, The Silent People is the story of a young educated man from Connacht, and life at the time of the famine in Ireland. Despite his reluctance, Dualta is drawn into the political unrest of his times because of the degradation of the people by tyrannical landlords and inescapable injustices. Along with Seek the Fair Land and The Scorching Wind, The Silent People is a fascinating examination of the history and events that fueled the fight for freedom in Ireland. The second novel in Walter Macken's epic trilogy following one family through 300 years of Irish history

Genres: Ireland, Historical Fiction, Irish Literature, Fiction, Historical, Literature, Modern

Paperback

First published November 1, 1962

About the author

Walter Macken was an Irish writer of short stories, novels and plays.

Originally an actor, principally with the Tadhbhearc in Galway, and The Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in MJ Molloy's The King of Friday’s Men and his own play Home is the Hero. He also acted in films, notably in Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow. With the success of his third book, Rain on the Wind, he devoted his time to writing. His plays include Mungo’s Mansion (1946) and Home is the Hero (1952).

His novels include I Am Alone (1949); Rain on the Wind (1950); The Bogman (1952); and the historical trilogy Seek the Fair Land (1959), The Silent People (1962) and The Scorching Wind (1964). His short stories were collected in The Green Hills (1956), God Made Sunday (1962) and The Coll Doll and other Stories (1962).

He also published a number of books for children, including Island of the Great Yellow Ox (1966); and Flight of the Doves (1968), which was adapted for the cinema.

Reviews

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ireland 1826 and some years beyond, we see Ireland and their relationship with landlords and explore a few injustices such as the tithe law the Irish Catholic was forced to pay to the Protestant church. We see the hope Daniel O’Connell gave to the Irish people and we also, strangely, see his fall but Macken gives no details. I admire him for his choice here, refusing to muddy O’Connell’s name. One’s heart breaks for the Irish when after one battle is won, Catholic Emancipation, it only leads to a worse outcome. Macken briefly explores the differing views of the time as to how the Irish could win back their freedom. It is easy to see which side he favors and one is left with a deep and profound respect for O’Connell. We explore the Irish countryside through the life of Dualta Duane and see how he deals with life under the outrageously unjust social structure of Irish life. Macken is a master for language and I love his unexpected Irish idiom and poetic contrast.

Ireland should be so proud to have Walter Macken as her own. This was another beautiful novel and what makes Macken's novels special is the beauty of the characters in them, I'm not sure I've seen their equal. Macken's characters are so good and honorable yet so very human. Each of his characters in the books I've read so far are so richly detailed I feel I've got a slew of Irish friends I admire. And though one would expect it, he doesn't descend into over-romanticizing. He balances the beauty and hope with such strange and unexpected reality. He finds beauty in pain and suffering, the characters aren't given any breaks, they experience true loss just as Dualta does here from beginning to end, yet, in the end he has everything-and nothing. I wish everyone in the world read these books.

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to follow

[loeilecoute · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful informative, complex and historically integrated story beginning approximately 20 years before the first episode of the Great Famine (or Great Hunger) beginning in the summer of 1845. The story ends in the second year of the famine in 1846. The characters are well developed, and the relationships reveal the complexity of the Irish nature, with its wit, humor, deep observation of human nature, and the frequent sorrow that too often accompanies it. The conversations give the reader a sense of the type of communication between the Irish that I really enjoyed. The sense of humor is frequent, and highly amusing: when asked to join a family gathering, one character replies,"You father has so many in his house now that the dog has to leave his fleas outside the door...."

The nature of how life is lived is woven deftly into the story line--how the houses are built of stone or turf, with or without windows, which generally will not have glass because the renter would be taxed for the presence of glass. The roof is thatched once a year. If there are no windows, then the smoke from the fire (with no fireplace, except for stones that surround the fire) permeates the home, and exits the door, and a hole in the roof. The poorest homes are one room, with an area for sleep, where all sleep together on straw bedding. Animals such as chickens, roosters, pigs and cows where brought into the home at night. Their straw bedding was cleaned out once a year. The smells of the animals were prominent in the home. The call to nature for the humans is performed outside the house--rarely is there a specific outhouse for this function.

There is also vivid descriptions of the accommodations that the poor have to make when they have no food--to milk a neighbor's cow in the middle of the night, or rarely steal an animal such as a pig (a breech rarely performed because it was so easily identified.)
But the most shocking accommodation is from the cow: "you could nick a vein in an animal's neck and extract a quart of blood. You could cook this with mushrooms and cabbage and you had a dish called relish cake. This did not last long because men with cows or cattle took to housing them at night or setting guard on them, or selling them off before they were bled to death."

The history of the time is deftly written into the plot which, much to my relief is historically correct. (I really have a hard time reading historical fiction when the author deviates from the known history in order to further the plot line.) I have recently done a lot of historical research on the Great Famine, and can reassure you that the facts contained in this book are true. (The only error that I could perceive was his mention in the last few pages that Ellis Island was the recipient of the new immigrants, but since the story ended in 1846, this statement was incorrect--Ellis Island did not open to immigrants until 1855. Prior to its opening, Staten Island received the immigrants.)

The story ends ambiguously as stories must end at some point, but there is a sense of the movement forward in an optimistic manner because of the wholesome personalities and dedication to the success of their relationships of the characters.

All in all, it was a really entertaining book, educational in an unexpected manner, and enjoyable as a work of historical fiction.

[Madeline Schmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read if you’re due for an emotional gutting. Alleviate your Irish guilt at your cush lifestyle by suffering vicariously alongside your ancestors.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second of Walter Macken's Irish trilogy. I am new to Macken but he is quietly becoming my favorite writer of Irish history. I first read Seek the Fair Land and loved the stark, dry descriptions of the suffering of the Irish people under Cromwell and now The Silent People took me to the time of the famine and Daniel O'Connell. I find Macken a sneaky good writer because the characters and relationships are so well developed but running first underneath and then over everything are his descriptions of suffering; famine and desperation so well written that you can smell the decay of rotting potatoes coming from the fields. When I finally got to the description of the starving silent people I was lost in sadness and despair.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read if you are Irish! All Macken's books are incredible.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dualta you’ll stay with me forever bro 🇮🇪

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 2nd part of a well-rated trilogy on the troubled & controversial history of Ireland.This novel deals with the years up to the 1848 disturbances...when famine & flight had left its terrible legacy of a million deaths in the helpless & hopeless...& Macken leaves no doubt that he believes that British indifference & Irish memory will leave this subject as a festering wound...despite Tony Blair's apology for the cold-blooded interpretation of 'political economy' so prevalent in Westminster 170 years ago. Macken writes so vividly that he even manages to portray English charity & Irish mendacity without resorting to pantomime characters. Dualta, the main protagonist, is a worthy man to deal with his experiences with common-sense & compassion, rarely using violence to replace a valid viewpoint.As a reader with some Irish genes...I hope I have followed sucha course in my hectic life...though as a teenager I did nothing to dispel the notion of 'the fighting Irish'...being handy with both my tongue & my fists! This deserves a wider readership but I fear that it will remain neglected by those who take their historical viewpoint from films, television dramas & newspaper columnists! History is never as clearly related as in a brilliant novel like 'The Silent Peoole'....here they have voices!

[Brian Gormley · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.3 out of 5. I reread this book again recently, as there were a number of commemoration events for the Irish famine in my area. I have also previously read Seek The Fair Land which covers Oliver Cromwell’s massacre in Drogheda, but I think I’ll revisit that soon as well. Walter Macken is a great writer and this trilogy covers some key moments in Irish history. This book covers the initial revolts against the landlords, and an early outbreak of blight that destroyed the potato harvest. In some ways, the main characters - Dualta and Una - are not as vulnerable or affected by the famine as the majority of the population - they are educated, and have some other income from teaching. However, I suppose that makes them more relatable as characters to a modern audience. This narrative is based some 20 years before the Great Famine, during which the population of Ireland fell from 8 million to 6.5 million. The horror of the Great Famine is inconceivable.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t like having series split up on my shelves and yet for some reason I read Walter Macken’s Seek the Fair Land back in 2015 and have had the two sequels sitting around separated from their fellow for nine years now. Anyway I decided that was enough of that nonsense and it was time to continue the trilogy; while I didn’t get around to it during Sad Irish Literature Month or my first foray to Maine this year, this weekend it was time! I was determined to at least start on the very depressing-looking The Silent People, and next year I will read The Scorching Wind, for reals.

The Silent People follows the life of a Connemara man named Dualta Duane, starting when he is in his late teens in the 1820s. Duane’s parents died in a famine and he has been raised by his uncle, the schoolmaster, so he can read and write and speaks English pretty well. Trouble begins when the landlord’s son hits him with a whip for not getting out of the way fast enough at a market fair, and Dualta, in the manner of strong young men who have just been physically assaulted for no reason at all, knocks the rich asshole off his horse. This obviously is the morally correct and badass thing to do, but tactically was not so smart. Both Dualta and his uncle have to flee the village, going in separate directions. The novel then follows Dualta’s adventures and misadventures as he makes his way from the Connemara hills to the valleys of Clare, where he meets up with various people who all have various opinions and theories of change about how Ireland will win its freedom–when to fight and when to endure, what sacrifices are worth it and what isn’t, what type of fighting is noble and honorable and what is cowardly and base. The conversations don’t sound at all like the “dialogue lifted from Twitter” type of conversation about politics written by modern writers who are all on Twitter, probably because Macken was writing in the 1960s; I cannot say if the conversations however are particularly authentic to the 1820s or if they are too 1960s to be good historical fiction. All I can say is that they are just as frustrating and stupid as listening to real ordinary people talk about their theories of change in politics, especially the type of ordinary people who don’t know terms like “theory of change” and are only just starting to examine their own assumptions enough to articulate them. Daniel O’Connell (here “O Connell”) makes a set of cameos as the man who basically introduced the theory of nonviolent mass pressure to Ireland singlehandedly; we see his theory, like so many others, work up until the point where it doesn’t.

Dualta crosses paths occasionally with a young lady named Una, whose mother was a McMahon who converted to Protestantism upon marriage, and whose father is a wealthy Protestant landlord. Dualta meets her when he gets hired into the man’s household as a “Trojan horse” from his previous job, which was ostensibly helping a local shopkeeper run her shop but actually using his rare bilingual literacy (the literacy was rare; the bilingualism wasn’t) to write threatening letters on behalf of the local agroterrorist organization. Una converts to Catholicism and is kicked out of the house; later, Dualta runs into her again when she sets up as a day school teacher in a random valley in Clare. Dualta manages to snag a ten-year lease on a bit of property no one else wants in the same valley, and, being both newcomers and the best-educated people in the valley, they eventually join forces, first wrangling the weans at the school and then getting married. They adopt some other misfits over the course of their time in the valley as various political happenings come and go, such as the election of Daniel O Connell to Parliament–a massive event that involves thousands of people all walking to Ennis, because apparently in the 1820s a county would only have one polling station–until the famine hits in 1845 and their painstakingly scraped-together life falls apart.

The book is sad but also dryly funny at times, which is a common enough combination in Irish literature. The writing style has something very midcentury about it that I can’t quite put my finger on, where it includes a lot of small details but they are all in very plain, unflowery language. There is a wealth of information about rural life in 19th-century Ireland woven into the story, a way of life that’s not only lost to time but also which none of us who grew up with running water would put up with for a single second. These people were poor as dirt, did backbreaking labor, owned nothing, and had no security. They rented land, but not houses; they had to build their own houses on the land they rented, and when they were evicted the houses were torn down or set on fire. This meant that what passed for a house for tenant farmers then wouldn’t pass muster as a garage now.

Overall this was, I wouldn’t say a fun time exactly, but a very immersive one.

Originally posted at They can't kill a million of us... or can they?

[Barra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tale of perseverance in the face of unbelievable hardship. I love the way that Walter Macken brings new characters into play with great subtlety, almost unbeknownst to the reader. The episodic nature of the chapters makes this work read like a hugely dramatic soap opera, and there is certainly more than a nod to the C20th idiom of the cinema. Scenes are set and played out in front of sweeping landscapes, ’shots’ created by the author. A magnificent follow up to ‘Seek the Fair Land’. Bring on ‘The Scorching Wind’!

[Trisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in Walter Macken’s trilogy that traces pivotal points in Ireland’s troubled history. This one is set in the years leading up to the great potato blight and famine of 1847, a time of poverty and hardship for Ireland’s “silent people: “… the poet and the storyteller and the singer and the carpenter, the drunken ones and the sober ones and the hypocritical ones and the pious ones…”

The novel tells the story of Dualta Duane, a young man who flees for his life after standing up to the son of a corrupt landowner. At first, he joins a group of rebels intent on burning the houses and destroying property of the landed gentry, but Dualta realizes he has no taste for violence and moves further south. He eventually marries after acquiring an abandoned hovel and derelict patch of land for which he must pay an exorbitant rent demanded by his unscrupulous landlord in spite of the blight that has desiccated his small potato crop two years in a row.

Macken paints a vivid picture of heartless landlords and the evictions that forced impoverished tenants from their homes as well as the desperation, hunger and disease that claimed so many lives in the end: “…you could nick a vein in an animal’s neck and extract a quart of blood. You could cook this with mushrooms and cabbage and you had a dish called relish cake . . . Or you could turn to the sea for the fruit of the shore, seaweed and shellfish, and later on as other sources dried up you could cook snails, frogs, hedgehogs baked in clay, and after that crows or blackbirds which you picked from the hedges at night. . .eat anything, anything at all. For you can survive on nettles and dandelions and seaweed, grass, roots, as long as you have the strength to look for them. If you are not struck by the fever. No famine, no fever.

The book is filled with descriptions of what life was like in Ireland during the years before famine funerals became commonplace -- country fairs, whiskey stills hidden in the mountains, wedding celebrations, music, and a determination to survive. Macken describes the breathtaking beauty of the West Coast of Ireland where little stone cottages were nestled into hillsides, turf smoke curled out of chimneys and the sunshine sparkled on the Atlantic Ocean.

And even though this story is filled with descriptions of brutal evictions, famine funerals and the desperation of families bound for America on coffin ships, Macken manages to avoid becoming sentimental or maudlin when writing about the suffering people were subjected to during those terrible years.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to read a book about the famine years in Ireland and not be horrified – especially if we have Irish ancestors for whom the things we’re reading about were all too real.

[Philip Magnier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Macken is surely Ireland's greatest writer of historical fiction. This one -- the second of a trilogy -- is set in Galway and Clare in the early 1800s, a time when Catholics were unable to vote and had no security of tenure on their land.

The theme is the moral struggle between taking up arms against oppression or engaging in agitation and civil disobediance to restore rights. The struggle is personified in Daniel O'Connell, a great leader of those times who had witnessed horrors while based in France during the 1789 revolution and thereafter remained committed to peaceful means. O'Connell had an unparalled ability to unite and inspire ordinary Irish people, well presented here in a few scenes.

Like the first volume, Seek the Fair Land, the book has adventure particularly at the start when our protagonist, Dualta, flees his homeland after some trouble with the gentry. He ends up in County Clare and settles there after much life experience.

Macken is a fine writer and describes his characters with clarity, sympathy, and understanding. The action has romance and famine, with no shirking in describing human nature. His writing on a potato famine made it more real to me than anywhere else I've read.

Unlike the first book, this one lost some momentum towards the middle but picks up nicely later on. It does make me wonder about the difference between high literature and this more popular variety (in the past that is). They possibly have different goals but it always nice to read fiction like this that's easily read and still touches on fundamental aspects of human experience.

[Lyndal Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An emotionally impactful and insightful read. I've read 'Seek The Fair Land' by the same author and thought that was great too. I appreciated the fact that the story started in 1826, almost 20 years before the Great Famine. I've read a lot of books set in the famine-era and most started in the period immediately prior to the famine, so it was great to experience the two decades before that. It allowed a much clearer idea of pre-famine Ireland to come through.
I enjoyed the inclusion of Daniel O'Connell as a character and found the storyline about Catholic Emancipation and the fight for the repeal of the Union really interesting to read about.
Dualta was a great main character. Father Finucane and Una were also extremely likeable.
The actual famine section of the book was not overly long. Even though I've read a lot of books about it, it's still incredibly harrowing to read about.
I look forward to reading the last book in Walter Macken's Irish trilogy - 'The Scorching Wind'.

[Jack Mckeever · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second instalment in Walter Macken's legendary Irish Trilogy is less impactful than the first, but still a fascinating read. As ever, the characters are vivid and his perception and representation of politics, struggle and suffering in 19th century Ireland is balanced beautifully with stark storytelling. I did find, however, that some of the scene setting and descriptive writing was clunkier than I'd anticipated, though the dialogue and feeling between characters is brilliantly realised.

Where the book becomes most powerful is in its final third, where the heart-rendering bleakness of famine and death in Ireland - exacerbated by brutal English warlords and unscrupulous landlords - is laid out in desperately sad fashion. At the heart of The Silent People is a love story which, although doesn't feel so gripping throughout most of the novel, comes full circle gorgeously in the book's final pages.

Despite my slight disappointment, I can't wait to read The Scorching Wind - not least because Ken Loach turned it into pure excellence with The Wind That Shakes The Barley.

[Natalie Anillo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Ireland during this time, which was interesting. But this book had zero plot, there was no climax, it wasn’t leading to anything. It got quite boring because there wasn’t a plot - it was just following the characters’ daily lives with no clear direction other than the passing of time.

[Michael Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Macken somehow captures the emotions of an entire nation during what were probably her darkest moments.

I am four generations removed from the great famine and “The Silent People” filled me with an overwhelming sympathy for my ancestors, as well as a profound awareness of how fortunate we are to have somehow survived and to remain in Ireland to this day.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story with interspersed history.

[Muhammad Ejaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most amazing and inspirational novel i've ever read.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Macken never disappoints.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow but beautiful tale of perseverance in Ireland in the early half of the 19th century.

[Elizabeth McInerney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful way to understand Irish History

[Eylene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it again to coincide with the re-release of the books. It was as good as I remembered it. Raw and powerful social commentary on the times

[Eileen Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

found this book very interesting, gives you so much insight on how the people suffered, loved the characters

[Gere Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't connect as well with the main character, but it was still an incredible story.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

God that cover.

Irony of being a middle-aged middle-class Irishman living in the 21st century and trying to lose a bit of weight while reading about people starving in the 19th century. It's not even the Great Hunger, it's one of the earlier famines of 1826. Oh good lord. This is my history, our legacy. We cry into our whiskey and curse the sassenach and the treachery of our fellow Irishmen and lament the great suffering and the appalling injustice, which were a byword for backward and repressive agrarian policies.

Before we get to the famine, though, there's the life of Dualta Duane, who flees Galway after knocking a landlord's son off his horse. Fired by anger at the general awfulness of landlordism, he dabbles in rural agitation, but finds at the end he has no stomach for wanton destruction and murder even in a good cause. He settles in a Clare valley, but tithes and rents and gale days and cronyism and corruption squeezing the poor unmercifully, trouble is never very far away, despite the best efforts of the great Liberator, Daniel O'Connell, who strides the land like a behemoth, driving the country towards Emancipation and Repeal.

Dualta is an engaging and likable hero, his decency and good nature sorely tested by his times. will he survive? Will his family? Will anyone? The last few chapters are a guided tour of hell, but Macken is sure-footed and clear-eyed and guides us through the grief and horror to the point where there can be a future again, however frail.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second in the "Irish Trilogy" and I enjoyed it very much, though I did not connect with Dualta in quite the same way as I did with Dominick. The story starts in the years before the potato blight and famine. Dualta is a young Irish man, educated, headstrong and resentful of the English occupation. He upsets the son of the lord and has to flee. On his journey, Dualta meets Daniel O'Connell and participates in his election to Parliament. Amazing hope and faith was invested in O'Connell.

The book is something of an Irish 'Dear America' - it provides characters to connect with, care about, but within the context of real events. I'm constantly amazed with the US-centricness of our education and how much we miss because of it. The famine is usually taught as a corollary to US history - because of the famine, lots of Irish people came to the US. We miss what it did to Ireland - a lot of Irish people LEFT, or died.

[Sherrill Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1962. Historical fiction.

I'm not sure where the blurb / review came from about The Silent People on this website. It wasn't the book I read! Nor was this the cover on the book I read.

This story is about Dualta Duane in Ireland during the 1820s. The author carefully lets us see, hear and feel what he is experiencing during that time, when the poor Irish had practically no representation in government, which was corrupt. There is a terrible split between the Protestants and the Catholics, between those who have and the have nots. Walter paints things in black and white.

Cuan McCarthy is an angry militant, and Dualta soon sees that is not his own way. He prefers to tend his own house, to teach in the local school, and not to be political. But he is impressed by Carrol O Connor, a historic person, who eventually changed the way the government worked.

This book does deal with people dying of the plague, and the beginning of the potato famine.

[Nanto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku bekas yang saya temukan di Cikapundung dulu. Membacanya karena saya pernah tertarik dengan Irlandia. Settingnya menarik, karena bertalian dengan migrasi orang Irlandia ke luar negeri ketika terjadi wabah besar-besaran di sana. Memberikan cukup gambaran feodalisme di sana dan tentang wajah salah satu bangsa yang suka dihina dengan "the last nigger in Europe!"

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[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tremendous book which takes an Irish community and a family from the times of the fight for home rule through the first year of the famine and into the second. It is the second book of Macken's trilogy on the history of Ireland.
Very good, solid historical fiction of this time in Irish history.