Ciarán Ó Murchadha

Figures in a Famine Landscape is a ground-breaking study that follows a number of individuals involved in different public capacities in a particularly afflicted district of Ireland during the Great Famine. The thinking and actions of each had a major effect on the existences - and the survival - of scores of thousands of the destitute poor in Ireland at a crucial point in the country's history. Among these figures are an outspoken newspaper editor; two clergymen (one Catholic, one Protestant); two highly qualified and busy physicians; two landlords and an exterminating agent; a Board of Works official and a Poor Law inspector. Taking an exhaustive approach to source material that includes private diaries, letters, official reports and correspondence, police files, parliamentary papers and a wealth of newspapers, in this enthralling study the author builds up an in-depth, almost microscopic picture of each individual, providing a unique and very human lens through which to view the Great Famine.

Figures in a Famine Landscape is a ground-breaking study that follows a number of individuals involved in different public capacities in a particularly afflicted district of Ireland during the Great Famine. The thinking and actions of each had a major effect on the existences - and the survival - of scores of thousands of the destitute poor in Ireland at a crucial point in the country's history. Among these figures are an outspoken newspaper editor; two clergymen (one Catholic, one Protestant); two highly qualified and busy physicians; two landlords and an exterminating agent; a Board of Works official and a Poor Law inspector. Taking an exhaustive approach to source material that includes private diaries, letters, official reports and correspondence, police files, parliamentary papers and a wealth of newspapers, in this enthralling study the author builds up an in-depth, almost microscopic picture of each individual, providing a unique and very human lens through which to view the Great Famine.

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.