'The pestilence was so contagious that those who touched the dead or the sick were immediately infected. Many died of boils, abscesses and pustules which erupted on the legs and in the armpits...It was very rare for just one person to die in a house; usually husband, wife, children and servants went the way of death.' Thus wrote John Clyn, a Franciscan Friar in Kilkenny in 1348, the year the Black Death look hold in Ireland. Transported by rats and fleas in the trading vessels plying between Ireland, England and France, the plague appeared in Dublin and Drogheda in the summer of 1348. It spread very quickly and virulently.
By land and sea it reached south towards Waterford, Youghal, Cork and Limerick wiping out whole communities in its path. Maria Kelly goes in search of the 'Great Pestilence', whose consequences are often obscured by the intricate and tumultuous history of the time, and traces how the Irish reacted to this invisible killer.
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. The Black Death
2. The Coming of the Black Death to Ireland
3. Plague: The Human Response
4. The Black Death and the Countryside
5. The Black Death in the Towns
6. The Church and the Black Death
7. The Effects on the Government of Ireland
Aftermath
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Select Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index
Reviews:The story the author tells is gripping - David Edwards, University College Cork
The first full-length study of the Black Death in Ireland - Ireland's Own
fascinating... a fine example of how history can be made interesting for the layman as well as the scholar - Richard Roche, The Irish Times
