The Great Irish Famine: Visual and Material Culture Marguerite Corporaal (Department of English, Radboud University (Netherlands)) 9781786941602

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. In tracing the Famine's impact in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and across the diaspora over almost two centuries, it adopts transgenerational as well as transnational approaches to the subject of cultural memory. Interest in the Famine has increased rather than declined since its sesquicentenary, acquiring new relevance in the wake of Ireland's recent economic collapse and the international contemporary refugee crisis, with which frequent parallels have been drawn. 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.

About the Author
Marguerite Corporaal is Professor of Irish Literature in Transnational Contexts at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Oona Frawley is Lecturer in English at Maynooth University, Ireland. Emily Mark-FitzGerald is a Lecturer in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin.

Reviews
'A fresh and stimulating collection.'
Professor Cormac O'Grada, University College Dublin
'This book is a fascinating and very worthwhile sample of a vast, sprawling subject, that can only grow with the years.'
Tom Dunne, Irish Arts Review
'Twelve fine essays in the handsomely produced The Great Irish Famine.'
Joe Culley, History Ireland
'Strong in its emphasis on multidisciplinarity and in its effort to bring international perspectives into discussions of Irish material culture.'
Maggie M. Williams, Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
'This innovative and handsomely produced volume (containing thirty-nine visuals) challenges the idea of a great silence befalling post-Famine generations in Ireland and its diaspora, and suggests ways in which the dimensions of Famine memory might be evidenced through multiple vernacular sources.'
William Jenkins, Irish Historical Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9781786941602
Author Marguerite Corporaal
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Liverpool University Press
Publisher Liverpool University Press