By Brian Igoe
By Brian Igoe
So much has been written on 'The Famine' that I comment on it here with great diffidence. In my opinion it is the most studied, the most commented upon, the most reviled, and yet the most formative event in modern Irish History. The most recent work I have seen, one of the many books written on Irish History by Desmond Keenan, Ph.D, presents a most unorthodox view, contrary to otherwise current perceptions. Here I shall restrain myself to a few pages, and hopefully steer a middle course between the extremes of violent opinions I have read.
Land in Ireland in 1844 was largely held by landlords and farmed by tenants. The history of conquest and plantations made this inevitable. The great landlords, like Castlereagh and Palmerston, were generally an enlightened class, who improved their lands, built decent houses for their tenants and workers, constructed lime kilns and roads, farmed scientifically. Castlereagh, let me say in passing, has been much misunderstood, largely because of Shelley who wrote 'I met murder on the way - He had a face like Castlereagh', which is about all most people seem to know of him. Those that have heard of him. The poem was in fact written in the heat of the reaction to the so-called 1819 Peterloo massacre
That is the first paragraph of the chapter, which then goes on to look at the rundale holders, Mayo, potatoes, Work Houses, Poor Inquiry Commissioners, Kells in Co. Meath, Potato blight (Phytophthora infestans), Mexico, United States, Philadelphia and New York City, 1843, Belgian farmers, Skibbereen, County Cork, Captain Wynne, Inspecting Officer of the Board of Works, West Clare District, in a letter to Charles Trevelyan, '1848 Rebellion', King Louis-Philippe, France, the Second Republic, 'The Young Irelanders', William Smith O'Brien, John Mitchell, Thomas Meagher, Tasmania, 'The Commons' at Ballingarry in County Tipperary, Widow McCormack, National Monument 'the Famine Warhouse', Roads, Iveagh in Kerry, Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister, the Corn Laws, American maize for Ireland, Whig Government, Lord John Russell, Malthusian adjustment, Nassau William Senior, Charles Edward Trevelyan, Belmullet, typhus, dysentery, starvation, Marquis of Lansdowne, Knight of Kerry, Daniel O'Connell, evictions, Lord Brougham, Baltinglass, County Galway, 'The Great Hunger',Cecil Woodham-Smith, 'Famine 150 - Commemorative Lecture Series', America, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff, Irish Catholics, Catholic Landlords, O'Connells in Kerry, O'Dowdas and the Moores in Mayo, Epsom Derby, Marquess of Sligo, Westport.
The Book is called 'The Story of Ireland'.
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