Nicky Creane

Without question, one of the most important collective depictions ever produced on any segment of irish history. This book should be on the bookshelf in every household in Ireland and every Irish man, woman and teenager should make it their interest to read it and to then share your knowledge when asked with those that don't know the actual truth of what really happened. Calling it a famine, is disrespectful and a kick in the teeth to all those that have passed as it was an unmerciful orchestrated genocide by the Colonial British. To call it a potatoe famine is even worse and I believe the Irish Govt should make a proactive effort to speak up and try eradicate this terminology used in textbooks worldwide. The potatoe failed in Europe (I believe Germany was the world's largest producer at that time) yet Ireland was the one nation that was cataclysmically hit. Ireland historically has some of the most fertile land in the world. To call it a potatoe famine insinuates the irish were suicidally stupid for becoming so reliant and continuing to be reliant on a single crop while they and their people are starving to death. This naturally makes the uneducated person wonder why they couldn't grow another crop to save their lives. There is no refuting a 'first person narrative' allows one to create a true and accurate depiction of events at a point in time. This book is full of first person perspectives which allow the reader to really see the events of the Great Hunger through the lense of those that lived it. Know that before reading this book, what you know of the great hunger to date is a whitewashed version which has no doubt been portrayed in such a way to appease the Colonial British conscience in an effort to help absolve them of guilt. Irrespective of whether you are a Republican, Nationalist, Unionist, Orange Order or other. All can agree that the Great Hunger is a sad sad sad stain on human history and that the conscious mismanagement by the Colonial British has had a disastrous effect on the Island of Ireland. Wherever you are from in Ireland, your relatives would have suffered.