Susan Hood 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 … Read more
Christine Kinealy 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 … Read more
Landlords and tenants in mid-Victorian Ireland W.E. Vaughan (Clarendon Press, £40) Reviewed by Clare Murphy 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 … Read more
Peter Gray How far can the British government be held responsible for the Famine mortality of over one million in five years? What were the ideological motivations and constraints on ministers, and the effects of these on the formation of policy, particularly in the worst years of the Famine from mid-1846 to mid-1849? By ideology … 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