Compassionate Stranger

Compassionate Stranger

Author: Maureen O'Rourke Murphy

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2015-01-06

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0815652895

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The first biography of Asenath Nicholson, Compassionate Stranger recovers the largely forgotten history of an extraordinary woman. Trained as a school teacher, Nicholson was involved in the abolitionist, temperance, and diet reforms of the day before she left New York in 1844 “to personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor.” She walked alone throughout nearly every county in Ireland and reported on conditions in rural Ireland on the eve of the Great Irish Famine. She published Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger, an account of her travels in 1847. She returned to Ireland in December 1846 to do what she could to relieve famine suffering—first in Dublin and then in the winter of 1847–48 in the west of Ireland where the suffering was greatest. Nicholson’s precise, detailed diaries and correspondence reveal haunting insights into the desperation of victims of the Famine and the negligence and greed of those who added to the suffering. Her account of the Great Irish Famine, Annals of the Famine in Ireland in 1847, 1848 and 1849, is both a record of her work and an indictment of official policies toward the poor: land, employment, famine relief. In addition to telling Nicholson’s story, from her early life in Vermont and upstate New York to her better-known work in Ireland, Murphy puts Nicholson’s own writings and other historical documents in conversation. This not only contextualizes Nicholson’s life and work, but it also supplements the impersonal official records with Nicholson’s more compassionate and impassioned accounts of the Irish poor.


The Great Irish Famine

The Great Irish Famine

Author: Enda Delaney

Publisher: Gill Books

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780717160105

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The Great Irish Famine tells of the last great famine in European history. First-hand accounts and writings by four contemporary real people are used to give a complete and personal picture of the historic tragedy.


Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-famine Ireland

Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-famine Ireland

Author: Ciarán McCabe

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1786941570

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Beggars and begging were ubiquitous features of pre-Famine Irish society, yet have gone largely unexamined by historians. This book explores at length for the first time the complex cultures of mendicancy, as well as how wider societal perceptions of and responses to begging were framed by social class, gender and religion. The study breaks new ground in exploring the challenges inherent in defining and measuring begging and alms-giving in pre-Famine Ireland, as well as the disparate ways in which mendicants were perceived by contemporaries. A discussion of the evolving role of parish vestries in the life of pre-Famine communities facilitates an examination of corporate responses to beggary, while a comprehensive analysis of the mendicity society movement, which flourished throughout Ireland in the three decades following 1815, highlights the significance of charitable societies and associational culture in responding to the perceived threat of mendicancy. The instance of the mendicity societies illustrates the extent to which Irish commentators and social reformers were influenced by prevailing theories and practices in the transatlantic world regarding the management of the poor and deviant. Drawing on a wide range of sources previously unused for the study of poverty and welfare, this book makes an important contribution to modern Irish social and ecclesiastical history. An Open Access edition of this work is available on the OAPEN Library.


The Great Irish Famine: A History in Documents

The Great Irish Famine: A History in Documents

Author: Karen Sonnelitter

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2018-10-30

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1770486887

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In the fall of 1845, a mysterious blight ravaged Ireland’s potato harvest, beginning a prolonged period of starvation, suffering, and emigration that reduced the Irish population by as much as twenty-five per cent in a mere six years. The Famine profoundly impacted Ireland’s social and political history and altered its relationships with the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. This document collection provides a broad selection of historical perspectives depicting the causes, the course, and the impact of the Famine. Letters, speeches, newspaper articles, and other works are collected within, carefully described and annotated for the reader. A substantial introduction, a chronology of events, and a useful glossary are also included to aid in the interpretation of the primary texts.


The Princeton History of Modern Ireland

The Princeton History of Modern Ireland

Author: Richard Bourke

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-01-12

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0691154066

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An accessible and innovative look at Irish history by some of today's most exciting historians of Ireland This book brings together some of today's most exciting scholars of Irish history to chart the pivotal events in the history of modern Ireland while providing fresh perspectives on topics ranging from colonialism and nationalism to political violence, famine, emigration, and feminism. The Princeton History of Modern Ireland takes readers from the Tudor conquest in the sixteenth century to the contemporary boom and bust of the Celtic Tiger, exploring key political developments as well as major social and cultural movements. Contributors describe how the experiences of empire and diaspora have determined Ireland’s position in the wider world and analyze them alongside domestic changes ranging from the Irish language to the economy. They trace the literary and intellectual history of Ireland from Jonathan Swift to Seamus Heaney and look at important shifts in ideology and belief, delving into subjects such as religion, gender, and Fenianism. Presenting the latest cutting-edge scholarship by a new generation of historians of Ireland, The Princeton History of Modern Ireland features narrative chapters on Irish history followed by thematic chapters on key topics. The book highlights the global reach of the Irish experience as well as commonalities shared across Europe, and brings vividly to life an Irish past shaped by conquest, plantation, assimilation, revolution, and partition.


Ireland Before and After the Famine

Ireland Before and After the Famine

Author: Cormac Ó Gráda

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780719040351

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This edition of Cormac O'Grada's study expands upon his central arguments about the agricultural and demographic developments surrounding the Great Irish Famine. It provides new statistical information, new appendices and integrated responses to the new research and writing on the subject that has appeared since the publication of the first edition in 1987.


Famine Echoes

Famine Echoes

Author: Cathal Póirtéir

Publisher: Gill & MacMillan

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 9780717123148

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Famine Echoes gives a unique perspective on the greatest tragedy in Irish history as descendants of Famine survivors recall the community memories of the great hunger.


A History of Irish Literature and the Environment

A History of Irish Literature and the Environment

Author: Malcolm Sen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-07-28

Total Pages: 824

ISBN-13: 1108802591

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From Gaelic annals and medieval poetry to contemporary Irish literature, A History of Irish Literature and the Environment examines the connections between the Irish environment and Irish literary culture. Themes such as Ireland's island ecology, the ecological history of colonial-era plantation and deforestation, the Great Famine, cultural attitudes towards animals and towards the land, the postcolonial politics of food and energy generation, and the Covid-19 pandemic - this book shows how these factors determine not only a history of the Irish environment but also provide fresh perspectives from which to understand and analyze Irish literature. An international team of contributors provides a comprehensive analysis of Irish literature to show how the literary has always been deeply engaged with environmental questions in Ireland, a crucial new perspective in an age of climate crisis. A History of Irish Literature and the Environment reveals the socio-cultural, racial, and gendered aspects embedded in questions of the Irish environment.


Famine Echoes – Folk Memories of the Great Irish Famine

Famine Echoes – Folk Memories of the Great Irish Famine

Author: Cathal Poirteir

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 1995-09-01

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0717165841

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Famine Echoes is a groundbreaking oral account of the Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845–52, telling the stories of its victims for the first time ever in their own words and those of their descendants. 'When the potato crop failed no other food was available and the people perished by the hundreds of thousands, along the roadside, in the ditches, in the fields from hunger and cold, and what was even worse – the famine fever. The strongest men were reduced to mere skeletons and they could be met daily with the clothes hanging on them like ghosts.' The Great Irish Famine is the greatest tragedy in Irish history. Over one million people died and nearly two million emigrated as a result. Famine Echoes gives a voice to its victims, offering a unique perspective on the Great Hunger, the defining event of modern Irish history. In Famine Echoes, descendants of Famine survivors recall the community memories of the great hunger in their own words, conveying like never before the heartbreak and horrors their relatives experienced. This remarkable book, a seminal record of the oral transmission of folk memory, is a record of the last living link with the survivors of Ireland's most devastating historical event. In the 1940s, the Folklore Commission conducted interviews with thousands of elderly people around Ireland who remembered what they themselves had heard from ancestors who had survived the Famine. Cathal Póirtéir has edited a selection of these recollections, arranging the material in an order which follows the rough chronology of the Famine itself. Famine Echoes is published to coincide with the RTÉ Radio series of the same name. Famine Echoes: Table of Contents - Folk Memory and the Famine - Before the Bad Times - Abundance Abused and the Blight - Turnips, Blood, Herbs and Fish - 'No Sin and You Starving' - Mouths Stained Green - 'The Fever, God Bless Us' - The Paupers and the Poorhouse - Boilers, Stirabout and 'Yellow Male' - New Lines and 'Male Roads' - 'Soupers', 'Jumpers' and 'Cat Breacs' - The Bottomless Coffin and the Famine Pit - Landlords, Grain and Government - Agents, Grabbers and Gombeen Men - 'A Terrible Levelling of Houses' - The Coffin Ships and the Going Away - Of Curses, Kindness and Miraculous FoodAppendix I Appendix II