Patrick O’Sullivan
The Irish Famine, 1845 to 1852: source, silence, historiography
February 2021
I was asked, and I said Yes.
There is a strange silver lining to the virus crisis... So much stuff, meetings and presentations, has had to move to the online systems. I have been able to take part in many 'events' that I would otherwise just have noted and regretted - and, many years later, chased up the paperwork. Now, I sit in and take notes.
My trade union, the Writers' Guild, has created some great online, writerly meetings - mostly, when writers come together, they come together to whine. But these meetings have been very craft-oriented and positive. Other organisations I am part of, or am connected to, have created excellent online events - I have played autoharps in San Francisco, and I have sung ballads in Glasgow.
In my academic life I have 'attended' events organised - for example - by the Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective (about the Irish in Leadville, Colorado), and by the Irish Embassy, Washington, USA (about C19th black abolitionists in Ireland), and quite a number of work meetings. And I am part of an online group exploring the discourse of 'decolonization'.
I have been on 3 different platforms, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard and Zoom. Of those 3, Zoom seems to work best.
I first connected with the meetings of the Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective - despite the extreme time difference - because I was so interested in the work of James Walsh, and his very human and very scholarly response to the unmarked graves of Leadville...
A web search will find links - but see
https://coloradomartinis.com/2020/12/05/leadville-colorado-forgotten-irish/
Irish Diaspora Studies always has a special interest in unmarked graves...
So, when the Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective asked me to give a presentation, about Irish Famine historiography, I said Yes.
I have put on my Dropbox the illustrative material that I will make available to the group this evening...
Patrick O’Sullivan
The Irish Famine, 1845 to 1852: source, silence, historiography
Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective
February 2021
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oxhu0k4nvnaxc6s/AAA9tBt5ONGT1sj3sybDNhsda?dl=0
My starting point is fairly simple: in order to understand Irish Famine historiography you need to have read four books, two book published in the mid nineteenth century and two books published in the mid twentieth century.
Will I put forward the strong version of this argument, that in order to understand Irish Famine historiography you need to have read ONLY four books? Well, Irish Famine historiography has certainly organised itself around those four books, and we do need to understand how and why.
So, today, February 27 2021, in the middle
of my Yorkshire night, which is the Colorado day time, I will make my presentation
to the Rocky Mountain Irish Roots Collective.
I wonder how I will get on.
Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2021
