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The Great Famine

The Good Samaritan

By Maureen Murphy
June / July 2010

May 16, 2024 by Leave a Comment

During the worst winter of the Famine, the American reformer Asenath Hatch Nicholson began her one-woman relief operation, organizing a soup kitchen, visiting homes of the poor and distributing bread in the street. In May 1844, Asenath Nicholson left New York aboard the Brooklyn to “personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor.” She had been a schoolteacher in … [Read more...] about The Good Samaritan

The Hands that Built America

By Kara Rota
June / July 2010

May 1, 2024 by 1 Comment

Between 1845 and 1855, some 1.8 million left Ireland for Canada and the United States. Those who were lucky enough to survive the brutal journey to the New World were motivated by the hope of new possibilities, including the promise of employment. Ten thousand Micks They swung their picks To build the new canal But the choleray was stronger’n they And killed ’em all … [Read more...] about The Hands that Built America

This Holy Ground

Story by Don Mullen, all photos by Kit DeFever.
June / July 2010

April 25, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Hundreds of unmarked and forgotten mass graves scattered across the Irish countryside are a silent testimony to a human tragedy of appalling and unimaginable dimensions.In the late spring of 1985, I asked a local historian in Westport, Co. Mayo, if he knew of any burial places associated with the ‘Famine.’ He brought me to the outskirts of the town and pointed to what appeared … [Read more...] about This Holy Ground

Help from Afar

By Dr. Christine Kinealy, Contributor
June / July 2010

March 24, 2023 by Leave a Comment

The Irish Famine was the first national disaster to attract international fundraising activities. These activities cut across traditional divides of religion, nationality, class and gender. Such a response was unprecedented. The earliest fund-raising activities took place at the end of 1845. The first place to send money to Ireland was Calcutta in India. The fundraising was … [Read more...] about Help from Afar

The Spoilers of Our Land

By Dr. Christine Kinealy, Contributor
June / July 2010

March 10, 2023 by 2 Comments

How the British Government Responded to the Great Hunger In January 1847, the Nation published a poem entitled ‘The Stricken Land.’ It was a searing indictment of the policies of the British Government in the wake of the second failure of the potato crop only a few months earlier.  It was written by a young woman, Jane Elgee, who was drawn from the Protestant Ascendancy, … [Read more...] about The Spoilers of Our Land

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May 18, 1897

Oscar Wilde was released from prison on this date; he went to France, where he wrote his poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” He was born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde on October, 16 1854, to William Wilde, an Irish doctor and Jane Francesca Elgee, who wrote revolutionary poems under the pseudonym “Speranza” for The Nation. After study at Trinity College, Dublin and Oxford, Wilde moved to London and went on to become one of the best known writers and personalities of his day. At the height of his success, Wilde was arrested over an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas. He was charged with “gross indecency” and imprisoned for two years’ hard labour. Wilde never recovered from the harsh treatment of prison and died at age 46 in Paris.

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