Subjects
Famine and Disease in Ireland
Editors: Leslie Clarkson and E Margaret Crawford
978 1 85196 791 9: 234x156mm: £450.00/$750.00
The Great Famine of 1845–9 remains the great climacteric in Irish history. It does so for two reasons. The first is that it occurred at a time when famines on a major scale had become a thing of the past in Western Europe and in part of the economically most advanced political entity in the world – the United Kingdom. The second reason is that the Great Famine has entered deeply into the psyche of the nation. Ireland without the Great Famine would be an Ireland without an emigrant history, without the Irish Diaspora, without the tales of the dispossessed, and without the myths and realities that shape the culture of the nation.
The first volume in the collection will include a general introduction and a reprint of Sir William Wilde’s, ‘Table of cosmical phenomena, epizootics, epiphitics, famines and pestilences in Ireland’, published in 1856 as part of the preface to the Census of Ireland for the year 1851 (Part V, Tables of Deaths, vol. I). Wilde’s own analysis of the table will also be included in this volume. The second volume will contain reprints of contemporary works relating to the Great Famine including writings on the medical conditions in Ireland at the time gathered from the Dublin Journal of Medical Science and similar publications. Many of these were from the pen of Sir William Wilde or were commissioned by him. Volumes 3 and 4 contain the complete text of Francis Barker and John Cheyne’s work which used the extreme shortages verging on famine experienced between 1816 and 1819 to examine similar issues to the ones that Wilde encountered. The fifth volume continues with writings relevant to earlier famines in Ireland.
The volumes will be of great interest to historians of Ireland. They will equally be relevant to students of development and famine studies.
Contents
Volume 1
Complete text:
W R W Wilde, ‘Table of cosmical phenomena, epizootics, epiphitics, famines, and pestilences in Ireland ’, Census of Ireland for the Year 1851, part v (1856)
Volume 2
Complete text:
Sir Charles Trevelyan, The Irish Crisis (1847, 1848)
Excerpted texts:
Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science: Vol. VII, No. 13, n.s. (1849); Vol. VII, No. 14, n.s. (1849); Vol. VIII, No. 15, n.s. (1849); Vol. VIII, No. 16, n.s. (1849)
Volume 3 and 4
Complete text:
Francis Barker and John Cheyne, An Account of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Fever lately epidemical in Ireland together with Communications from Physicians in the Provinces (1821)
Volume 5
Complete texts:
A B, A short View of the State of Ireland (1727); John Rutty, A Chronological History of the Weather and Seasons and of the prevailing Diseases in Dublin (1770)
Excerpted text:
William Harty, Historical Sketch of the Causes, Extent, and Mortality of contagious Fever, Endemics in 1741, and during 1817, 1818, and 1819 (1820)
Reviews
'This is a magisterial production in size and scope...the majority [of the texts] are held only in specialist libraries; hence the greater accessibility enabled by this publication, plus the bonus of their combination in a volume with relevant others, will be greatly welcomed by historians of Ireland and students of development and famine studies.'
– Brenda Collins, Economic History Review
'Leslie Clarkson and Margaret Crawford have done social and medical historians a valuable service…these five volumes bring some important material within reach of university libraries and researchers and make it possible for university teachers to introduce the documents in undergraduate and post graduate courses…researchers on the history of medical statistics, sanitary reform and the politics of medicine in Ireland will all find this a useful addition to the library shelves.'
– Greta Jones, Irish Economic and Social History Journal