Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred

By Thomas Gallagher

Book Overview

Ireland in the mid-1800s was primarily a population of peasants, forced to live on a single, moderately nutritious crop: potatoes. Suddenly, in 1846, an unknown and uncontrollable disease turned the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156707004
• ISBN13: 9780156707008
• Release Date: May 1987
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

What I didn't learn in high school...

I am not an expert on Irish history or even particularly well-read about it, but this book caught my attention. Actually, my interest had been sparked by a song by Sinead O'Connor titled "Famine" and its claim that there "never really was one." Her point was that there was enough food for the Irish but that it was sent to England while the Irish starved. It was a good song but left me wondering if that wasn't an oversimplified account and a gross overstatement of British culpability. This book not only supports O'Connor's assertions, it details them using diaries, letters, and other documents to support its claims. I found myself wondering, why didn't anyone tell me about this before? I never heard or read anything about it when I was a student, and Social Studies was one of the two classes I was most interested in. Now, as a teacher, I look at the five world history textbooks and I see why. In the five books combined there are 19 pages about the Holocaust, 24 pages about slavery in America- and 3 paragraphs about the Irish Potato Famine. I'm not saying the books shouldn't spend significant time on the Holocaust and slavery (I'd like to see them address these two issues in greater detail), and I'm not suggesting there should be an entire chapter on the famine-but I do think schools should teach about the way the Irish Catholics were forced to send food to England, were forced to tithe the Anglican church, the British were slow to respond to the crisis and provided a flavored soup nearly devoid of nutrition, and the way the Irish were exploited to take "coffin ships" to America. Unless/until the textbooks cover this topic in more detail, let's hope more people stumble upon this book and others like it.

Should be read by ALL history students!

This book is important for all of us to read. We must learn from our past, but how do we do this if we are kept in the dark about such history? Why were we not taught this in school? It is too important and in reading, I feel I am paying my respects, empathy, and honor to all those who suffered such a tragic period in Irish history.