The Great Irish Famine
4 Apr, 2019
940 History of Europe
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland. It is estimated that one million people died from disease or starvation after the blight and another two million left the country within the decade. There had been famines before, but not on this scale. What was it about the laws, attitudes and responses that made this one so devastating?
→ Listen on BBC Sounds website
Guests
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Cormac O'Grada No other episodes
Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics at University College Dublin -
Niamh Gallagher No other episodes
University Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at the University of Cambridge -
Enda Delaney No other episodes
Professor of Modern History and School Director of Research at the University of Edinburgh
Reading list
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Atlas of the Great Irish Famine
John Crowley, Michael Murphy and William J. Smith (eds.) (Cork University Press, 2012) Google Books → -
The Great Irish Famine: A History in Four Lives
Enda Delaney (Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2014) Google Books → -
Ireland's Great Famine and Popular Politics
Enda Delaney and Breandan Mac Suibhne (eds.) (Routledge, 2016) Google Books → -
The Great Irish Potato Famine
James S. Donnelly (Sutton Publishing, 2002) Google Books → -
The Great Famine: Essays in Irish History
R. D. Edwards and T. D. Williams (eds.) (Lilliput Press, 1995) Google Books → -
The Irish Famine
Peter Gray (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1995) Google Books → -
The Cambridge History of Ireland, Volume 3, 1730-1880. Vol. 3
James Kelly (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2018) Google Books → -
The Great Irish Famine: Impact, Ideology and Rebellion
Christine Kinealy (Palgrave, 2001) Google Books → -
Subjects Lacking Words? The Gray Zone of the Great Famine
Breandan Mac Suibhne (Cork University Press, 2017) Google Books → -
Ireland's Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Cormac O Grada (University College Dublin, 2006) -
Famine: A Short History
Cormac O Grada (Princeton University Press, 2010) -
The Great Famine: Ireland's Agony 1845-1852
Ciaran O Murchadha (Continuum, 2012) Google Books → -
The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849
Cecil Woodham-Smith (Penguin, 1991) Google Books →
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Programme ID: m0003rj1
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003rj1
Auto-category: 941.5082 (History of Ireland, 19th century)
Hello (First sentence from this episode)
Hello. In 1845, the potato crop failed in Ireland, struck by a blight which came from North America.