Ireland's Great Famine of 1845-52 was among the most devastating food crises in modern history. A country of some eight-and-a-half-million people lost one million to hunger and disease and another million to emigration. According to land activist Michael Davitt, the starving made little or no effort to assert "the animal's right to existence," passively accepting their fate. But the poor did resist. In word and deed, they defied landlords, merchants and agents of the state: they rioted for food, opposed rent and rate collection, challenged the decisions of those controlling relief works, and scorned clergymen who attributed their suffering to the Almighty. The essays collected here examine the full range of resistance in the Great Famine, and illuminate how the crisis itself transformed popular politics. Contributors include distinguished scholars of modern Ireland and emerging historians and critics. This book is essential reading for students of modern Ireland, and the global history of collective action.

This collection of essays demonstrates in vivid detail how a range of formal and informal networks shaped the Irish experience of emigration, settlement and the construction of ethnic identity in a variety of geographical contexts since 1750. It examines topics as diverse as the associational culture of the Orange Order in the nineteenth century to the role of transatlantic political networks in developing and maintaining a sense of diaspora, all within the overarching theme of the role of networks. This volume represents a pioneering study that contributes to wider debates in the history of global migration, the first of its kind for any ethnic group, with conclusions of relevance far beyond the history of Irish migration and settlement. It is also expected that the volume will have resonance for scholars working in parallel fields, not least those studying different ethnic groups, and the editors contextualise the volume with this in mind in their introductory essay.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.

This collection of essays demonstrates in vivid detail how a range of formal and informal networks shaped the Irish experience of emigration, settlement and the construction of ethnic identity in a variety of geographical contexts since 1750. It examines topics as diverse as the associational culture of the Orange Order in the nineteenth century to the role of transatlantic political networks in developing and maintaining a sense of diaspora, all within the overarching theme of the role of networks. This volume represents a pioneering study that contributes to wider debates in the history of global migration, the first of its kind for any ethnic group, with conclusions of relevance far beyond the history of Irish migration and settlement. It is also expected that the volume will have resonance for scholars working in parallel fields, not least those studying different ethnic groups, and the editors contextualise the volume with this in mind in their introductory essay. This book was previously published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.

Ireland's Great Famine of 1845-52 was among the most devastating food crises in modern history. A country of some eight-and-a-half-million people lost one million to hunger and disease and another million to emigration. According to land activist Michael Davitt, the starving made little or no effort to assert "the animal's right to existence," passively accepting their fate. But the poor did resist. In word and deed, they defied landlords, merchants and agents of the state: they rioted for food, opposed rent and rate collection, challenged the decisions of those controlling relief works, and scorned clergymen who attributed their suffering to the Almighty. The essays collected here examine the full range of resistance in the Great Famine, and illuminate how the crisis itself transformed popular politics. Contributors include distinguished scholars of modern Ireland and emerging historians and critics. This book is essential reading for students of modern Ireland, and the global history of collective action.

How societies use the past is one of their most revealing traits. Using this insight "Ireland's Polemical Past" examines how the inhabitants of nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland plundered their pasts for polemical reasons. The ten essays explore how revolutionaries, politicians, churchmen, artists, tourists and builders (among others) used the Irish past in creating and justifying their own position in contemporary society. The result is a varied portrait of the problems and tensions in nineteenth and early twentieth-century society that these people tried to solve by resorting to the Irish past for inspiration and justification to make their world work. This is a book that will appeal to those who have an interest in the making of modern Ireland as well as those concerned with writing about the Irish past at any level.

The Great Irish Famine of 1845-52 was the defining event in the history of modern Ireland. At least one million people died, and double that number fled the country within a decade. The Great Irish Famine surveys the history of this great tragedy through the testimonies of four key contemporaries, conveying the immediacy of the unfolding disaster as never before. They are: John MacHale-the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam John Mitchel-the radical nationalist Elizabeth Smith-the Scottish-born wife of a Wicklow landlord Charles E. Trevelyan-the assistant secretary to the Treasury Each brings a unique perspective, influenced by who they were, what they witnessed, and what they stood for. It is an intimate and compelling portrayal of these hungry years. The book shows how misguided policies inspired by slavish adherence to ideology worsened the effects of a natural disaster of catastrophic proportions. Reviews: 'A significant and sophisticated addition to the historiography of the Famine' - Christopher Cusack, Times Literary Supplement 'Delaney's approach to the story is innovative ... (it will be found) in the hands of those who appreciate first-rate history...a very impressive book'- Breandan Mac Suibhne, Dublin Review of Books ' ... a genuinely original and illuminating perspective on a subject too often dealt with by means of second-hand narrative and unexamined cliches.' - Roy Foster, Professor of Irish History, Oxford University 'There are many books on this terrible event, but this is one of the most fluent and original. Although it is based on large amounts of primary research its style is accessible and engaging, and the result is a valuable study of a truly harrowing crisis'. - The Times Higher Education Supplement '... an extraordinarily important subject ... focusing on four fascinating characters' - Ryan Tubridy 'Delaney offers an insinghtful, readable overview of this overwhelming disaster ... highly recommended.' - 'Choice', America's Library Association publication 'Enda Delaney's The Great Irish Famine: A History in Four Lives does not break fresh ground in research, but it is riveting, insightful and pacy, and, far from appearing tired, it invigorates standard historical methodology.' - Niamh O'Sullivan, The Irish Times

Exploring the neglected history of Britain's largest migrant population, this new major historical study looks at the Irish in Britain after 1945. It reconstructs the histories of the lost generation who left independent Ireland in huge numbers to settle in Britain from the 1940s until the 1960s. Drawing on a wide range of previously neglected materials, Enda Delaney illustrates the complex process of negotiation and renegotiation that was involved in adapting and adjusting to life in Britain. Less visible than other newcomers, it is widely assumed that the Irish assimilated with relative ease shortly after arrival. The Irish in Post-war Britain challenges this view, and shows that the Irish often perceived themselves to be outsiders, located on the margins of this their adopted home. Many contemporaries frequently lumped all the Irish together as all being essentially the same, but Delaney argues the experiences of Britain's Irish population after the Second World War were much more diverse than previously assumed, and shaped by social class, geography and gender as well as nationality.
This book's original approach demonstrates that any understanding of a migrant group must take account of both elements of the society that they had left, as well as the social landscape of their new country. Proximity ensured that even though these people had left Ireland, home as an imagined sense of place was never far away in the minds of those who had settled in Britain.