Tag: An Gorta Mor

Key Events in Irish History

08/08/2023.Reading time 19 minutes.

An island people the Irish may be, yet the history of Ireland has never been intolerant or inward-looking. Instead, it is a story of a people profoundly aware of the wider world – its threats, its possibilities and its advantages. In addition, while the English and British connection will always remain key to any reading […]

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Ireland 1845–52

16/07/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

A Famine Protestant School for converting Catholics in Mayo. Most benefactors gave generously and freely, a small number were Evangelical Protestant zealots. They gave soup, money and clothing only to those who gave up their faith and converted to Protestantism. These evangelical Protestants were called ‘soupers’ and their recruiting activity was called ‘souperism’. The connection […]

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The Great Hunger Memorial at Macy Park in Ardsley, New York

09/06/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Great Hunger Memorial at Macy Park in Ardsley, New York was unveiled on 26 June 2001 to commemorate the suffering of millions of Irish who died or were forced to leave lreland. The monument’s sculptor, Eamonn O’Doherty of Ireland, describes the memorial as comprising three related elements. The first represents five members of an […]

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#OTD in 1847 – The Passing of the Irish Poor Law Extension Act.

08/06/2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1847 marked a major shift in British government policy with respect to An Gorta Mór distress in Ireland. Under the new act Irish property owners and tenants would henceforth bear the full burden of fiscal responsibility for relief, which was to be administered solely by the Irish poor-law system. […]

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Ireland 1847

05/06/2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Asenath Nicholson “When I stood in the burying-ground, I saw the brown silken hair of a young girl, waving gently through a little cleft of stones, that lay loosely upon her young breast. They had not room to put her beneath the surface, but slightly, and a little green grass was pulled and spread over, […]

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#OTD in 1848 – At Grosse Île, Canada, 40 immigrant vessels wait to unload.

31/05/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

The island of Grosse Île lies 30 miles downstream of Quebec City in the St. Lawrence River. Once a quarantine station for ships bringing immigrants to the Canadas from Europe, mid-nineteenth-century outbreaks of cholera and typhus led to several thousand Irish deaths aboard ships in quarantine and on Grosse Île itself. This trauma has lived […]

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An observation by a German travel writer during the Irish Great Hunger 1845–52

26/05/2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

An observation by a German travel writer during the Irish Great Hunger 1845-52. “Only two classes of people exist here, the rich and the poor. The aristocracy have their manors in the countryside. The rest of the island is teaming with half naked, starved creatures”. From ‘The Truth Behind The Irish Famine’ :72 paintings, 472 […]

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The Potato in Ireland

23/05/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

“The potato was not native to Ireland. It had been found by Spanish conquistadors in South America in the 1500s. In 1589, Sir Walter Raleigh, a British explorer and historian known for his expeditions to the Americas, first brought the potato to Ireland and planted them at his Irish estate at Myrtle Grove, Youghal, near […]

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Ireland 1846

06/05/2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

The Duke of Cambridge “Rotten potatoes and sea-weed, or even grass, properly mixed, afforded a very wholesome and nutritious food. All knew that Irishmen could live upon anything and there was plenty grass in the field though the potato crop should fail.” ‘The Truth Behind The Irish Famine’ by Jerry Mulvihill. 72 paintings and 472 […]

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