The Great Famine is possibly the most pivotal occurrence in modern Irish history. It is now widely accepted that over a million people perished between the years 1845-1852.  At least one million and a quarter fled the country, the great majority to North America, some to Australia and a significant minority (0.3 million) to British cities.

Cork University Press will be running a special series of talks around Ireland to mark the publication of the award-winning and critically acclaimed Atlas of the Great Irish Famine.

The local bookshop will sell The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, which normally retails at €59.00, for a special once-off price of €50.00 for those attending the talk.

The event is free of charge but seats should be reserved in advance by email or telephone.

Email mailto:corkuniversitypress@ucc.ie

Telephone: 021 490 2980

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Fermoy-Grand Hotel, Ashe Quay, Fermoy Co Cork- Wednesday 10 April 2013- 8pm

Waterford-Mercy Secondary School,  Ozanam Street, Waterford - Thursday 11th April 2013-8pm

Please  order at

http://corkuniversitypress.com/Atlas_of_the_Great_Irish_Famine_/357/

For North American customers order from:

http://nyupress.org/books/book-details.aspx?bookId=11271

The Great Irish Famine is probably the most pivotal event/experience in modern Irish history. Its global reach and implications cannot be underestimated. In terms of mortality, it is now widely accepted that a million people perished between the years 1845-1852 and at least one million and a quarter fled the country, the great majority to North America, some to Australia and a significant minority (c.0.3 million) to British cities. Ireland had been afflicted by famine before the events of the 1840s; however the Great Famine is marked by both its absolute scale and its longevity. It also saw the greatest ecological, economic, psychological and social transformation in Irish society since the Cromwellian conquest and settlement two centuries earlier. It is also better remembered because it was the most recent and best documented famine. This Atlas comprising over fifty individual chapters, case studies and 200 maps will provide readers with a broad range of perspectives and relevant insights into this tragic event.

This Atlas seeks to understand and remember where and why thousands and thousands of Irish people died. Many of those who perished are buried in mass Famine pits or in fields and ditches, with little or nothing to remind us of their going. The centrality of the Famine workhouse as a place of destitution is also examined in depth. Likewise the Atlas seeks to represent and understand the conditions and experiences of the many thousands who emigrated from Ireland in those desperate years. Included are case studies of famine emigrants in cities such as Liverpool, Glasgow, New York and Toronto.

A central concern of the Atlas is to seek to understand why a famine of this scale should occur in a nineteenth-century European country, albeit a country which was subject to imperial rule. In addition, it seeks to reveal in detail the working-out and varying consequences of the Famine across the island. Apart from presenting an overall island-wide picture, Famine experiences and patterns will be presented separately for the four provinces. These provincial explorations will be accompanied by intimate case studies of conditions in particular counties, parishes and townlands across the provinces. The Atlas also seeks to situate the Great Irish Famine in the context of a number of world famines. To achieve these goals and understandings, the Atlas includes contributions from a wide range of scholars who are experts in their fields – from the arts, archaeology, geography, folklore, history, Archaeology, Irish and English languages and literatures.

List of Contributors
Preface by Mary McAleese (President of Ireland, 1997–2011)
Acknowledgements Introduction

I IRELAND BEFORE AND AFTER THE GREAT FAMINE
The story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–52:A geographical perspective
‘Mapping the people’: the growth and distribution of the population
1740–41 Famine
The potato: root of the Famine
Baunreagh, County Laois: The failure of the potato
Diet in pre-Famine Ireland

III THE WORKHOUSE
The creation of the workhouse system
Classify, confine, discipline and punish – the Roscrea Union: A microgeography of the workhouse system during the Famine
Famine and workhouse clothing
The Cork workhouse
Ulster workhouses – ideological geometry and conflict
Lurgan workhouse

IV POPULATION DECLINE AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Mortality and the Great Famine
‘Variations in vulnerability’: understanding where and why people died
Medical relief and the Great Famine
‘Report upon the recent epidemic fever in Ireland’: the evidence from County Cork
Emigration to North America in the era of the Great Famine,1845–55
The cities and towns of Ireland, 1841–51
The roles of cities and towns during the Great Famine
The impact of the Great Famine on subsistent women
The landed classes during the Great Irish Famine
‘Turned out . . . thrown down’: evictions in Bunkilla and Monavanshare, Donoughmore,County Cork

CONNACHT
Introduction: The province of Connacht and the Great Famine
Clifden Union, Connemara, County Galway
In the shadow of Sliabh an Iarainn
Mohill workhouse Union
The Famine in County Roscommon
Ballykilcline, County Roscommon

LEINSTER
Introduction: The province of Leinster and the Great Famine
County Meath during the Famine
Burying the Famine dead: Kilkenny Union workhouse
King’s County during the Great Famine:‘poverty and plenty’
The Smith estate of Baltyboys, County Wicklow

VI THE SCATTERING
Exodus from Ireland – patterns of emigration
Liverpool and the Great Irish Famine
The Fidelia
Irish Famine refugees and the emergence of Glasgow Celtic Football club
Archaeological evidence of Irish migration? Rickets in the Irish community of London’s East End,1843–54
Black ’47 and Toronto, Canada
Gross Île, Quebec
The Famine and New York City
New York Famine memorial
The Great Famine and Australia
‘Week after week, the eviction and the exodus’: Ireland and Moreton Bay, 1848–52

VII LEGACY
Land reform in post-Famine Ireland
Legacy and loss: the Great Silence and its aftermath
Famine and the Irish diaspora

VIII REMEMBERING THE FAMINE
The Folklore of the Famine: Seanchas an Drochshaoil
Na Prátaí Dubha
Tadhg Ó Murchú (1842–1928)
Sites of memory
Famine memorial sites in County Cork 'Remembering, not forgetting’,a commemorative composition
The Big House and Famine memory:
Strokestown Park House
A Great Famine Discovery of Viking Gold: Vesnoy,Strokestown, County Roscommon
Mapping the Great Famine in Irish art
Sculpting Famine
Literature and the Famine

IX HUNGER AND FAMINE TODAY
The Great Famine and today’s famines
Food security, food poverty, food sovereignty: moving beyond labels to a world of change?
Images of famine: Whose hunger?
Fighting world hunger in the twenty-first century
Endnotes
Index of Places

Editors: John Crowley, William J. Smyth, Mike Murphy

David Butler is the Academic Director of the Irish Ancestry Research Centre in the University of Limerick.

Neil Buttimer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern Irish, University College Cork.

Julian Campbell lectures in the Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork.

Lorraine Chadwick is a graduate of the Department of Geography, University College Cork.

Peter Connell completed a PhD on the impact of the Famine in County Meath and works in Information Services, Trinity College Dublin.

David Dickson is Professor in the Department of Modern History, Trinity College Dublin.

Luke Dodd is Director of the Newsroom at The Guardian Newspaper and former curator of the Strokestown Famine Museum.

Terence Dooley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, NUI Maynooth and Co-ordinator of the Centre for the Study of Irish Historic Houses and Estates.

Patrick Duffy is Professor in the Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth.

John Feehan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin.

Connell Foley is Director of Strategy, Advocacy and Learning, Concern Worldwide.

Kieran Foley is a teacher and historian based in Malahide, Dublin who completed a PhD on the impact of the Famine in Co. Kerry.

Marita Foster is a historian and acting Head of the International Education Office, University College Cork.

Laurence Geary is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University College Cork.

Jonny Geber is a graduate of Stockholm University and Gotland University and is currently undertaking a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast.

Peter Gray is Professor of Modern History and Head of School of History and Anthropology, Queens University Belfast.

Brian Gurrin is a post-doctoral fellow at NUI Maynooth.

Jennifer Harrison is a Lecturer in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, The University of Queensland, Australia.

Helen E. Hatton is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Toronto, Canada.

Annette Hennessy is a sculptor who has worked internationally and on public sculpture throughout Ireland.

Patrick Hickey is a historian based in Timoleague, Co. Cork and author of The Famine in West Cork: the Mizen Peninsula Land and People 1800-1852.

Kevin Hourihan, Senior Lecturer (retired) in the Department of Geography, University College Cork.

Marion Ingoldsby is a composer and teacher.

Mary Kelly is a Lecturer, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth.

Thomas Keneally won the Booker Prize in 1982 for Schindler’s Ark. He also wrote The Great Shame: A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New.

Liam Kennedy is Professor of Economic & Social History at Queens University Belfast.

Christine Kinealy is Professor of History at Caspersen Graduate School, Drew University, New Jersey.

Joe Lee is Professor and Director of Glucksman Ireland House, New York University.

Gerard Mac Atasney is a historian who has published widely on the Famine.

Piaras Mac Éinrí is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University College Cork.

Jim MacLaughlin, Senior Lecturer (retired), Department of Geography, University College Cork.

Catherine Marshall is a former collections curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).

Mark McGowan is Professor and Principal, Department of History, St. George’s Campus, University of Toronto.

Dympna McLoughlin is a Lecturer, Department of History, NUI Maynooth.

Kerby Miller is Curators’ Professor at the Department of History, University of Missouri.

Chris Morash is Professor and Head of the Department of English at NUI Maynooth.

David Nally is a Lecturer in Geography at Cambridge University.

Grace Neville is Vice-President for Teaching and Learning and Professor in the Department of French, University College Cork.

Máiréad Nic Craith is Professor of European Culture and Society, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures University of Ulster (Magee).

William F. Nolan is Associate Professor at the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin.

Patrick Nugent is a Lecturer in Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool.

John O'Connell is a genealogist and local historian living in Donoughmore, County Cork.

Cormac Ó Gráda is Professor in the School of Economics, University College Dublin.

Hilary O’Kelly is a Lecturer in the History of Design at The National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

Michelle O’Mahony is a graduate of the Department of History University College Cork and author of Famine in Cork City. 

Charles E. Orser, curator of historical archaeology, New York State Museum.

Cathal Póirtéir is a broadcaster and producer with RTE and has published widely on the folklore of the Famine.

Natasha Powers is Head of Osteology at the Museum of London.

John Reid is a former cabinet minister in the British government and former chairman of Glasgow Celtic FC.         

Ciarán Reilly is a research fellow attached to the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates.

Colin Sage is a Senior Lecturer in Geography at University College Cork.

Regina Sexton is a food historian, food writer, broadcaster and cook.

John Sheehan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork.

Anelise H. Shrout is completing a PhD on the Famine and New York at the Department of History, University of New York.

Matthew Stout is a Lecturer in the Department of History, St Patrick's College, Drumcondra.

Liz Thomas is an archaeologist at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Carmen Tunney works in the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool.

Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill is a native of Clifden and the author of five books and numerous articles on the history of West County Galway.

Cork University Press has established an enviably high reputation in producing atlases. The latest – of the Great Irish Famine – maintains and enhances this record. Not only are the maps themselves innovative and attractive to look at, but they communicate clearly an abundance of information, often unfamiliar. The cartography is accompanied by a wealth of other images, sometimes strikingly beautiful, and also hauntingly distressful. In addition, a starry cast of experts provides incisive and illuminating commentary on all aspects of the disaster.  All in all, this is likely to prove one of the most original and enduring studies of the grievous famine- Toby Barnard, Oxford University

This monumental work is far more than an Atlas, it is the definitive summary of all aspects of the Great Irish Famine. The many maps are accompanied by accessible yet scientifically sound texts. The demographics and  geography are surveyed with unequaled detail and care, yet the historical background, the politics, and the economics of the Famine are discussed at an equally high scholarly level. Lavishly illustrated and scholarly immaculate, written by the best scholars in the field, this volume belongs in the library of everyone interested in the greatest natural disaster of the modern age - Joel Mokyr , Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics, Northwestern University, USA

This Atlas offers a powerful, unflinching and coherent understanding of the Irish Famine as the defining event in Irish history. It balances sweeping survey with minute details, while always attending to the surprising diversity of this small island in the mid nineteenth century. Its unparalleled assemblage of new maps, old images and extensive documentation offers a brilliant teaching aid for the history of Ireland and of the Irish diaspora. Firmly rooted in recent research, saturated in meticulous scholarship, and interdisciplinary in the best sense, it is unafraid to draw the necessary trenchant conclusions. Its broad synthesis offers the best overview we have ever had of this traumatic and defining episode - Professor Kevin Whelan, Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin.

 The tome that is the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine arrived in my letterbox this morning, the postman groaning under its weight.   It is a truly spectacular volume, one of the best-produced Irish books for many years.  In terms of lay-out, the use of visuals, and the arrangement of materials, I can think of few Irish books to match it, the large format exploited to the full, literalising the weight of the matter. Regardless of the content, this book is an event.  As a publisher, UCC should be justly proud of it - Prof. Chris Morash, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

The only word I can think of in immediate response to the Famine Atlas is 'Magnificent'.  It's a wonderful production excelling, if that's possible, the already high standards of CUP - Patrick Duffy, NUI Maynooth

Many thanks for sending me a copy of the ATLAS OF THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE, which I received today.  It's a gorgeous production, and I'm very pleased and proud to have been a part of it. Thanks again--and, Congratulations on a job extremely well done!- Kerby Miller, University of Missouri

For review copies, interview or extract requests please contact Gráinne Killeen PR
tel: 00 353 87 9191 557
Email: grainne@killeencommunications.com

Writing about and representing the Great Irish Famine, themost tragic event in Irish history has not been straightforward. For many years the event was cloaked in silence, its memory for the most part buried or neglected. The deaths of over one million people and the emigration of a further million had a profound and devastating impact on Irish society. It is only in recent decades that our understanding of what took place has deepened and we have come to know more intimately the suffering and hurt of those who perished – the ‘true witnesses’ of this central event in the island’s history.

Remembering and understanding has been central to the work of the contributors to thismonumental publication. This Atlas is original and unique in its telling of the story. The mapping of the Famine at parish level provides us with new ways of seeing the Famine which challenge traditional perspectives. By revealing complex local and regional dimensions, it naturally follows that they beg questions about the social conditions which prevailed in different localities and the diverse responses in terms of relief. Visually they are very striking and subvert the notion of a monolithic Famine landscape so clearly evinced in early popular writings. The provincial case studies included here lend weight to the argument that there was indeed a plurality of famines as well as a plurality of responses. Later maps in turn detail the journeys of those who fled the country, in oft-times harrowing conditions, to foreign lands and cities where new lives and new identities had to be forged.

The editors have not relied on maps alone, however, in their rendering of this event. Behind the maps are the stories of individuals and communities and how they fared during this traumatic period. Turning the pages one sees the names of individuals and families on relief lists and further on those whose homes were levelled and, on taking to the road, died in the worst of circumstances. Such human signatures are vital to our understanding of this event. Indeed as if to bring it home, among them is an application for food for a starving family, from a likely relative of my own, a young widow. The mindset of those in power and those who directed relief policy is also revealed in the letters written by key figures such as the Liberal Prime Minister Lord John Russell and Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Sir Charles Trevelyan. They provide powerful testimony in their own right to the political, economic and religious thinking of the day that shaped government policy but which ultimately failed the Irish people. As the Famine crisis worsened across the country, the overriding concerns of government were to reduce the burden of relief on the Treasury and to bring about reforms in the Irish agricultural system. As we now know, the result was a humanitarian disaster.

This Atlas commemorates not only those who perished but those whose compassion helped many to survive.While the Famine may have heightened social divisions in some localities with better-off farmers, for example, turning their back on their less well off neighbours,nevertheless there are countless examples of men and women (clergy, doctors, local officials and community leaders) who worked tirelessly to feed the hungry and treat the sick. In this respect one can only admire the fortitude of the Quaker community whose courageous efforts meant that many people would survive the worst of the Famine. Again, the archival record underlines the thoroughness of their approach.Acompleted questionnaire detailing famine conditions in the barony of Glenahiry in County Waterford reveals their eagerness to elicit information and their determination to send aid to where it was needed most. Surely the willingness of Irish people today to give of themselves so freely in fighting hunger worldwide owes something to the memory of those selfless individuals who helped the stricken people in their time of need. It is also well to remember that Famines can take place not because of a lack of food but, as Amartya Sen explains, as an ‘entitlement failure’ – a person’s inability to access the available food within the state’s jurisdiction. In this context it is interesting to note the report on Puck Fair in Killorglin carried in the Tralee Chronicle, 14 August 1847, which describes a crowded market with an ‘immense quantity of stock’ – many for export. Even in ‘Black 47’, such markets were thriving, as people were starving.

Very few books have been written on the greatest catastrophe in Irish history which encompasses both the diversity of perspectives and the parish-by-parish detail found in this book. This magnificent compilation – a series of essays by over fifty distinguished scholars,combined with the detailed maps, photographs, archival material, paintings and other artistic insights – redresses an imbalance in the literature on the Great Irish Famine. The inclusion of photographs of Famine landscapes, for example, including mass graves and workhouse sites, add to the poignancy of the story being told. Such images invite the reader to contemplate the real human suffering which lies at the heart of the Famine. Remembering is important but it is equally important to remember in ways which challenge our understandings of such tragic events. By its imaginative and accessible approach, the editors have produced a book which will be widely valued and appreciated by both the scholarly community and the general reader.

MARY MCALEESE
(PRESIDENT OF IRELAND 1997–2011)

MacDonald depicts a less crowded scene, and again utilises the conventions of Victorian narrative painting to appeal to the sympathy of the English viewer.  The well-dressed landlord, or his agent, demands the key to the poor man’s little cabin with its disintegrating thatched roof, while two armed soldiers (or possibly members of the military-style constabulary, whose barracks had become a feature of the Irish rural landscape during the previous two decades) look on. The tenant, a heroic figure, holds onto his spade, pointing to his uncertain future as a spailpin or labourer.  In the left foreground, the family’s few possessions have been thrown out, some of them broken in the process.  Beside the cabin are the distinctive lazy-beds in which the Irish poor grew their potatoes – a rare example of tillage, albeit of a primitive kind, being depicted in Irish art in this period. While the tenant offers no resistance, the man on the right of the picture with his hand inside his waistcoat, possibly feeling for a weapon, seems to gesture towards the agrarian violence with which such distressing scenes were often met.

© Whipping the Herring: Survival and Celebration in Nineteenth-Century Irish Art, Gandon Editions

A major publishing project such as the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine  requires considerable resources. Cork University Press extends its gratitude to our financial sponsors who have made this book possible.

• FEXCO
• Mr William (Bill) M. Murphy
  Douglas Management & Realty, Inc.
• Mr Joseph M. Cassin
  Cassin & Cassin LLP
• Heritage Council of Ireland
• Ordnance Survey
• Geography Department, University College Cork 
• College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork
• Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht