Bypassing current debates on historical revisionism, this book reconsiders
the Famine of the 1840s from a variety of perspectives, theological, literary,
feminist, demographic, medical, etc., incorporating these viewpoints with more
conventional forms of cultural and political history.
This collection of essays originated at a conference on the Famine organised
by Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland, held in St Patrick's
College, Maynooth in July of 1994. Consequently, this volume would not have come
into being were in not for the continued work, guidance and assistance of the
Society.
In bringing together this range of approaches, the volume constitutes
an important contribution to the current reassessment of one of the most
traumatic events in Irish history.
Contents:
Preface
'Fearful Realities': An Introduction
Part 1: 'Realities': Responses and Implications
- The Geography and Implications of Post-Famine Population Decline in
Baltyboys, County Wicklow
- The Famine and its Aftermath in County Mayo
- 'The Later Disastrous Epidemic': Medical Relief and the Great Famine
- 'Irish Property Must Pay for Irish Poverty': British Public Opinion and
the Great Irish Famine
- Can There Be an Archaeology of the Great Famine?
Part 2: Representations
- A Stone on the Cairn: The Great Famine in Later Gaelic Manuscripts
- Literature, Memory, Atrocity
- The Female Gaze: Asenath Nicholson's Famine Narrative
- Histoicising the Famine: John Mitchel and the Prophetic Voice of Swift
- 'A Nation Perishing of Politic Economy'?
- Reading Lessons: Famine and the Nation 1845-1849
- The Famine Crisis: Theological Interpretation and Implications
Notes on Contributors
Index
