At the Famine Pot: A Whispered History of Ireland's Great Hunger, 1845-1851

FAIN: FA-232786-16

Breandán Mac Suibhne
Centenary College (Hackettstown, NJ 07840-2184)

Preparation of a book length study of the various ways the poor experienced and responded to the Irish Famine (1845-1851).

Studies of Ireland’s Great Famine (1845–51) have been burdened by a preoccupation with what was done to and for the poor—by the state, landlords and charities. Here, innovative recent writing on the Famine (and famine generally) informs a new approach, which directs attention to what the poor did to and for each other. Hence, the focus is on a) agency—protests by the poor, and practical self-help endeavors; b) poor-on-poor violence, theft, the unequal allocation of food within families, and also cannibalism; c) accommodation, including 'souperism,' conversion to obtain food from evangelicals; and d) exploitation of the poor by people who were not themselves much better off. Central to the book are accounts of the Famine collected from survivors and their children. As such, it is a 'whispered history,' attentive to that of which the poor spoke, albeit quietly, and it bears comparison to recent work on China’s Great Famine (Zhou Xun) and reflections on ethics in extremis (Primo Levi).

Associated Products

"Disturbing Remains: A Story of Black '47" (Article)
Title: "Disturbing Remains: A Story of Black '47"
Author: Breandon Aodh Mac Suibhne
Abstract: A doctor’s notes shed light on how Famine led to ‘moral degradation’ and murder in west Cork
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/disturbing-remains-a-story-of-black-47-1.3365683
Format: Newspaper
Periodical Title: Irish Times

Subjects Lacking Words?: The Gray Zone of the Great Famine (Book)
Title: Subjects Lacking Words?: The Gray Zone of the Great Famine
Author: Breandan Mac Suibhne
Abstract: In the time of Ireland's Great Famine, poor people were, in places, so "reduced" that they treated each other with brutal callousness. Husbands abandoned wives and children. Mothers snatched food from the hands of infants. Neighbours stole each other's rations. People even killed for food. And this callousness extended to the dead. Human bodies were dumped in mass graves or left unburied to be ravaged by dogs and pigs, rats, ravens, and gulls. There were reports too of cannibalism. In later years, some people, who themselves suffered in the 1840s, were ashamed of having failed to offer human solidarity to others in distress. Yet if there were subjects lacking words—things difficult to describe or explain—those who had been to the abyss did talk of it. Survivors of other humanitarian crises have shown human beings to be remarkably resilient. And, in the case of Ireland, there is no basis for the facile and insular notion that the Great Famine was "so deeply tragic as to be too traumatic to recall".
Year: 2017
Publisher: Cork University Press/Quinnipiac University Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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