[A]n in-depth study of the Great Famine in an area of County Clare, focusing on the role of particular individuals such as clergymen, landlords and newspapermen.
Books Ireland
Figures in a Famine Landscape follows nine very different individuals through Ireland's Great Famine of 1845-51. Among them are a Board of Works inspector indifferent to the suffering of the `perverse creatures' seeking employment on ill-conceived government relief schemes; a money-grubbing doctor who saw financial opportunity in starvation and disease; and a Tory newspaperman shocked by the horror unfolding around him. Most memorable are a land-agent whose gang of drunken `wreckers' tore down the homes of thousands of smallholders, and his nemesis, a country priest, tending to the hungry and disease-ravaged crowds turned out onto the roadsides by the `Exterminator General'. Yet there are few simple villains and heroes in Ciaran O Murchadha's thoughtful and moving book, but rather complex characters vividly sketched by an accomplished historian.
Breandan Mac Suibhne, Centenary University, USA
Figures in a Famine Landscape is a study of the lives of nine men, who either knew each other, or of each other. O Murchadha's extensive research provides a new understanding of their roles, or in his words a `human credibility', that does not always conform with previous views. His exploration of the lives of the less well-known men is an incredible work of historical recovery. Fittingly also, the landscape itself plays an important part in explaining the devastation that visited this county. [The book] not only adds to our understanding of the Great Famine in County Clare, it also provides a model for other micro-studies. It is the work of an accomplished historian who has mastery of his topic and his locality. It is essential famine reading.
Christine Kinealy, Ireland's Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University, USA
Ciaran O Murchadha's high reputation as a distinguished historian of the Great Irish Famine is further enhanced by this important reconstruction
based on diaries and other invaluable archival materials
of the lives of nine people in Famine-stricken Clare. One of the counties most devastated by Famine deaths and evictions, it is not surprising that at least six of the protagonists in the book
John Busteed Knox, Captain Edmond Wynne, Marcus Keane, Father Michael Meehan, Crofton Moore Vandeleur and Captain A.E. Kennedy
are known in the national literature. Exceptions are the self- aggrandising medic Cullinan, the incurious Church of Ireland careerist Murphy and the sophisticated landlord/magistrate Singleton. But here O Murchadha , in an exhaustive and enthralling piece of writing, illuminates many aspects of their attitudes and behaviours during these turbulent Famine years. His intimate knowledge of the townlands and mid- 19th century gentry and middle-class families of Co. Clare brilliantly contextualises these lives. It is a tour-de-force of good writing and research with a wonderful evocative conclusion on the Famine landscape.
William J Smyth, Emeritus Professor of Geography, University College Cork, Ireland