Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the Monument presents for the first time a visual cultural history of the 1840s Irish Famine, tracing its representation and commemoration from the 19th century up to its 150th anniversary in the 1990s and beyond. As the watershed event of 19th century Ireland, the Famine's political and social impacts profoundly shaped modern Ireland and the nations of its diaspora. Yet up until the 1990s, the memory of the Famine remained relatively muted and neglected, attracting little public attention. Thus the Famine commemorative boom of the mid-1990s was unprecedented in scale and output, with close to one hundred monuments newly constructed across Ireland, Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. Drawing on an extensive global survey of recent community and national responses to the Famine's anniversary, and by outlining why these memories matter and to whom, this book argues how the phenomenon of Famine commemoration may be understood in the context of a growing memorial culture worldwide. It offers an innovative look at a well-known migration history whilst exploring how a now-global ethnic community redefines itself through acts of public memory and representation.

Dublin did not escape the Great Famine: many of its inhabitants experienced acute poverty and illness, while the capital witnessed an influx of the rural poor seeking refuge and relief. However, Dublin has remained largely neglected in popular and scholarly narratives of the Famine. This collection of essays breaks new ground and reconsiders the Famine and its historiography by locating Dublin city and its inhabitants at the centre of its focus. This volume, containing work by established and emerging scholars, presents some of the most recent research into life in Dublin during this period of unprecedented distress. As such, it constitutes the most detailed analysis to date of the impact of the Great Famine on Dublin and its inhabitants, and is the first monograph wholly devotedto this subject. This pioneering volume offers an interdisciplinary approach and a range of perspectives from its thirteen contributors. Featuring a foreword by Cormac O Grada and including a comprehensive overview of Famine scholarship on Dublin to date, its twelve additional essays cover such diverse topics as business life and industry in the city, the impact of the Famine on Dublin's charity and welfare landscapes, suicide and trauma at this time of acute crisis, experiences of the marginalised within prisons and hospitals, and cultural representations of Famine-era Dublin. It examines both direct and indirect impacts of the Famine on the city, noting promising future areas of research, and arguing for the reinvigoration of urban histories with Famine studies. This volume of essays will appeal to students, scholars and general enthusiasts of 19th-century Irish history, especially those interested in the history of the Great Famine and of Dublin. Generously illustrated, it illuminates an overlooked but essential dimension of Irish history.

The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s left a profound impact on Irish culture, as recent ground-breaking historical and literary research has revealed. Less well documented and explored, however, is the relationship of the Famine and related experiences (hunger, migration, eviction, poverty, institutions and social memory) to visual and material cultures. This book aims to explore how the material and visual cultures of Ireland and its diaspora (including painting, engraving, photography, devotional objects, ritual, drama, film, television, and graphic novels) intersect with the multiple impacts and experiences of the Famine. In tracing the Famine's impact in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and across the diaspora over almost two centuries, it adopts transgenerational as well as transnational approaches to the subject of cultural memory. Interest in the Famine has increased rather than declined since its sesquicentenary, acquiring new relevance in the wake of Ireland's recent economic collapse and the international contemporary refugee crisis, with which frequent parallels have been drawn. This book arrives in the midst of the Decade of Centenaries, the sequence of key commemorations in Ireland and Northern Ireland that has attracted widespread international public attention. As such, its essays resonate with current developments in Irish cultural history, commemoration and memory, and advances new approaches to studies of memory and materiality.