Beyond Benbradagh: The Story of Middling Farm Families in Rural Co. Derry, 1790-1920

FAIN: FT-54681-06

Mary Frances Wack
Washington State University (Pullman, WA 99164-0001)

My book in progress, BEYOND BENDRADAGH, traces the story of two middling farm families in rural Northern Ireland as they encountered and responded to the forces of modernization sweeping the Irish countryside. It uses a unique combination of public and private records to develop a socially-focused narrative history and to reconstruct the hidden "mentalities of the townlands." Support is sought for completing several chapters on the Famine period 1840-1860, when these families prospered as never before or since in Ireland, while their compatriots died or emigrated in droves.