The Great Famine and its interpreters, old and new

by James S. Donnelly, Jr For many years now revisionist historians have delighted in debunking nationalist interpretations of the Irish past. In general revisionism has had a triumphal march, slaying one dragon of nationalist historiography after another. But more recently, the revisionist enterprise received a serious challenge from Brenden Bradshaw in that citadel of revisionism, … Read more

Punch and the Great Famine

by Peter Gray The widespread use of Punch cartoons in books and teaching materials on nineteenth century history is hardly surprising: these often striking images are a convenient visual aid for understanding a period in which photography was in its infancy. Yet the use of this graphic record in an unreflective manner is fraught with … Read more

The Lumper Potato and the Famine (1:1)

Cormac Ó Gráda The Lumper IndictedSeveral recent contributions to pre-famine Irish economic history have drawn attention to the apparent contrast between the abject poverty of the Irish masses and their relatively high nutritional status. Poverty, they argue, was mitigated by a potato-dominated diet which, while monotonous, was adequate in terms of calories and protein. Modern … Read more