Publisher's Synopsis
The great Irish potato famine of the late 1840s and early 1850s was a massive social catastrophe which resulted in the death of about one million people - a scale of mortality which, taking into account the scale of Ireland's population in 1845, places this disaster among the worst in modern world history. The famine was also largely responsible, in conjunction with British government politics, for one of the great international human migrations in modern history - the mass exodus of some two million people from Ireland, mostly to North America, in the years 1845-55.;This book provides an account of the famine combining narrative, analysis, historiography and scores of contemporary illustrations. Among the numerous issues with which it deals, two are central: first the vexed question of British government responsibility for mass eviction, mass death and mass emigration. Secondly, the equally vexed question of the construction of the memory of the famine in Ireland and Irish diaspora during the half century or so following the catastrophe. In its examination of British government policies and their implementation, the book explores whether there are grounds for accepting the genocide interpretation of the famine.
