The Hidden Famine Hunger, Poverty and

Written by one of the outstanding historians of modern Ireland, The Hidden Famine examines the impact of Ireland's Great Famine on the city of Belfast.

Christine Kinealy is a Reader at the University of Central Lancashire and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool. She is the author of, among other books, A Death-Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland (Pluto, 1997).
Gerard Mac Atasney is currently completing a doctoral thesis on the famine in County Armagh. He is the author of a number of articles on the Famine, and two previous books, The Famine in Lurgan/Portadown (Beyond the Pale Publications, 1997) and Leitrim and the Great Hunger (Carrick Historical Society, 1997).

List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgements

x

Introduction

1

(12)

Part I The `Old' Poor Law, c.1640--1845

An `Un-National Town'

13

(26)

The Industrial Capital of Ireland

14

(1)

The Athens of the North?

15

(3)

Housing and Diet

18

(4)

Strategies for Survival

22

(2)

A Poor Law for Ireland

24

(8)

The Hungry Forties?

32

(7)

Part II A National Crisis, c.1845--47

A `Man-Made Famine'

39

(18)

An Unusual Blight

40

(3)

Local Responses

43

(3)

`Absolute Danger of Starvation'

46

(3)

`A District Distinct from Belfast'. Suffering in Ballymacarrett

49

(4)

A Divided Society

53

(4)

`All the Horrors of Famine'

57

(24)

Belfast in Crisis

57

(5)

Protest and Riot

62

(3)

`Gnawing and Deadly Hunger'

65

(5)

Desolation and Distress Unparalleled

70

(4)

`The Glorious Principle of Self-Reliance'

74

(2)

Poverty on the Streets

76

(5)

An Droch-Shaol. Disease and Death in Black'47

81

(28)

Institutional Responses to Disease

82

(4)

Fever Follows Famine

86

(3)

Great and Peculiar Urgency

89

(4)

Rising Mortality and Multiple Burials

93

(2)

`Skibbereen Brought to our Doors'

95

(2)

`An Increasing Scarcity of Money'

97

(2)

The Amended Poor Law

99

(3)

Judgment upon Our Land

102

(7)

Part III A Divided Town

Public and Private Responses

109

(30)

Government Relief. The Amended Poor Law

110

(3)

Private Philanthropy

113

(7)

Women and Philanthropy

120

(4)

`Thorough Evangelization'

124

(3)

Charity and Conversion

127

(7)

The Bible and Protestant Dominion

134

(5)

Conflict and Rebellion

139

(24)

Rising to the Challenge. The Role of the Belfast Workhouse

140

(2)

Emigration and Removal

142

(5)

`Orange and Green Will Carry the Day'

147

(5)

The War of the Placards and the 1848 Uprising

152

(6)

The Rate-in-Aid Dispute

158

(5)

`The Crisis is Passed'

163

(22)

The Path to Recovery

163

(5)

The Cholera Epidemic

168

(3)

Orange against Green

171

(5)

A Royal Visit

176

(9)

Aftermath. `A Hell below a Hell'

185

(8)

Appendices

193

(17)

Notes

210

(23)

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The Hidden Famine Hunger, Poverty and Sectarianism in Belfast 1840-50

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials