Dublin and the Great Irish Famine

Author Biography

Emily Mark-FitzGerald is Associate Professor in Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin, where she specialises in the visual culture of the Irish famine, poverty and migration. Her previous books include Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the Monument (2013) and the co-edited The Great Irish Famine: Visual and Material Culture (2018). Ciarán McCabe is a historian of poverty and welfare in nineteenth-century Ireland and Britain, and author of Begging, Charity and Religion in Pre-Famine Ireland (2018). He teaches in the School of History and Geography, Dublin City University. Ciarán Reilly is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth century Irish history at the Arts & Humanities Institute, Maynooth University. He is author of The Irish Land Agent: The Case of King’s County, 1830–1860 and Strokestown and the Great Famine.

Description

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 an introductory overview by Cormac Ó Gráda 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.