Today seems to be destined to become a day of uncovering interesting facts. Earlier I posted about the urban growth of US cities, now I have found out something, I never even knew, Ireland suffered from a terrible famine in the eighteenth century as well, in 1740 a full century before what we call the Great Irish Famine. I found that piece of information out just before lunch and a little digging brought me a book on the cause of this nasty event: The Great Frost. The book is called Arctic Ireland and it is written by David Dickson and was published by White Row Press in 1997:

Modern Ireland has experienced not one but two Great Famines. One of these, that of 1845-51, needs no introduction. Its place in history is secure.

The other, that of 1740-41, was more intense, more bizarre and proportionately more deadly, yet its existence has been all but forgotten. Arctic Ireland lifts the veil on this older, more enigmatic famine, and attempts to restore it to its rightful place in our historical self-understanding.

On the last day of 1739, Ireland awoke to find itself in the grip of a mini Ice Age.

Rivers froze, mills seized up, and houses could not be heated above freezing point. Some people were enchanted by the novelty of it all. Carnivals, dances and sheep-roastings were held on the ice.

But the euphoria proved fleeting. In its wake came an almost biblical ordeal by drought, flood, fire, famine and plague, that has few parallels in the recorded history of the island.

To top that off, I shall reveal a little taster of the upcoming podcast on the Famine which I just recorded today with Professor Mary Daly from UCD. She mentioned the 1740 famine and said that the percentage of the population that succumbed during that famine was much larger than for the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s but the tragic events of that earlier time have largely escaped attention especially at a popular level among the general populace.

It is a fascinating if sometimes unhappy history this island has!

Eoin