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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Christine Kinealy has claimed that ‘more has been written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine than was written in the whole period since 1850’. This is probably true. Anniversaries of major historical events now give rise to commemorative events ranging from scholarly conferences to the unveiling of memorial plaques, even to pop concerts. There appears to be a premium on being first in the field, and a corresponding waning of interest as attention shifts to the next anniversary. Harvard University organised its conference marking the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1988. The summer of 1847 was taken as the cutoff point for the Irish government’s official commemoration of the Famine, in order to make way for the bicentenary of 1798, despite the fact that a majority of famine victims probably died after that date. Commemorating historical events boosts book sales, and publishers appear eager to respond to popular demand. Unfortunately the interest may prove too short-lived to afford time for major research, and many of the resulting books either recycle existing material or give the appearance of being in need of further work.
1 A death-dealing famine: the great hunger in Ireland. By Kinealy, Christine. Pp viii, 192. London: Pluto Press. 1997. £40 hardback; £12.99 paperback. (p.l)Google Scholar.
2 Irish people were losing interest in the Famine by 1847. Coverage of the Famine in newspapers in County Waterford effectively ceased from June 1847: see Broderick, Eugene, ‘The Famine in Waterford as reported in the local newspapers’ in The Famine in Waterford, 1845–1850: Teacht na bprátaídubha. Edited by Cowman, Des and Brady, Donald. Pp xv, 344. Dublin: Geography Publications, in association with Waterford County Council. 1995. IR£9.95 paperback, (p. 167)Google Scholar.
3 Kinealy, death-dealing famine, pp 6, 10–13.
4 This great calamity: the Irish Famine, 1845–52. By Kinealy, Christine. Pp xxi, 450. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. 1994. IR£40 hardback; IR£17.99 paperback. (p. 359)Google Scholar.
5 Woodham-Smith, Cecil, The great hunger, 1845–9 (London, 1962).Google Scholar
6 Kinealy, This great calamity, pp 51–2.
7 A similar argument can be found in Vincent, Joan, ‘A political orchestration of the Irish Famine: County Fermanagh, May 1847’ in Silverman, Marilyn and Gulliver, P. H. (eds), Approaching the past: history and anthropology through Irish case studies (New York, 1993), pp 75–98 Google Scholar.
8 On the eve of the Famine an estimated £12m in rents was paid annually to approximately 10, 000 landlords ( Gráda, Cormac Ó, ‘Poverty, population, and agriculture, 1801–45’ in Vaughan, W. E. (ed.), A new history of Ireland, v: Ireland under the union, I:1801-70 (Oxford, 1989), p. 113 Google Scholar).
9 This dreadful visitation’: the Famine in Lurgan/Portadown. By MacAtasney, Gerard. Pp xvii, 126. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications. 1997. £6.95 paperback. (pp 34–5)Google Scholar; McCavery, Trevor, ‘The Famine in County Down’ in The Famine in Ulster. Edited by Kinealy, Christine and Parkhill, Trevor. Pp vii, 247. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation. 1997. £9.99. (pp 99–128)Google Scholar.
10 In Fearful realities: new perspectives on the Famine. Edited by Morash, Chris and Hayes, Richard. Pp 180. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 1996. IR£12.95 paperback, (p. 73)Google Scholar.
11 Trevelyan, Charles, The Irish crisis (London, 1848).Google Scholar
12 Letters from Ireland during the Famine of 1847. By Somerville, Alexander. Edited by Snell, K. D. M.. Pp 219. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 1994. IR£27.50 hardback; IR12.95 paperbackGoogle Scholar.
13 Stout, Matthew, ‘The geography and implications of post-Famine population decline in Baltyboys, County Wicklow’ in Morash, & Hayes, (eds), Fearful realities, pp 15–34 Google Scholar; The Irish journals of Elizabeth Smith, 1840–50, ed. Thomson, David and McGusty, Moyra (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar. A more recent edition of the Smith, diaries is The Wicklow world of Elizabeth Smith, 1840–1850, ed. James, Dermot and Maitiú, Séamus Ó (Dublin, 1996).Google Scholar
14 Somerville, Letters from Ireland during the Famine of 1847, pp 132–7.
15 Dr Timothy P. O’Neill in a paper to the Parnell Summer School in August 1997 pointed out that evictions were already widespread by 1846.
16 Burtchaell, Jack, ‘The demographic aspect of the Famine’ in Cowman, & Brady, (eds), The Famine in Waterford, pp 277-90Google Scholar; Duffy, Patrick, ‘The Famine in County Monaghan’ in Kinealy, & Parkhill, (eds), The Famine in Ulster, pp 186-7Google Scholar.
17 Eiríksson, Andrés and Gráda, Cormac О, Irish landlords and the Great Famine, University College Dublin, Centre for Economic Research, WP 6/13 (Dublin, 1996).Google Scholar
18 Devine, T.M., The great Highland famine: hunger, emigration and the Scottish Highlands in the nineteenth century (Edinburgh, 1988)Google Scholar. O’Rourke, Kevin, ‘Did the Great Famine matter?’ in Jn. Econ. Hist., lv (1991), pp 1–22 Google Scholar, argues that the changes in Irish rural society were caused by the long-term fall in potato output per acre owing to blight.
19 Gráda, Cormac О, ‘The Great Famine and other famines’ in idem (ed.), Famine 150 (Dublin, 1997), pp 141–2 Google Scholar.
20 Donnelly, James S., ‘The construction of the memory of the Famine in Ireland and the Irish diaspora, 1850–1900’ in Eire-Ireland, xxi, 1-2 (spring/summer 1996), p. 27 Google Scholar.
21 Solar, Peter, ‘The Great Famine was no ordinary subsistence crisis’ in Crawford, E. Margaret (ed.), Famine: the Irish experience, 900–1900 (Edinburgh, 1989), p. 123 Google Scholar; Bourke, P. M. A., ‘The Irish grain trade, 1840–50’ in I.H.S., xx, no. 76 (1976), pp 156-69Google Scholar.
22 Kinealy, A death-dealing famine, pp 60, 79–80.
23 Mahony, Robert, ‘Historicising the Famine: John Mitchel and the prophetic voice of Swift’ in Morash, & Hayes, (eds), Fearful realities, pp 131-7Google Scholar.
24 Seán Ryder, ‘Reading lessons: famine and the Nation, 1845–9’, ibid., pp 151–63.
25 Hilton, Boyd, The age of atonement: the influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1785–1865 (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Gray, Peter, ‘Ideology and the Famine’ in Portéir, Cathal (ed.), The Great Irish Famine (Cork, 1995), pp 86–103 Google Scholar; Nowlan, K. B., ‘The political background’ in Edwards, R.D. and Williams, T. D. (eds), The Great Famine (Dublin, 1956)Google Scholar; idem, The politics of repeal: a study in the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, 1841–50 (London, 1965); Kerr, Donal A., A nation of beggars’? Priests, people and politics in Famine Ireland, 1846–52 (Oxford, 1994).Google Scholar
26 Kennedy, Liam, ‘The union of Ireland and Britain, 1801–1921’ in his Colonialism, religion and nationalism in Ireland (Belfast, 1996), p. 68 Google Scholar.
27 Gráda, Cormac О, Ireland: a new economic history, 1780–1939 (Oxford, 1994), p. 208 Google Scholar.
28 MacAtasney, ‘This dreadful visitation’, pp 82–92, xv. Although Leinster unions contributed a larger share of the rate-in-aid, they did not protest openly against the tax.
29 Campbell, Flann, The dissenting voice: Protestant democracy in Ulster from plantation to partition (Belfast, 1991), pp 181, 456Google Scholar.
30 Geary, Frank, ‘The Act of Union, British-Irish trade and pre-Famine deindustrialization’ in Econ. Hist. Rev., xlviii, 1 (Feb. 1995), pp 68–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Duffy, ‘The Famine in County Monaghan’, pp 169–96.
32 Records of the Irish Famine: a guide to local archives, 1840–1855. By Lindsay, Deirdre and Fitzpatrick, David. Pp xii, 75. Dublin: Irish Famine Network. 1993. IR£4.50 paperback, (p. 21)Google Scholar.
33 Hickey, Patrick, ‘Famine, mortality and emigration: a profile of six parishes in the poor law union of Skibbereen, 1846–7’ in O’Flanagan, Patrick and Buttimer, C. G. (eds), Cork: history and society (Dublin, 1993), pp 873–918 Google Scholar; Gráda, Cormac Ó and O’Rourke, Kevin H., ‘Migration as disaster relief: lessons from the Great Irish Famine’ in European Review of Economic History, i, pt 1 (Apr. 1997), pp 3–26 Google Scholar.
34 Eyewitness: Grosse Isle, 1847. By O’Gallagher, Marianna and Dompierre, Rose Masson. Pp xxi, 432. Sainte-Foy Quebec: Carraig Books. 1995. No price givenGoogle Scholar.
35 The feminization of famine: expressions of the inexpressible? By Kelleher, Margaret. Pp xii, 258. Cork: Cork University Press. 1997. IR£40 hardback; IR£16.95 paperback, (pp 109–10)Google Scholar.
36 Morash, Chris, ‘ “Fearful realities”: an introduction’ in Morash, & Hayes, (eds), Fearful realities, p. 9 Google Scholar.
37 Famine echoes. Edited by Portéir, Cathal. Pp 301. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. 1995. IR£8.99 paperback, (pp 4–5)Google Scholar.
38 Ibid., pp 144–5, 157.
39 Gráda, Cormac Ó, An drochshaol: béaloideas agus amhráin (Dublin, 1994).Google Scholar
40 Orser, Charles E., ‘Can there be an archaeology of the Great Famine?’ in Morash, & Hayes, (eds), Fearful realities, pp 79–90 Google Scholar.
41 Ryder, ‘Reading lessons’, p. 160. Ryder cites Morash, Chris (ed.), The hungry voice: the poetry of the Irish Famine (Dublin, 1989), p. 37 Google Scholar, and Kelleher, Margaret, ‘The Irish Famine in literature’ in Portéir, (ed.), The Great Irish Famine, pp 232-17Google Scholar.
42 Gender perspectives in 19th century Ireland: public and private spheres. Edited by Kelleher, Margaret and Murphy, James H.. Pp 238. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. 1997. IR£30Google Scholar.
43 Oonagh Walsh, ‘ “A lightness of mind”: gender and insanity’, ibid., pp 164–5.
44 David Fitzpatrick, ‘Women and the Great Famine’, ibid., pp 50–69.
