Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Holodomor and Gorta Mór: Histories, Memories and Representations of Famine in Ukraine and Ireland
- Part I Histories, Historiography and Politics
- Part II Public Commemoration
- Chapter 4 History and National Identity Construction: The Great Famine in Irish and Ukrainian History Textbooks
- Chapter 5 Teaching Hunger: The Great Irish Famine Curriculum in New York State Schools
- Chapter 6 Remembering Famine Orphans: The Transmission of Famine Memory between Ireland and Quebec
- Chapter 7 The Irish Famine and Commemorative Culture
- Part III Trauma and Victimisation
- Part IV New Sources and New Approaches to the Irish and Ukrainian Famines
- Index
Chapter 7 - The Irish Famine and Commemorative Culture
from Part II - Public Commemoration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction Holodomor and Gorta Mór: Histories, Memories and Representations of Famine in Ukraine and Ireland
- Part I Histories, Historiography and Politics
- Part II Public Commemoration
- Chapter 4 History and National Identity Construction: The Great Famine in Irish and Ukrainian History Textbooks
- Chapter 5 Teaching Hunger: The Great Irish Famine Curriculum in New York State Schools
- Chapter 6 Remembering Famine Orphans: The Transmission of Famine Memory between Ireland and Quebec
- Chapter 7 The Irish Famine and Commemorative Culture
- Part III Trauma and Victimisation
- Part IV New Sources and New Approaches to the Irish and Ukrainian Famines
- Index
Summary
In Ireland […] the dislocations produced by rapid economic growth may help explain the recent surge of interest in the traumatic experience of the 1840s Famine […] there remains a demand for some historical continuity, a collective identity rooted in a distinctive ‘Irish’ past and the Famine appeared to many to offer a focus that was at once catastrophic, local, diasporic and relevant to the modern world.
Unlike so many events of Ireland's history, the Irish Famine of the 1840s is a relative newcomer to the commemorative stage. The 150th anniversary of the Famine in the mid-1990s occasioned a remarkable outpouring of events and activities, new research and the construction of new memorials and monuments. Yet the rapid multiplication of these forms of public engagement with famine memory is particularly striking due to the relative absence of commemorative activity before the 1990s, save for a few isolated events. In contrast, the centenary of the Famine in the 1940s was a muted affair, producing a commissioned volume of historical essays (not published until 1956) and the Irish Folklore Commission Famine survey undertaken in 1944–45, and little in the way of public or popular events.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Holodomor and Gorta MórHistories, Memories and Representations of Famine in Ukraine and Ireland, pp. 145 - 164Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012
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