Chapter 9 - The Great Irish Famine in Stories for Children in the Closing Decades of the Twentieth Century

Summary

This essay examines representations of the Great Irish Famine in stories for children written by British and Irish authors towards the end of the twentieth century. The texts, selected from among a large number of publications, represent the best of their kind in this writer's view.

The story of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s is one of the most problematic episodes in Irish history. It is such an emotive story that efforts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of ‘Black ‘47’ aroused passionate debate in Ireland. The Irish Times printed an angry series of letters arguing that a concert of popular music was not a suitable way to remember the deaths of a million people.

A letter from the British prime minister Tony Blair on the subject was deeply appreciated in Ireland for observations such as these: ‘that one million people should have died in what was then part of one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world is something that causes pain as we reflect on it today’ and ‘those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy’.