The Great Famine - by Ciarán Ó Murchadha (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

[H]ighly readable...the author makes good use of the works of many travel writers who left us vivid descriptions of the poverty of ordinary Irish people.
The Times Higher Education Supplement

Building on new research from the last 15 years, Ó Murchadha has created a fine overview of the famine...Dr Ó Murchadha's book is a welcome addition to famine historiography and it demonstrates that there is still much that remains to be told about this catastrophe.
BBC History Magazine

Very readable and based on scholarly research, the book makes extensive use of the many local studies of recent years and provides harrowing eyewitness accounts of the catastrophe.
Irish Times

About the Author

Ciarán Ó Murchadha is a specialist in modern Irish history. His earlier Famine study, Sable Wings over the Land (1998), has been acclaimed as opening new ground in the study of the Great Famine.