Strokestown Park House, one of Ireland’s finest Palladian mansions, and the last in County Roscommon to remain intact, has been the focus of much public attention as the site of Ireland’s first Famine Museum, which occupies its adjoining stable wing. The museum was opened by President Robinson in May 1994 (see HI Summer 1994), and … Read more
1995 marks the 150th anniversary of the first appearance of a new and deadly strain of potato blight in Ireland; a blight that reappeared in varying degrees over the next six years. As a consequence of the resultant food shortage and the more general disruption to economic life, by 1852 at least one million Irish … Read more
Landlords and tenants in mid-Victorian Ireland W.E. Vaughan (Clarendon Press, £40) This scholarly work is the result of long, methodical research based on an impressive range of primary sources, most notably estate papers. It is delivered free from irritating jargon with the econometric analysis lightened by a varied array of anecdotal backup. Vaughan questions conventional … Read more
By ideology is meant the framework of ideas—the world-view—that moulded how individuals and groups perceived the problems that faced them. Ideological constructions shaped the interpretation of catastrophes like the potato blight. They were significant in determining what were acceptable modes and levels of response to the crisis, giving legitimacy to some and not to others. … Read more
Famine can be defined as a failure of food production or distribution, resulting in dramatically increased mortality. In Ireland between 1845 and 1849, general starvation and disease were responsible for more than 1,000,000 excess deaths, most of them attributable to fever, dysentery and smallpox. These three highly contagious diseases, which had long been endemic in … Read more