Feed the Children First: Irish Memories of the Great Hunger

by Mary E. Lyons (Editor)

The great Irish potato famine -- the Great Hunger -- was one of the worst disasters of the nineteenth century. Within seven years of the onset of a fungus that wiped out Ireland's staple potato crop, more than a quarter of the country's eight million people had either starved to death, died of disease, or emigrated to other lands. Photographs have documented the horrors of other cataclysmic times in history -- slavery and the Holocaust -- but there are no known photographs whatsoever of the Great Hunger. In Feed the Children First, Mary E. Lyons combines first-person accounts of those who remembered the Great Hunger with artwork that evokes the times and places and voices themselves. The result is a close-up look at incredible suffering, but also a celebration of joy the Irish took in stories and music and helping one another -- all factors that helped them endure.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, Juvenile, History

48 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2002

About the author

Mary E. Lyons, a former teacher and librarian, became a full-time writer in 1993. She is the author of nineteen books for young readers published by Scribner, Atheneum, Henry Holt, Houghton Mifflin and Oxford University Press.

Born and raised in the American South, Mary Lyons lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Paul. Her publications for adults include The Blue Ridge Tunnel: A Remarkable Engineering Feat in Antebellum Virginia (History Press, 2014), The Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2015), and Slave Labor on Virginia’s Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2020).

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a collection of survivors' recollections of the Irish potato Famine of the 1850s - it was very stark and sometimes graphic, interspersed with photographs and illustrations created at the time. At first I was cautious about recommending this to children, but after discussing it with a friend we talked about how children don't really fully grasp death and the true horrors of events like this, but they would get the main ideas. I remember learning about things like the Johnstown Flood and the Civil War in elementary school without really understanding the death toll. Children know how it feels to be hungry, so they would understand that. And it always seems better to learn history first-hand from the recollections of those who lived it rather than a fictionalized or second-hand account written decades later.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes when I'm looking at a shelf loaded with academic texts on a particular subject, I pick the one with the most pictures. Mary Lyons gives us the Irish Famine at a glance with a short collection of anecdotes and artwork from its survivors and their descendants. Far from the authoritative tome that other books on the Potato Famine profess to be, but a worth read for anyone interested in how colonialism affects and afflicts a people.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent supplement to #26 above, The Irish Potato Famine. The book is divided into 14 chapters, each filled with short paragraphs of the heart-wrenching reminiscences of people who either lived through the famine, were descended from someone who went through it, or observed some aspect of the time period. For example: "I heard me aunt say it was nothing to see a woman with six or seven children come into a house that time looking for a bit to eat, and the woman of the house would give her a noggin of milk and stirabout made of oaten meal. She would feed the children first, then herself, and on to the next house." (Kate Flood, County Longford). The book is illustrated with paintings, drawings, and photographs. Many of the paintings are courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland. There is also a bibliography.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feed the Children First is more of a supplemental text. The reader would need to know the basics of the Irish famine before diving into the pages to understand the eye witness history put before them in this book. This book is made up almost entirely of quotes and recollections by Irish who lived through the famine and their descendants passing along their stories of the homeland. The editor does include a 3 page introduction explaining the famine and it's affects. Lyons also explains why we perhaps do not recollect the Irish famine so easily when we recall human tragedies throughout history. Simply, that a picture is worth a thousand words

“The great hunger is hard to imagine. Photographs help us understand the horrors of American slavery and the Jewish Holocaust. Yet no photograph of Ireland's worst famine is known to exist.”
Many of the account in this book are actually taken from an early book, Famine Echoes published in 1995, editor Cathal Poirteir.

Check out the full review at my Blog The Non Fiction Manifesto
http://non-fic-manifesto.blogspot.com...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

First person sources about the Irish potato famine and forced evictions of entire villages that lead to the depopulation of Ireland in the mid-1800's. A bit of info about relief efforts describes heavy labor. The book explains that there were no known photographs taken of the starvation at that time, so all accounts are either written or drawings made by newspaper journalists. Very interesting resource for adults or older children doing reports.

[A Street · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chilling, touching, informative

“In the Famine years and after he never sat down to a meal without going to the door to inspect the road in the hope of finding someone who would have a share of his meal.”

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I continue to be so concerned about our children who are in need during this current Pandemic and this book was donated to the used bookstore where I work. Author Mary Lyons, whose grandfather was an Irish immigrant of millions of those who fled to American during and after the Irish Potato famine. One thing that struck me was that she wrote that there are no photographs, NONE, of that terrible time in Ireland. There are paintings, some of which she included. This is a brief book that gives brief summaries of writings from those who lived at that time or those who shared stories handed down in their families. In that time, like today, most of those in power did not try to help with food and also were stringent in their evictions when people, desperate for any kind of nourishment, could also not pay rent and were evicted from their homes. One story told of an entire village kicked out one night by soldiers. Millions of people fled, mostly to Canada and America. Pieces included describe the homes, the evictions, going to the Poorhouse, those who worked for as little as two pence a day, and if they faltered, were fired and easily replaced. It is but a glimpse of this terrible time in Irish history, but can inspire further research of those in peril today.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent little book that would open any young person’s eyes to the reality of the Irish potato famine and its lingering effects on the country and its people. I wish there had been more letters or extra context around each memory since it did read a little disjointed. But overall, this children’s book has given me a window into the adult books about the potato famine that I checked out from the library. I’d say I’m looking forward to it, but it’s such a sad subject that all I can say is how glad I am that there are people who prioritize telling the stories of the past.

[Homerun2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very moving and brief tribute to the victims of the Great Potato Famine in Ireland beginning in 1845. Photos and letters interspersed with the historical narrative.

[Danielle Wrasman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes actual memories from the Great Hunger from mostly Irish people as well as two Englishman and one Scotsman. They include real names as well and county locations of the people along with their memories. They depict the true and harsh conditions during the potato famine. Historically, this book is important for learning about the Irish Potato Famine because it includes the voices and perspectives of the people who actually experienced it. The photographs and sketches included in the book are as powerful as the words. The language used is authentic and the accounts are touching because they are raw and real. This source adds historical context about the famine through the voices and perspectives of those who actually experienced it.

[Leah Beecher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish the second half of this book, that concentrated on stories told by those who did not live through the famine, but those who remembered their grandparent's telling stories about this horrific time in Irish History. Not one first hand account of what that time was like has survived as the people affected where mostly all illiterate, very sad. I wish I could of had the time to read the second half, but being a library loan home school book, time did not permit it. The first half, which dealt with the scope of exactly when, and more importantly, why the Potato Famine occurred, and was so severe, was wonderful. {Well as wonderful as reading about the starvation of a whole people group can be, I should say}. A great teaching resource for middle or even high school students. Once you start to delve into Irish history you quickly realize that the Irish story is a complicated one. The history of the Irish Famine is no acceptation. I was having a hard time finding a book that was not written in detailed scholarly manner suitable to teach children, without having to read and outline the whole thing myself, and was thrilled to find this book. Highly recommended for home school or curious study of the Irish Potato Famine and 19th-century-Irish history/British policy in general.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great glimpse into what life was like for those who lived through the Irish Potato Famine, told through anecdotes passed down from those who lived through it. It was a wonderful, real way to learn about the time period.

[Maryc]

It's a short book apparently intended for children. I don't think it is a children's book, though.
It is a rather bleak but interesting collection of snippets of accounts from the time of the great potato famine in Ireland. There are some illustrations to accompany the text.