The Great Hunger: Ireland: 1845-1849

very used condition, spine and cover worn and many pages underlined excessively with blue ink. this should have been a 50 cent bargain bin book…absolute junk

I was a used book, but appeared to never have been read. The dust cover was even in good shape.

This is by far the most complete and best written account of the Great Hunger in Ireland. Woodham-Smith sets forth in heart-wrenching detail the causes, experiences and effects of the great potato blight in the mid 1800s in Ireland. Unflinching in its indictment of the laissez-faire response of British authorities such as Trevelyan and Russell, this thorough history sheds a blinding light on a dark period in this history of this great and troubled nation. If you read only one account of the Hunger, make this the one.

The BritIrish history establishment has never forgiven Woodham-Smith this watershed book that exposes their cover-up. It took only her few mentions of the British regiments' at-gunpoint removal of Ireland's livestock and grains to end the "perfect" status of history's only "perfect" genocide. By even touching upon the Food Removal this book shatters the "Potato Famine" Big Lie that had ruled for the previous 110 years. Note where the author inserts two math fudges to produce her falsely-low death toll. (After reporting the 1841 official partial recount and how it proved that the 1841 census had undercounted by one-third, the author, nevertheless, used the figure that she knew to be false to lower the death toll [to get published, I am told]). Her fudges yield a death toll of "some 2.5 millions." Once her fudges are removed, her methodology and official figures produce a death toll of 5.16 millions. She also omitted the readily-available identities of each of the 75 Food Removal regiments and the warships convoying the lines of grain ships departing for England. She subtly blows the Irish history establishment's cover-up by complimenting their generosity in blaming the genocide on the potato crop failures and the victims' "fecklessness." This book remains, by far, the most truthful Irish "famine" book ever published. A courageous author! An effective opponent of genocide! A Must Read!