<p>Physical description; II, 290p : 99ill.(28col.).10figs.M. ; 26 cm. Subjects; Culture - Ireland. Arts, Irish. Photography - Ireland.</p>

Field Day Review, 1, 2005

Literature & Fiction

Breandán Mac Suibhne

Seamus, Deane

History & Criticism

Field Day Publications

In the time of Ireland's Great Famine, poor people were, in places, so "reduced" that they treated each other with brutal callousness. Husbands abandoned wives and children. Mothers snatched food from the hands of infants. Neighbours stole each other's rations. People even killed for food. And this callousness extended to the dead. Human bodies were dumped in mass graves or left unburied to be ravaged by dogs and pigs, rats, ravens, and gulls. There were reports too of cannibalism. In later years, some people, who themselves suffered in the 1840s, were ashamed of having failed to offer human solidarity to others in distress. Yet if there were subjects lacking words—things difficult to describe or explain—those who had been to the abyss did talk of it. Survivors of other humanitarian crises have shown human beings to be remarkably resilient. And, in the case of Ireland, there is no basis for the facile and insular notion that the Great Famine was "so deeply tragic as to be too traumatic to recall".

Subjects Lacking Words?: The Gray Zone of the Great Famine (Famine Folio)

History

Europe

Cork University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Breandán Mac Suibhne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Breandán Mac Suibhne