This work explores some of the source material that reported on the attitude of the British Empire towards its Irish subjects at a time of Ireland's most desperate need.
Through an investigation of the reportage in nineteenth-century English metropolitan newspapers and illustrated journals, this book begins with the question 'Did anti-O'Connell sentiment in the British press lead to "killing remarks," rhetoric that helped the press, government and public opinion distance themselves from the Irish Famine?' Continuing her survey of the press after the death of O'Connell, Leslie Williams demonstrates how the editors, writers and cartoonists who reported and commented on the growing crisis in peripheral Ireland drew upon a metropolitan mentality, in which anti-Irish bias was deeply embedded in language and images. She concludes, however, that the real 'subject' of the British Press commentary on the Irish Famine was Britain itself. Ireland was used as a negative mirror to re-enforce Britain's own commitment to capitalist, industrial values at a time of great internal stress.
'This is an excellent book on an important subject. Here, the late Professor Leslie A. Williams brings her sharp sensibilities as an art historian to bear upon the social, economic, and human history of both Ireland and England in the years immediately preceding, during, and following the Great Irish Famine - or Great Hunger , as many Irish people prefer to call it - of 1845-51.' Irish Studies Review '... a fresh and valuable contribution to what had begun to seem an overworked field.' Albion '... [a] fine study... Williams provides an important contribution to famine historiography and to understanding the British press in the nineteenth century.' American Historical Review '... a substantial addition to both periodical criticism and the history of British-Irish relations.' Victorian Periodicals Review
