This Great Calamity: The Great Irish Famine: The Irish Famine 1845-52

by Christime Kinealy

Overview

The Great Famine of 1845-52 was the most decisive event in the history of modern Ireland. In a country of eight million people, the Famine caused the death of approximately one million, while a similar number were forced to emigrate. The Irish population fell to just over four million by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Christine Kinealy's survey is long established as the most complete, scholarly survey of the Great Famine yet produced. First published in 1994, This Great Calamity remains an exhaustive and indefatigable look into the event that defined Ireland as we know it today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780717155552
Publisher:	Gill Books
Publication date:	05/02/2006
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	504
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Professor Christine Kinealy is a highly regarded writer and lecturer. In 1984, she earned her Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, writing on the introduction of the Poor Law in Ireland. Kinealy has written extensively about the Great Hunger and its impact, most notably in This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52, and has spoken to both the US Congress and British Parliament on the Famine. In addition to the Great Hunger, her topics include nineteenth-century Ireland, the revolutions of 1848, Daniel O'Connell, Irish-American nationalism, and memory and commemoration in Irish history. Since September 2007, Kinealy has been a tenured professor at Drew University's Caspersen Graduate School in Madison, NJ. She has written over 16 books on Irish and Irish-American history and numerous scholarly articles.
Professor Christine Kinealy is a highly regarded writer and lecturer. In 1984, she earned her Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, writing on the introduction of the Poor Law in Ireland. Kinealy has written extensively about the Great Hunger and its impact, most notably in This Great Calamity: The Irish Famine 1845-52, and has spoken to both the US Congress and British Parliament on the Famine. In addition to the Great Hunger, her topics include nineteenth-century Ireland, the revolutions of 1848, Daniel O’Connell, Irish-American nationalism, and memory and commemoration in Irish history. Since September 2007, Kinealy has been a tenured professor at Drew University’s Caspersen Graduate School in Madison, NJ. She has written over 16 books on Irish and Irish-American history and numerous scholarly articles.

Editorial Reviews

An estimated 500,000 to 1,500,000 died during the Irish famine; the peak year, 1847, is known as ``Black '47.'' Some 1,500,000 emigrated, with 2,000,000 more leaving during the subsequent 20 years. The potato was considered ``the lazy crop'' because it grew everywhere. The locution perhaps reflected the British attitude that the potato was eaten by a lazy people, a people who, according to a British economist, ``propagate their species like brutes'' and were ``too indolent to give their dead a `decent Christian burial,'" (a criticism made during the famine as Ireland's streets became strewn with the dead). Relief was finally enacted when British Prime Minister Robert Peel secretly imported Indian corn and cornmeal from the U.S. (in violation of the Corn Laws); his gesture was referred to by the Irish as ``Peel's brimstone.'' Other forms of relief were the workhouse, the Poor Laws and the Temporary Relief and Soup Kitchen Acts. There are many villains in this story, such as the absentee landlords and the coldhearted British bureaucrats. But there are also such heroes as Church of Ireland minister Richard Townsend, who publicized the misery; the local Quakers, who imported food; and even Queen Victoria, who donated a not insignificant amount of her own money to the famine relief. Kinealy, a fellow of the University of Liverpool, has written a comprehensive if dry study packed with statistics that will be of interest primarily to scholars. History Book Club alternate. (May)

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