![]() ![]() To important works by Cormac Ó Gráda, Peter Gray, David Lloyd, David Nally, John Kelly, Ciarán Ó Muirchadha, James Donnelly, Breandán MacSuibhne, Christine Kinealy, Luke Gibbons, Chris Morash, Oona Frawley and Margaret Kelleher, for example, can be added the magisterial Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, edited by John Crowley, William J Smyth and Mike Murphy, which has expanded the field considerably.Īs publications proliferate it is worth asking what their new contribution to knowledge is and whether they have a way of telling the story likely to engage new readers.įirst published in 2012 as The Curse of Reason, this edition of Enda Delaney's The Great Irish Famine: A History in Four Lives does not break fresh ground in research, but it is riveting, insightful and pacy, and, far from appearing tired, it invigorates standard historical methodology. ![]() ![]() There was a dearth of publications before the 150th anniversary of the Famine, in the mid 1990s, but there has been a deluge since. Although often dismissed by historians for its emotionalism, The Great Hunger in many respects holds its own and remains a compelling read. For more than 30 years Cecil Woodham-Smith's haunting The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849, from 1962, was a lone presence in the Famine firmament. ![]()
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