Figures in a Famine Landscape

by Ciarán Ó Murchadha

Overview

Figures in a Famine Landscape is a ground-breaking study that follows a number of individuals involved in different public capacities in a particularly afflicted district of Ireland during the Great Famine. The thinking and actions of each had a major effect on the existences - and the survival - of scores of thousands of the destitute poor in Ireland at a crucial point in the country's history. Among these figures are an outspoken newspaper editor; two clergymen (one Catholic, one Protestant); two highly qualified and busy physicians; two landlords and an exterminating agent; a Board of Works official and a Poor Law inspector.

Taking an exhaustive approach to source material that includes private diaries, letters, official reports and correspondence, police files, parliamentary papers and a wealth of newspapers, in this enthralling study the author builds up an in-depth, almost microscopic picture of each individual, providing a unique and very human lens through which to view the Great Famine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472511553
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/08/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	759,365
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Ciarán Ó Murchadha is an independent scholar and leading historian of Ireland's Great Famine. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony 1845-1852 (2011).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface

Maps
Introduction

1. Hurricane from the South West: John Busteed Knox

2. Intrepid Fire-Eater:Captain Edmond Wynne

3. The Poor Man's Magistrate: John Singleton

4. The Medical Gentleman: Patrick Maxwell Cullinan

5. The Reverend Sinecurist:Henry Murphy

6. The Exterminator General: Marcus Keane of Beech Park

7. Father Michael Meehan and the Little Ark

8. The Cabin Tumbling Warrior: Crofton Moore Vandeleur

9. The Most Charitable Officer: Captain A.E. Kennedy

10. The Famine Landscape

Notes

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Figures in a Famine Landscape follows nine very different individuals through Ireland's Great Famine of 1845-51. Among them are a Board of Works inspector indifferent to the suffering of the 'perverse creatures' seeking employment on ill-conceived government relief schemes; a money-grubbing doctor who saw financial opportunity in starvation and disease; and a Tory newspaperman shocked by the horror unfolding around him. Most memorable are a land-agent whose gang of drunken 'wreckers' tore down the homes of thousands of smallholders, and his nemesis, a country priest, tending to the hungry and disease-ravaged crowds turned out onto the roadsides by the 'Exterminator General'. Yet there are few simple villains and heroes in Ciarán Ó Murchadha's thoughtful and moving book, but rather complex characters vividly sketched by an accomplished historian.
Breandán Mac Suibhne, Centenary University, USA

Figures in a Famine Landscape is a study of the lives of nine men, who either knew each other, or of each other. Ó Murchadha's extensive research provides a new understanding of their roles, or in his words a 'human credibility', that does not always conform with previous views. His exploration of the lives of the less well-known men is an incredible work of historical recovery. Fittingly also, the landscape itself plays an important part in explaining the devastation that visited this county. [The book] not only adds to our understanding of the Great Famine in County Clare, it also provides a model for other micro-studies. It is the work of an accomplished historian who has mastery of his topic and his locality. It is essential famine reading.
Christine Kinealy, Ireland's Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University, USA

[A]n in-depth study of the Great Famine in an area of County Clare, focusing on the role of particular individuals such as clergymen, landlords and newspapermen.
Books Ireland

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