The Irish Famine

by Colm Tóibín, Diarmaid Ferriter

This unique volume, comprising Colm Tóibín's acclaimed short text and a linked collection of key documents put together by one of Ireland's leading younger historians, offers a many-sided view of one's of history's most poignant and far-reaching catastrophes. This book will allow the reader to understand the complex way in which the fragmentary past is both available to us ... and distant from us.' We get those insights from Tóibín's short history and from a rich collection of documents -- government papers, recipes, journalism, letters, statistics, personal statements, all linked so the book can be read as a whole.

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, Economics, Business, European History

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Colm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like I said before, I'll read Colm Toibin's thoughts on pretty much anything. He says in his introduction that this book is an attempt to temper the "British as genocidal killers" narrative of the famine (which he blames a lot on Irish American sentimentalism), but the primary sources that Ferriter collects didn't do a lot to make me respect what the British goverment did in that time. (But it does show a lot of the good done by independent British and Irish citizens.) Ultimately I learned a lot but it didn't really change my mind, but maybe I'm just an overly sentimental Irish American.

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars!

I picked this up on a whim, with only a cursory look at the description and this didn’t turn out to be the book I thought it was. I thought it was accounts from people who had endured the famine, but this is actually a series of reports, letters, articles, statistics, findings and other official documents sent during the Irish Famine.

Due to the era this does have a rather prolix Victorian feel to it, that does not really make for great casual reading, but then neither it should, it’s a serious subject. Much of this is taken up with self-important Sirs exchange long-winded correspondence with Lords, Dukes and Earls and other members of the aristocracy, their words and behaviour wavering between total ignorance and blind indifference, as the people of their nation starve to death.

It is split into two main sections, it opens up with Toibin giving a brief historical background in to the famine. He makes a number of good points, citing the significance of the Gregory clause, introduced by Sir William Gregory of Coole Park and MP for Dublin in 1847. This made it law that any family owning a quarter acre of land or more, would not be granted relief, either in or out of the workhouse until they gave up all of their land. It is notable that the clause was passed unopposed, which gives us a clear insight into the mentality and priorities of the political elite in Victorian Britain.

Toibin adds another really good point in saying, “It is plain from much writing about the Famine that two things happened in its aftermath. One, people blamed the English and the Ascendency. Two, there began a great silence about class division in Catholic Ireland.”

Like the Highland clearances in Scotland, the British East India Company in India and countless other locations. The clearing of the land and starvation of the people could not have worked as successfully as it did and for as long as it did if it wasn’t for the valuable support of people already living there, who were happy to betray their fellow countrymen and aid the British elite in exchange for their own little slice of power and control. Class is always part of the issue, and often trumps any illusions about nationalism. Irish landlords were as culpable as the English elite, as they were all part of the same system.

Sometimes it is forgotten that Ireland was part of The United Kingdom for the entire duration of the famine. The British Empire, too content with convincing itself that it ruled the waves, but in reality it could not even feed its own starving people and so they had to flee to many other corners of the globe to save themselves.

According to the census of 1841 Ireland had a population of 8’175’124 people, by 1861 that had plummeted to 5’ 764’543. Between the years of 1846-49 around 1 million people died of disease, hunger and fever, with the west suffering the most. By the end of 1847, 20’000 immigrants to Canada had died, 80% of the entire Irish immigration. By 1851, 1 million people of Irish descent were living in the US.

This book reminds us about the mind-set of those in power, their faith and concerns always lies with themselves and their interests. Self-preservation, protecting assets and preserving power is always the primary concern without exception, only then will thought be given to anyone else outside this elite group. Just like Obama and his cabinet after the financial crash or the Conservative government during Brexit. The names may change, the country may be different, but these fundamental principles will always remain the same.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

History well-documented and well-told rarely comes out with a roster of those with whom we morally sympathize lined up neatly on one side of a major event and a contrasting roster of moral monsters on the other, and so it is with the story of the Irish famine of the mid-19th century. The authors try through a prefacing essay and a selection of documents from contemporary observers of and participants in the event in question to develop a more nuanced view than that espoused in John Mitchel's now-famous quip to the effect that the potato blight was an act of God but the Irish famine was an act of Parliament. Did some Irish benefit from the death, departure, and misery of their fellows? Yes. Did many British citizens outside Ireland make noble and even heroic efforts to assist in famine relief? Yes. Was the British government entirely without conscience in its response to the disaster? No, not entirely. All of this being granted however does not gainsay or explain away the fact that the death and desolation associated with the famine were visited almost entirely and disproportionately upon the poor cottier class. There were victims, and they were poor Irish agricultural laborers. The blame for the anemic British response to the catastrophe can be laid equally at the feet of ideology and bigotry, but the authors' attempt at revisionism, however mild, runs aground on the rhetorical question posed by Issac Butt in an 1847 document cited in the book: "If Cornwall had been visited with the same scenes that have desolated Cork, would similar arguments have been used?"

[Echo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sort of torn about this book. It had a lot of useful information, and it's nice if you want to read a lot of documentation from the time of the Great Famine without having to weed through newspapers and government documents in a library somewhere. I also respect that the author tries to tone down the accusatory tone a lot of people take with the famine and the English government. There are a few good points brought up, like how it wasn't all the fault of the English because many people in Ireland took advantage of the situation and prospered because of the suffering of their neighbors. There are certainly enough accounts out there that blow things way out of proportion, so I can see where the desire to stay objective comes from, but I almost felt he was trying to distance himself from the issue too much. Overall, I thought it was a pretty informative book, but I could have done with a little more narrative talking about the context of the documents and the author's thoughts on them. I value it mainly because of the excerpts of documents and letters and things (which is the majority of the book) and not for the few pages where the author writes a little background and states, basically, that he isn't going to point fingers or take sides or get emotional about the issue.
Really, to be fair though, it would probably be very useful for anyone wanting to read one of the more fair accounts of the famine.

[Clark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Revisionist history that's not actually based on fact or history.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand that this was first published, at least its parts, in 1999, so may be a bit behind the latest research on this topic, to which Toibin's moving introductory essay here presumably/hopefully has contributed. It's a bit astonishing to think that such a critical event as the potato blight and its aftermath of widespread famine and disease has borne little scrutiny as to causes until one realizes just how god-awful were the consequences. The English and the absentee landlords have been presumed to be at blame, but the communications and statistics generated by govt officials and eye-witness testimonies assembled here by historian Diarmaid Ferriter reveal a fuller and more insidious portrait. Families on small farms, of which there were many in Ireland for generations, were evicted, their properties repossessed with nowhere to go but the poorhouses which were slow to spring up and were woefully inadequate in terms of space and supplies. Meanwhile neighboring landlords gained by the acquisition of these small holdings and, perhaps most shockingly, Irish crops continued to be exported at profit. Approximately one million died of disease or starved to death and a million others emigrated. As many as another million left to join relatives in North America and elsewhere in the aftermath, a diaspora that forever changed the country and economy, and remains very painful.

[Rob Jeffery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of an advanced book for my first foray into the Irish Famine. It's basically a book of official letters, speeches, government documents from the time of the famine. It's trying to avoid the extreme position that the English intentionally caused the Irish famine with a more nuanced, historical view that social and political factors played a huge part in making the famine much worse than it needed to be. Anglo-Irish landlords also played a significant role in increasing the misery by only giving aid to tenants if they signed away the rights to their land.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the authors miss the point that the English were involved in the shaping of the landlord class in Ireland. In fact the English were very much apart of the social construct in Ireland. Food that was desperately needed in Ireland was shipped to England. England controlled every aspect of Irish life. The landlords were Anglo-Irish and had no sympathy for their Catholic tenants.

[Tiarnán · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written short survey of the historiography and politics of the Great Irish Famine (1845-9) at the time of writing at the end of the '90s.

NB: I only have the short Tóibín book, and not the additional 'documentary' material or commentary supplied by Ferriter.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essay itself by Tóibín is enlightening however the evidence included in the latter half of the book feels disjointed. Perhaps better would have been to reconsider the essay with inclusions of evidence.

[Mary Costagliola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, short, introductory essay followed by primary source material.

[Jodie Bermingham · Rating 3 out of 5]

a really good short summary of a lot of literature and facts surrounding the famine, an easy read for getting back into history and learning a bit more about our own history.

[Hillary Borders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for History of Ireland

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colm Toibin and historian Diarmaid Ferriter document the causes and effects of the dreaded Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s.

[Jeremy Snow]

The first part details some of the history of the famine, but most of the book contains excerpts from contemporaneous documents associated with the famine.

[Alex Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essay and some documents (and I only read the essay). Shocking, and very well written and argued by Toibin.