Review of Famine Literature

There's been an explosion of titles since the 150th anniversary of the Irish famine; some hum-drum that follow the same worn and beaten path but others again shining a much needed light on previously under-explored areas. The best of the lot has to be the "Atlas of the Great Irish Famine", (eds. Crowley, Smith, Murphy) not just for the detailed parish-level mapping but the sheer enormity of the collaboration required with some 60 odd separate specialists providing explanatory essays on their area of interest.
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Great-Irish-Famine-Crowley/dp/0814771483/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424261071&sr=1-1&keywords=atlas%20of%20the%20great%20irish%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Provincial and local studies are a boom area in famine studies these days and that's reflected in much of the content here. As a visual guide its second to none (750pgs of maps, illustrations & primary documents) and the absence of a single authorial voice allows the multiple perspectives gathered within tell their own story. Can't recommend it highly enough - just don't drop it on your toe, it weighs a ton!

For single author general surveys published recently the best would be -

J.S. Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine
Peter Gray, The Irish Famine

-- where the narrative viewpoint is detached & neutral for the most part. Both are highly respected famine historians & taken together these two tomes would give you a good feel for what is considered the "consensus" viewpoint.

My own preference is for "personality" writers who make little effort to conceal their viewpoints yet still retain that crucial element of academic rigour. Christine Kinealy has written two solid overviews of this nature;

"A Death-dealing famine" & "The Great Irish Famine: Impact, Ideology and Rebellion" - the latter particularly has a ground-breaking chapter on the vexed question of food exports.

John Kelly too, fresh from a study of the mediaeval bubonic plague has given us what I think to be one of the most thoughtful and well-written accounts of the famine so far; The Graves are Walking which actually opens with an account of one of my ancestors being hung for Whiteboyism!

http://www.amazon.com/Graves-Are-Walking-Famine-People/dp/1250032172/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851601&sr=1-1&keywords=john%20kelly%20graves%20are%20walking?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Ciaran Ó Murchadha's The Great Famine is a solid enough account which excels in its attempt to convey community breakdown via Irish language sources (something of a lamented novelty among historians)

Enda Delaney's The Curse of Reason is a very readable survey told through the eyes of three key protagonists (John Mitchel, Archbishop John Machale, Charles Trevelyan) and an ascendency diarist, Elisabeth Smith.

While Tim Pat Coogan's The Famine Plot is a welcome leap into the famine era from Ireland's most popular historian; giving us a re-casting of the Mitchelite thesis and a fresh demonization of Trevelyan (always popular among Irish audiences who've adopted Fields of Athenry as the new national anthem).
http://www.amazon.com/Famine-Plot-Englands-Irelands-Greatest/dp/1137278838/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851666&sr=1-1&keywords=famine%20plot%20coogan?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

The best from the fiery Irish-American stable who point an unequivocal finger of blame at British policy-makers is undoubtedly Thomas Gallagher's Paddy's Lament: Prelude to Hatred which, despite its many shortcomings, contains some very powerful passages indeed along with, at times, a very skilful handling of primary sources.

Then of course, there's Cecille Woodham Smith's now classic The Great Hunger - the bestselling Irish history book of all time. Forget about all the trot about 'anti-British' bias, this is narrative history at its best for the simple reason that she gave a voice and an identity to the countless thousands who perished + made you feel what it was like to wrapped up in an epic struggle for survival. Despite this "emotive bias", it is still referenced as an authority to this day. The major flaw is that the narrative draws to a close prematurely with only cursory treatment of events after mid-1847.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Hunger-Ireland-1845-Famine/dp/B002SM33Y8/ref=sr_1_sc_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851704&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=great%20hunger%20cecille?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Outside of these general surveys there are numerous indispensable specialist studies which have made intelligible many previously under-researched areas -

Peter Gray's Famine, Land and Politics tackles the nuts and bolts of Whig ideology (Providentialism, laissez faire, Malthusianism) while tracking the debate between orthodox economists (Edinburgh Review, the Economist, Nassau Senior) and radicals like J. S. Mill and Sharman Crawford to the unfolding land crisis in Ireland via a detailed analysis of responses to land commissions from the 1830's up to and throughout the famine period. Most thorough analysis so far of the divisions within the Russell cabinet throughout the crisis.
http://www.amazon.com/Famine-Land-Politics-Peter-Gray/dp/0716526425/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851757&sr=1-4&keywords=peter%20gray%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Robert Scally, The End of Hidden Ireland: Rebellion, Famine and Emigration

I can't do better than Seamus Deane's comments here; "On the 150th anniversary of the Irish famine, no memorial could be more fitting or more moving than Robert Scally's spectacular recreation of the life and death of the community of Ballykilcline. Painstakingly researched, lucidly written, his work provides a sudden and intimate access to a world and a series of individual lives cruelly destroyed during the terrible forties of the last century". This, in addition to the work of Estyn Evans and Kerby Miller represent the most solid treatment we have on the true nature of rundale clachans and, by extension, the real grip that possession of the land had on the Irish psyche.

http://www.amazon.com/End-Hidden-Ireland-Rebellion-Emigration/dp/0195106598/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851803&sr=1-1&keywords=scally%20end%20hidden%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Robin Haines, Charles Trevelyan and the Great Irish Famine is the most spirited and tightly argued defence of the controversial civil servant we are ever likely to see in print. Masses of detail on the intricacies of the workings of the Labour Rate Act, Poor Law, Soup Kitchens and even the previously untouched Commercial Crisis of 1847 make this a powerful (and largely unmet) rejoinder to the archetypal nationalist critique.

http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Trevelyan-Great-Irish-Famine/dp/1851827552/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851846&sr=1-1&keywords=robin%20haines%20trevelyan%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Donal Kerr, A Nation of Beggars: Priests, People and Politics in Famine Ireland, 1846-1852. The standard work on the role of the Catholic Church during the famine with special emphasis on the entire behind the scenes embroglio in Rome as Palmerston attempted to sway Vatican opinion during the early heady revolutionary months of 1848. Again, indispensable.

http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Beggars-1846-1852-Clarendon-Paperbacks/dp/0198207379/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851878&sr=1-1&keywords=donal%20kerr%20nation%20beggars%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Leslie A. Williams, Daniel O' Connell, The British Press and The Irish Famine: Killing Remarks Fascinating & revealing study of the British media focusing on a wide range of journals, broadsheets etc. Illustrated London News, Punch, The Times, the Morning Chronicle, The Spectator, The Economist etc.. Usually ridiculously priced but picked up a cheap 'discard' edition. Unique & worthy study.

David P. Nally, Human Encumbrances: Political Violence and the Great Irish Famine - A social geographer who meshes post-colonial theory with Foucauldian insights on bio-politics and current research models on resource stress (Amartya Sen etc.) this works opens up a lot avenues for future research. Unlike many present-day writers on the famine the colonial context is taken as a given and explored as such in terms of prior land re-structuring & social engineering (exhaustive analysis of suppositions which lay behind Irish Poor Law). Attitudes of post Union 'colonially embedded' travel writers are also extensively explored and how they conveyed to a British reading public certain stereotypical 'dispositions' which became templates for policy formation - very 'high brow' at times but again, original and indispensable. Nally provided the article on "Colonial Context" in the Atlas - a wise choice.

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Encumbrances-Political-Violence-Famine/dp/026803608X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851910&sr=1-1&keywords=human%20encumbrances%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Christine Kinealy, This Great Calamity - her magnum opus, which took some 15 years to research. This is the most sophisticated treatment to date of the workings of the Poor Law and as such the focus is on that period from mid-47 on, when the onus of relief was transferred to the workhouse system. Has been reprinted several times, the latest containing an excellent review of famine literature and a meditation on the contentious subject of revisionism in the context of famine studies.

Christine Kinealy, Repeal and Revolution: 1848 in Ireland - as it says on the tin. The first modern study of the fluctuating effects of continental upheaval on the politics of Repeal and how the devastating progress of the famine radicalised so many Young Irelanders; the linkages are clearly drawn between government policy (or lack thereof) and the slow brewing of revolutionary discontent within Ireland culminating in ultimately failed alliances with Lamartine's revolutionary French government and 'physical force' English Chartists.
http://www.amazon.com/Repeal-revolution-Ireland-Christine-Kinealy/dp/0719065178/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851943&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=repeal%20revolution%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

Christine Kinealy, Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland - again, another groundbreaking study; the definitive account of private philanthropy, public donations & the exhaustive attempts to mobilise life-saving "goodwill" from the Choctaw Indians, the Turkish Sultan, founding of the British Relief Association and the sterling work of the Quakers. How it was mobilised and how it all unravelled.

There's also 'classic' studies you can get in e-book format free of charge -

John Mitchel, Last Conquest of Ireland (perhaps) - the most highly charged political prose from the country's most effective ever political polemicist conveying in black & white terms the ineluctable evils of foreign governance. A staple of Fenian literature for generations to come and consummately devoured by 1916 leaders such as Pearse, Griffith and Markiewicz (the latter having 'wept' on reading it). Mitchel was editor of the country's largest circulating newspaper throughout the famine (the Nation), led the radical wing of the Confederates, and was eventually charged with high treason after calling for open revolution from the pages of the United Irishman. It may be said, more than any other book or writer, has influenced the course of Irish history (perhaps).

http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Ireland-Perhaps-Classics-History/dp/1904558364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426851985&sr=1-1&keywords=last%20conquest%20mitchel%20famine?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

John O' Rourke, The Great Irish Famine of 1847 - written in the 1880's this account is still valuable as a Parnellite expression of discontent with the Union; analysis focuses on Parliamentary debate and includes many first hand testimonies from survivors.

Charles Gavan Duffy, Four Years in Ireland - like Mitchel's, an invaluable first hand account of the famine years from an actor wrapped up in the thick of it. Duffy co-founded the Nation with Thomas Davis and John Blake Dillon, led the conservative wing of the Confederates and was arrested for treason with fellow plotters of the 1848 uprising.

Asenath Nicholson, Annals of the Famine in Ireland - this is an extraordinary and very unique account of an American woman (ostensibly a bible-bashing proselytiser) who bravely set forth in the midst of all the distress in 1847 to traipse around the country, alone and with minimal funds, to offer what succour and relief she could - often bedding down in impoverished mud-cabins and participating fully in all its horrors . She had earlier written an unusually sympathetic account of the Irish peasantry in 1845 called Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger. This was likewise, a priceless anecdotal archive.

http://www.amazon.com/Annals-Famine-Ireland-Aesnath-Nicholson-ebook/dp/B00APDTPYO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426852026&sr=1-1&keywords=asenath%20nicholson%20annals?tag=upsideout-20&tag=viglink21135-20

James Fintan Lalor, Collected Writings - his letters to the Nation in early 1847 represented a sea-change in attitude, demanding as they did a reversal in policy, placing land reform before Repeal as a political objective. Lalor struck an unforgettable chord with the radical wing of the Confederates and the powerful imagery of his fiery prose completely altered the landscape of future nationalist agitation placing the ownership of Irish soil as the first and primary objective; the "God-Father" of Irish tenant right and ultimate progenitor of Gladstone's Irish land policy - all carved out of an apocalyptic vision of the famine years.

.................................................. .................................................


There's literally dozens of other well known studies; mainly academic essay compilations (Moody & Williams, Chris Morash etc..), highly technical econometric studies (O' Grada, Mokyr ), sundry travel writers, novels, poetry collections, biographies of key figures but the above is the best of the lot for my money.

Amazon.com: Famine Land and Politics (9780716526421): Peter Gray: Books