The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony 1845 - 1852

by Ciarán Ó Murchadha

The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony examines this enormous human calamity anew. Beginning with the coming of the potato blight in 1845 and the resulting harvest failures that left the country's impoverished population numb with shock as well as foodless, it explores government relief measures that so often failed to meet the needs of the poor, leading in fact to many more deaths. The book charts the horrific realities of Ireland's pauper-crammed workhouses, the mass clearances of the later Famine period and the great waves of panic-driven emigration that in a few short years combined to empty the country of its once teeming population.

Drawing on eyewitness accounts, official reports, newspapers and private diaries, the focus of the book rests on the experiences of those who suffered and died during the Famine, and on those who suffered and survived.

This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand Europe's greatest nineteenth century population disaster and its long term consequences.

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2011

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched and engaging history of the famine in Ireland. The author goes into detail about the British policies that made the famine worse, and the lasting effects of the famine on Ireland still evident today. This is an academic book, but the writing keeps it interesting. The author uses first-person accounts, newspaper articles and illustrations created during the famine, which gives a first person perspective of what happened. Many of the accounts come from wealthy (mostly British) landowners, and their attitudes further illuminate the prevailing opinion of people in power that the famine was a convenient way to get rid of poor tenant farmers to remake Ireland.

Be warned there are descriptions in this book that are truly horrific and heartbreaking that are hard to get out of your head. The callousness and inhumanity of the British government at the time towards the Irish is shocking.

While An Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger, or the phrase for the famine in the Irish language) seems to be widely understood by the world and recorded in history books as a natural disaster, this book makes a convincing case that in reality it was an environmental catastrophe leveraged to become a genocide.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really depressing book. But very well researched and presented. I learned a lot about a topic I've heard a lot about, but previously hadn't understood how bad it actually was.

[Frank O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An emotional read. The author debates at the end if the British government behaviour during the famine can be described as genocide. Quote "If it [genocide] is defined as the deliberate, systematic use of an environmental catastrophe to destroy a people under the pretext of engineering social reform, then there is certainly a case to be answered." Don't remember that being thought in school. Records show between 1.1 to 1.5 million (some historians claim the figure is as high as 2) died in Ireland between 1845 to 1852 from starvation and diseases (this figure doesn't include the tens of thousands who died emigrating ) and between 1845 to the beginning of the 20th century over five million Irish people were forced to leave a place they called home.
It's difficult to fathom how something like this was allowed to happen.

[Bill38silver · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the better books that I have read on this tragedy where it is impossible to imagine why it was allowed to unfold and the paucity of response at all levels of society. So many people starved, suffered and died or wrenched themselves from their homeland, their families and their neighbours, risking their lives to journey to the vast unknown. Many of the references in this book are shocking and heart rending.

This book, published in 2011, is forged from numerous sources (the notes stretch to 37 pages including the bibliography). The style is mainly academic, the material well researched and assembled with a logical structure that makes for an engaging read.

However, I did not find convincing the concluding paragraphs of the final chapter which raise the question of whether the behaviour of the British government in the nineteenth century can be described as "genocide". True, the Treasury spent only £9 million on relief programmes in Ireland (and most of that sum was intended to be a loan, which had to be written off in 1853 as uncollectable). This paltry amount is compared to the £69 million cost of the Crimean war 1854-1856. But there is a decided difference between doing little or nothing (laissez faire was the political norm at that time) and a positive policy of "deliberate, systemic use of an environmental catastrophe to destroy a people under the pretext of engineering social reform".

[Abby Gardner · Rating 2 out of 5]

informative but boring af

[Stephen Tubbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

File under "Crime".