A Death-Dealing Famine The Great Hunger in Ireland

by Kinealy, Christine

• ISBN13: 9780745310749
• ISBN10: 0745310745
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-03-20
• Publisher: PLUTO PRESS

Summary

Famine expert Christine Kinealy examines the influences that shaped the responses to the Famine of 1845-52. The key factors she analyses include political ideologies; providentialist ideas that read the potato blight as a judgement from God; opportunistic interpretations; the role of civil servants, Irish landlords and merchants.

Author Biography

Dr Christine Kinealy teaches history at the University of Central Lancashire and has also taught at the University of Liverpool and universities in Dublin and Belfast. She is the author of The Great Calamity: The Irish Famine, 1845–52 (Roberts Reinhart, 1994) and has written for History Ireland and the New York-based Irish Echo.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
1 The Great Hunger in Ireland. Ideologies and Interpretations	1	(15)
2 `A State of Degradation'. Pre-Famine Ireland	16	(25)
The Political Background: Dispossession and Disunity	17	(7)
Union and Discord	24	(5)
The Pre-Famine Economy	29	(7)
Poverty, Population and Poor Relief	36	(5)
3 Rotten Potatoes and the Politics of Relief	41	(25)
Pre-Famine Famines	42	(6)
Potatoes and the Coming of Blight	48	(5)
Peel and the Politics of Repeal	53	(6)
The Provision of Relief	59	(7)
4 Putrefying Vegetation and `Queen's Pay'	66	(26)
Party Politics and the Triumph of Ideology	67	(4)
The `Male' Roads and `Queen's Pay'	71	(6)
Food Supplies and Food Exports	77	(6)
Food Shortages and Famine Elsewhere	83	(9)
5 `Black'47'	92	(26)
The Crisis of Starvation	92	(6)
Soup or Starvation?	98	(8)
Private Philanthropy	106	(12)
6 `The Expatriation of a People'	118	(17)
Property Supporting Poverty	119	(6)
The Impact of Famine	125	(5)
The Press and British Public Opinion	130	(5)
7 `A Policy of Extermination'	135	(16)
The Prodigal Son	136	(5)
`An Army of Beggars'. The Rate-in-Aid Issue	141	(5)
The Flight from Ireland: Emigration	146	(2)
The Cost of the Famine	148	(3)
Epilogue `The Famine Killed Everything'	151	(5)
Note on Further Reading	156	(2)
Notes	158	(23)
Index	181