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Cecil Woodham-Smith

The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849 Paperback – September 1, 1992

by Cecil Woodham-Smith (Author)

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The Irish potato famine of the 1840s, perhaps the most appalling event of the Victorian era, killed over a million people and drove as many more to emigrate to America. It may not have been the result of deliberate government policy, yet British ‘obtuseness, short-sightedness and ignorance’ – and stubborn commitment to laissez-faire ‘solutions’ – largely caused the disaster and prevented any serious efforts to relieve suffering. The continuing impact on Anglo-Irish relations was incalculable, the immediate human cost almost inconceivable. In this vivid and disturbing book Cecil Woodham-Smith provides the definitive account. ‘A moving and terrible book. It combines great literary power with great learning. It explains much in modern Ireland – and in modern America’ D.W. Brogan.

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Group
Publication date

September 1, 1992
Dimensions

5.1 x 0.93 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

014014515X
ISBN-13

978-0140145151
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Cecil Blanche Woodman-Smith was a British historian and author of popular history books on the Victorian era, including The Great Hunger, Queen Victoria, The Reason Why, and Thin Men of Hadda. She was appointed CBE in 1960, and received honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland and the University of St. Andrews. She died in 1977.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Group; Reissue edition (September 1, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 014014515X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140145151
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.93 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #376,514 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #291 in Natural Disasters (Books)
- #798 in England History
- #958 in Economic History (Books)

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Robert Steingraber

A very British take on the famine!

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2018

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this book is very well researched but has a decidedly British slant on the famine. she talks about how uneducated and lazy the Irish were and how un- industrious while falling to mention the 400 years of British laws which caused it: Catholics were forbidden to own land (was taken away and given to British landlord's and the Irish could rent it back, they could not hold office or join the military or keep records of births/ deaths.
the reason they became dependent on the potato was because what little land they rented had to be devoted to crops and other food to be sold to pay the rent.
the author talks about how little food there was for the poor (basically everyone!) but neglects to mention the billions of tons of Irish crops taken from Ireland by the British as they had done for centuries to feed England while it was being loaded onto ship all through the famine by starving workers. one shipment left in Ireland could have maintained most of the country.
she devoted the discussion of 1847 as the year the Irish tried to organize to rebel against England while leaving out why it is called "Black 47" in Ireland to this day: the hundreds of thousands who died that year of starvation and disease! She mentions the harvest was "superb" that year but not that most of it was taken out by England and there was a very small potato crop because little was planted as the starving were eating the seeds which had to be planted top ensure a crop.
while the famine years are largely viewed as being 1845 to 1852, this book seems to see 1849 as the end.
very little is mentioned about the evictions which threw hundreds of thousands of starving people into the winter weather without shelter. and also says how official said that the emigration of thousands took the best from Ireland and therefore it didn't improve while neglecting that when the engrained started, every major newspaper in England ran large banner headlines "THEY'RE LEAVING!!"
i visited the land my family rented a few months ago in western Galway and had many discussions with people who still view it as a genocide and the subject it rarely brought up as its still a shameful period which is sad since it was done TO them not BY them!

44 people found this helpful

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Renee C. Ozer

Comprehensive and Vividly Written

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2019

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This book is a comprehensive account of the Famine, as well as its causes and effects. To understand the Famine, one must go back at least to the Penal Laws. The Penal Laws were in effect from 1695 (some sections were not repealed until 1829), enacted by the English in revenge for Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which William of Orange won over the Catholic James II. Some of the provisions included barring Catholics from purchasing land, requiring that Catholic-owned land be divided among all sons upon the death of the landowner (thus breaking up estates), prohibiting observance of the Catholic faith, and prohibiting Catholics from attending schools, operating their own schools, or sending their children out of the country for education. Land tenancy was at will (even those with leases had no rights if the rent was in arrears, which it often was) and any improvement a tenant made to his land became the landlord's property without compensation to the tenant when the lease terminated. Edmund Burke recognized the Penal Code as "a machine as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."
From 1779 to 1841, the Irish population increased by 172% (other sources say the population doubled over this time), due in large part to the potato, which could be cultivated with high yields on very small allotments of poor soil in a cool, soggy climate. The Irish peasant survived on potatoes and buttermilk which, as peasant diets go, was pretty healthy. Thus, family formation began young with relatively low rates of infant mortality, fueling unsustainable population growth on the precarious base of one plant, the potato. Other cash crops were grown, but used to pay the rent, at a time when eviction meant slow starvation. Life was precarious, even with the potato: about 2.5M Irish starved for a part of each year before the potato crop could be harvested, and half of the rural Irish lived in one-room mud hovels. Infrastructure was primitive, medical resources scarce, and western Ireland operated on essentially a barter economy. The British government did little to improve harbors in the west of Ireland or to encourage agricultural reform away from the potato monoculture or reform land ownership, all recognized as dangerous even before 1845.
So when the potato blight swept through Ireland first in 1845, with a total potato crop failure in 1846 (all of Europe suffered a serious failure of crops that year, compounded by a brutal winter), and a second total failure of the potato crop in 1848, famine and disease followed on an unimaginable scale.
Britain at first took significant steps, although its effort was parsimonious given the scale of the emergency. Robert Peel pushed through repeal of the Corn Laws (tariffs on foreign grain which raised prices to protect English farmers), although his government fell as a consequence. Indian corn meal and soup were provided. Fever hospitals were built or enlarged.
However, as the Famine dragged on, the British officials seemed more and more wedded to the idea that unfettered laissez-faire capitalism would solve the problem and more inclined to blame the Irish themselves.
Charles Trevelyan, head of Treasury and the one man most responsible for Britain's response to the Famine, not to mention one of history's great villains, was a rigid official, son of a clergyman, and much more concerned with spending as little as possible on famine relief than on the suffering of the Irish. He had a fanatic's devotion to a belief (in this case, unfettered capitalism) to which he held fast in spite of the corpses piling up. Randall Routh, head of the Relief Commission for Ireland, protested to Trevelyan that 'a cry of want could not be answered with a quote from political economy," although that's exactly what Trevelyan persisted in doing, despite knowing the horrific numbers of deaths from starvation and disease (responsible for ten times the deaths of starvation). Trevelyan was also convinced that the Irish were somehow squirreling away resources that they could put to famine relief, in spite of the evidence that the Irish were impoverished as the Famine dragged on year after year, to the point where many had sold their clothing and bedding and were left in rags. Irish property was taxed heavily in the unfounded, ridiculous belief that it could pay for its own Famine relief., and when landlords were made responsible for their destitute tenants' unpaid taxes (the tenants couldn't pay their rents, either), it was a predictable result that starving tenants were then evicted and their houses destroyed. It was a horrible idea to put in charge of Irish famine relief (and later knight) a man with Trevelyan's prejudices and hostility to the Irish, a man who wrote:
The Famine "is a punishment from God for an idle, ungrateful, and rebellious country; an indolent and un-self-reliant people. The Irish are suffering from an affliction of God’s providence."
"The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the [Irish] people."
Eventually, many Irish emigrated. Some teenagers committed crimes punishable by transportation, seen as preferable to starving to death in Ireland. Not all immigrant ships were "coffin ships," but many did not carry enough fresh water or food, and they sailed without doctors. Crammed together, fever spread among the immigrants, and many died at sea or soon after disembarking. (Medical science at the time did not know that typhus and relapsing fever were transmitted by lice.) In the first five months of 1847, 300,000 Irish immigrants swamped Liverpool, with a population of 250,000. That same year, over 37,000 Irish arrived in Boston, with a population of 115,000, and 53,000 Irish arrived in New York. Many of these people were sick with fever (or would soon develop fever). At Grosse Ile, Quebec, on May 31, 1847, there were 40 immigrant ships on the St. Lawrence waiting to unload their human cargo, with 1,100 fever patients already overwhelming the hospital facilities on Grosse Ile. (Unlike ports in the U.S., Canadian ports had to accept sick Irish refugees.)
This book details many vivid accounts of the Irish during the Famine, as well as the stories of brave people who tried to help the victims and reverse the callous attitude of the British public (who generally, one suspects, agreed with Trevelyan). James Dombrain, Inspector General of the Coast Guard, was condemned as being "lavish" for releasing food to starving people. The Quakers come off well. Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, head of the British Relief Association, saved many lives. Lord Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, fought for the Irish and tried to have the government fund alternative crops and teach the Irish how to cultivate them, an idea mockingly dismissed. The unfortunately named Edward Pine Coffin advocated for keeping Irish-grown grain to feed the Irish. Doctors and priests cared for Famine victims, even though many died from fever themselves.
While Cecil Woodham-Smith was British (she refers in the book to the American Founding Fathers as "obstinate Anglo-Saxon dissenters"). she came from a distinguished Irish family. Even while acknowledging that the scale of the disaster (apparently even had all the grain grown in Ireland stayed there, it would not have fed the starving populace over the protracted Famine) and the primitive level of medical knowledge at the time would have resulted in a terrible toll when the potato failed, she condemns the later actions of the British, quoting Sydney Smith, "The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots."

9 people found this helpful

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James Porter

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017

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Excellent coverage of the famine in Ireland during the 1840's. It is very detailed so if you do not want a lot of detail about the politics of the times, this may not be for you. It has given me a greater insight into what caused the famine, and the enormous suffering that the people suffered. It made me look at the starving people in the world today with more compassion.

8 people found this helpful

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Suzy Q

This is about mans inhumanity to man.

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2019

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This is another part of history that is still very much alive for the Irish. I was there recently and actually saw some of the places that they worked laboriously for a penny a day. What the English did to them was unconscionable. Literally watched them starve to death.

2 people found this helpful

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William K. Dearth

No Headline Necessary

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2014

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Horrific is an oft overused term today but it is the perfect word to describe this extraordinary account of the Irish famine. I guarantee that it was a much more complex set of circumstances responsible than is generally known.

It explains a lot about the historic relationship of England and Ireland as well as the Irish impact on Canada and the United States.

The last 100 pages or so begins to lose some of the fervor of the 1st 350 pages, but it is a compelling and a necessary read if you wish to understand anything about the Ireland of the past 200 years.

6 people found this helpful

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Virginia Plain

The author gives a very detailed account of the famine years yet the book is easy to read (the autor's style I mean - the ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 19, 2015

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I had read this book many years ago and felt brave enough to face reading it again. The author gives a very detailed account of the famine years yet the book is easy to read (the autor's style I mean - the content itself will break your heart). I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in the history of Ireland. It is a harrowing read, especially as the book so clearly shows how the tragedy that was the Irish Famine was of so little importance to those who could - and should - have done much more to alleviate the suffering of the starving people.

6 people found this helpful

Peter Greenwood

Good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2021

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Great condition and on time well done.

Eastender

A Promising Start

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2018

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I'm ashamed to say that I know little or nothing about the Famine. I've just started reading this book but it has already grabbed me. Having read the same author's "The Reason Why" previously, I have high hopes of gaining a better knowledge of this most poignant of subjects..

Trace the Ace

Well written easy to read book about the tragedy of the potato famine

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2019

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Great book about the potato famine by a great author

ppn

good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2017

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As expected, fast delivery, would buy again - value for money.

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