Laurence M. Geary's The Land War in Ireland: Famine, Philanthropy and Moonlighting offers us fresh insight into elements of the Land War beyond the Land League as it goes beyond the rhetoric, mechanics, and political intrigue that dominated Land League discourse and subsequent works on it. There are three distinct themes over seven essays in this book that explore famine, various international and denominational responses, and agrarian violence under the wide-ranging umbrella of moonlighting. While they are not necessarily interlocking, the essays are all excellent, providing great insight and historical rigor.

Opening with an outstanding historiographical overview, Geary provides a compelling account of the state of the field that certainly could point to a future revitalization of research into late nineteenth-century agrarian and rural society. The memories and scars of the Great Irish Famine still lingered, and the cataclysm of the Long Depression of the 1870s, following a period of prosperity, brought the fears and anxieties of this period more readily to the surface. As Geary stresses, the 1879–82 subsistence crisis was not as destructive as the Great Famine, with philanthropists and moonlighters responding in a variety of ways. Geary has uncovered grim, visceral accounts of starvation and suffering, highlighting various medical debates and a fear of contagion. For example, the Sisters of Charity in the Achonry diocese, around Mayo/Sligo/Roscommon, were noted as carrying the remains of a fever patient for burial because local people were afraid to come into contact with the body in case they were infected. Medics questioned the reliability of official statistics, with doctors such as George Sigerson and Joseph E. Kenny giving vivid descriptions of what they had witnessed. Geary's eye for the quotation enables him to paint a vivid picture of the penury people faced, as he gives different opinions as to the causes of the fever, such as inadequate food supply or poor sanitary conditions. He is attentive to the sincerity of philanthropists who were not united in their approach, with political, ideological, and personal tensions clear and the failure of the British government to offer effective responses. Geary captures, with great empathy, the degradation and shame involved in begging and the problematic terminology used around deserving and undeserving poor. The visceral description of the condition of the countryside during this crisis is one of the great strengths of this book and shows the doggedness of Geary's research to present these necessary visions for the reader. The Catholic Church was not of one voice regarding a response to the crisis. Cardinal McCabe of Dublin called it God's will, which was at variance with the local interlocutors of priests and religious.

By weaving between the micro, macro, and transnational, Geary has captured a variety of voices, and this is best exemplified in his analysis of the church responses and attitudes. In the midst of this was the formidable and contrarian Margaret Anna Cusack, better known as the Nun of Kenmare, and her role in the Land War is finally explored in detail. Being constrained to the enclosure of the Poor Clares did not suit her temperament, as she clashed regularly with Kerry landlords. A minor quibble at this point: a brief biographical introduction to Cusack would have been useful and a consistency in addressing her throughout the text would save confusion for the reader. A postscript to her life after the Land War would have presented the reader with a more rounded picture of this utterly fascinating personality and force of nature who became the foundress of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in the United States before returning to the Anglican faith at the end of her life.

There were tensions among the various bodies fundraising for relief, and Geary debunks any conceit there might have been about a united entity in providing relief. Different agendas, political viewpoints, and denominational resistance were all part of the fabric of the relief network developing across the world. Here we learn about fundraising taking place in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, and this is a strong point of the book. Taking us across Australasia and North America, Geary examines the various dimensions of the humanitarian response to the 1879–82 subsistence crisis. Exploring the humanitarian side of Charles Stewart Parnell's American tour, Geary shows us the divisive methods of Irish politicians and the Land League during these fundraising trips. For example, Parnell and John Dillon were concerned that the Mansion House Relief Committee was controlled by people interested in preserving the landlord interest in Ireland, and various political attacks and criticisms harmed their fundraising efforts that had been more successful in Australia and New Zealand. In the early nineteenth century in rural Ireland, Captain Rock was the nocturnal leader of the Irish countryside, and by the time of the Land War, he was succeeded by Captain Moonlight as the countryside's nighttime leader. The authorities contended that Land League money would be seen to create crime in rural Ireland as its suppression saw an increase in crime. Rural Ireland was violent and dangerous with adjuncts to the Land League, in the guise of the Royal Irish Republic, based in Millstreet, County Cork, new to many Land War aficionados. Casting a healthy skepticism on the evidence of member turned informer Daniel Connell, Geary goes through the methods of violence in meticulous detail and posits that some of Connell's evidence might have been a fabrication, as he was removed to the colonies for his own safety. Such agrarian movements tended to be hidden from authority until informers told the authorities what was taking place. These chapters are a very useful case study into agrarian violence and reminding scholars of the Land War about its utter pervasiveness in the countryside.

Geary breathes new and necessary life back into this period of Irish history. He does so with empathy and the judicious use of quotations to illustrate the serious structural challenges in society, the violence, and the efforts by many in the countryside and abroad to alleviate distress and bring about a more prosperous future. He accomplishes this by going beyond the center of the Land League, its leaders, rhetoric, and meetings.