1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910461318303321

Autore

Ó Murchadha Ciarán

Titolo

The great famine : Ireland's agony, 1845-1852 / / Ciarán Ó Murchadha

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London, England ; ; New York, New York : , : Continuum, , 2011

©2011

ISBN

1-283-12265-0

9786613122650

1-4411-3977-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (273 p.)

Disciplina

941.5081 22

Soggetti

Famines - History

Potatoes - History

Electronic books.

Ireland History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Contents; Preface; Prologue; 1 An Emerging People: The Pre-Famine Irish; 2 A Long Farewell to the White Potatoes: The Coming of the Blight; 3 One Wide Waste of Putrefying Vegetation: The Second Failure of the Potato; 4 The Blessed Effects of Political Economy: Public Works and Soup Kitchens; 5 Emaciated Frames and Livid Countenances: From Fever Pandemic to Amended Poor Law; 6 Asylum by the Neighbouring Ditches: The Famine Clearances; 7 Leaving this Land of Plagues: The Famine Emigrations; 8 Exiled from Humanity: The Later Years of the Famine; 9 The Murdered Sleeping Silently: Aftermath

Source NotesNotes; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

Over one million people died in the Great Famine, and more than one million more emigrated on the coffin ships to America and beyond. Drawing on contemporary eyewitness accounts and diaries, the book charts the arrival of the potato blight in 1845 and the total destruction of the harvests in 1846 which brought a sense of numbing shock to the populace. F ar from meeting the relief needs of the poor, the Liberal public works programme was a first example of how relief policies



would themselves lead to mortality. Workhouses were swamped with thousands who had subsisted on public works and soup ki