The Great Irish Famine: Visual and Material Cultures, Edited by Marguerite Corporaal, Oona Frawley & Emily Mark-FitzGerald

The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s left a profound impact on Irish culture, as recent ground-breaking historical and literary research has revealed. Less well documented and explored, however, is the relationship of the Famine and related experiences (hunger, migration, eviction, poverty, institutions and social memory) to visual and material cultures.

This book aims to explore how the material and visual cultures of Ireland and its diaspora (including painting, engraving, photography, devotional objects, ritual, drama, film, television, and graphic novels) intersect with the multiple impacts and experiences of the Famine.    

This book arrives in the midst of the Decade of Centenaries, the sequence of key commemorations in Ireland and Northern Ireland that has attracted widespread international public attention. As such, its essays resonate with current developments in Irish cultural history, commemoration and memory, and advances new approaches to studies of memory and materiality.

“Twelve fine essays in the handsomely produced The Great Irish Famine” - History Ireland

“This book is a fascinating and very worthwhile sample of a vast, sprawling subject, that can only grow with the years.” - Irish Arts Review