The graves are walking
Subtitle: a history of the Great Irish famine
By: John Kelly
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2012
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 397
ISBN-13: 9780571284412
Subjects: Irish; Migrations; History; Famines; Emigration and immigration; Irlandais; Histoire; Émigration et immigration; Hungersnot; Auswanderung
Other titles: History of the Great Irish Famine
Description: The Irish famine that began in 1845 was one of the nineteenth century's greatest disasters. By its end, the island's population of eight million had shrunk by a third through starvation, disease and emigration. This is a brilliant, compassionate retelling of that awful story for a new generation - the first account for the general reader for many years and a triumphant example of narrative non-fiction at its best. The immediate cause of the famine was a bacterial infection of the potato crop on which too many the Irish poor depended. What turned a natural disaster into a human disaster was the determination of senior British officials to use relief policy as an instrument of nation-building in their oldest and most recalcitrant colony. Well-meaning civil servants were eager to modernise Irish agriculture and to improve the Irish moral character, which was utterly lacking in the virtues of the new age of triumphant capitalism. The result was a relief programme more concerned with fostering change than of saving lives.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The savage shore : three Englishmen in Ireland; title: The news from Ireland; title: "The Irish can live on anything"; title: Want; title: The hanging of Bryan Serry; title: The lord of providence; title: The great and glorious cause of Ireland; title: The mandate of heaven; title: A sermon for Ireland; title: Snow; title: The queen's speech; title: Pestilence; title: Atonement; title: "I shall arise and go now"; title: Yankee doodle dandy; title: Catastrophe and its consolations.