In March 1847, during one of the worst years of the Irish Famine (1845–1852), George Bentinck, leader of the Tory opposition, trenchantly criticized the Liberal government for its mismanagement of Irish affairs and its free trade in the lives of Irish people. This condemnation of British policy did not emanate from the pen of a Young Irelander like John Mitchel, noted for his scathing attacks on the British government, but from a high-ranking member of Parliament. The verdict was damning. Despite the frequent cheers, counter cheers and outbursts of laughter that greeted the speech in the House of Commons, Bentinck laid bare the cost of the government's failure to deal effectively with the calamity that had befallen the Irish people. By the end of the Famine, approximately one million people had perished, many of them children, the subject of this edited volume. While geography, class, gender, religion, and age all affected mortality rates, the Famine was particularly devastating on the most vulnerable in Irish society, especially the impoverished young and elderly. As the 175th anniversary of the Famine approaches in 2020, it is timely that Cork University Press has published this significant volume.

The book is interdisciplinary in its approach and benefits a great deal from the inputs of disciplines like history, archaeology, education, and literature. It is also sophisticated in challenging accepted versions of the Famine story with new research. Like all good scholarly inquiry, it provides the reader with more nuanced understandings and insights into the events as they unfolded. Initial chapters by two of the book's editors, Christine Kinealy and Gerard Moran, provide the reader with an excellent foundation for understanding the mindsets of those in power and the inadequacy of the official response to the crisis as it affected the very young. The idea of giving food directly to the people was one that troubled those in power from the very beginning. Yet one of the most successful acts undertaken by the British government was the introduction of soup kitchens, which fed over three million people during the summer months of 1847. It was a gesture that kept many of the starving and destitute alive. The closure of this extensive operation at the end of the summer was particularly harrowing for those who had become dependent on it for their survival. This act was not to be extended or repeated because the government had resolved by then that the Poor Law and its workhouses (funded by local Irish taxation) would bear the brunt of Irish distress.

Gerard Moran details the horrors of the workhouse system, where many children ended up either orphaned, temporally abandoned, or deserted. The workhouse was the last resort for those who did not have the means of fleeing the country. Established to chastise the poor out of their idle ways in normal circumstances, the workhouses were unable to cope with a tragedy on the scale of the Famine. In 1851, the number of children in the workhouses was 91,000, “which represented 45% of the total inmate population” (30). Overcrowding led to the rapid spread of disease and a particularly high mortality rate amongst the very young and the very old. Jonny Geber's detailed research on the mass burials located within the walls of the Kilkenny Union workhouse reveals the extent of child mortality during the Famine. The graves contained “the skeletal remains of a minimum of 970 individuals,” including “a total of 522 children, 303 of whom were less than 5 years old at the time of death” (77). The bones and teeth provided evidence of the “disease, malnutrition and trauma” (86) suffered by these children.

For those families and children who made the transatlantic crossing and survived the conditions on board the coffin ships, their distress did not end on making landfall. Mark McGowan and his team of researchers at the University of Toronto have examined the experience of Quebec's Famine orphans and have challenged the prevailing view that they were readily embraced by the French-Canadian families who took them in. There were exceptions, but the preliminary findings reveal that many orphans, far from being welcomed into the bosom of their adopted families, ended up as little more than servants. Semi-indentured service was a more apt description of their placement with families than adoption.

One of those orphans who did find a good home is the subject of Jason King's chapter. Robert Walsh survived the Famine, but the trauma of having lost his parents and a brother in the fever sheds of Grosse Île and being separated from a younger sibling at home never left him. Unlike the majority of orphans in McGowan's study, Walsh was embraced by his adopted family and given a good education. He also remained in contact with his two other sisters who were taken in by neighboring families in the small French town of Saint-Grégoire. Ordained a Catholic priest, Walsh later returned to Ireland in search of his younger sister. It was a journey that ended in failure, and a heartbroken Walsh died soon afterwards in 1873 at the age of thirty-three. King's recounting of Walsh's story is a powerful testament to lives that were shattered by the Famine and its traumatic consequences. One's ordeal did not end if one had survived the hunger, the transatlantic crossing, or the fever sheds. In the case of Walsh, the pain and suffering caused by death and displacement lasted until his own premature passing.

One of the key strengths of this publication is the plurality of perspectives offered by its contributors. The final chapters deal with the representation of the Famine and the significance of literature, language, and education in the transmission and shaping of memory. Maureen Murphy's chapter on the Great Famine curriculum in New York in particular emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and ethical forms of remembrance when it comes to the study of the Great Famine in our schools. In making sense of Ireland's Famine, it is also critical to examine the suffering endured by the victims, especially children, of famines worldwide. The recent setting aside of the third Sunday in May annually by the Irish state as National Famine commemoration day is to be welcomed as is the ongoing publication of new research such as that found in the pages of this volume.