Cork University Press

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine wins Best Irish-published Book of the Year

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine edited by John Crowley, William J. Smyth, Mike Murphy and published by Cork University Press has won the International Education Services Best Irish-published Book of the Year. The award was announced at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards on November 22nd.

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine was published in September 2012 and has already been reprinted three times.  It has been launched in Dublin, Cork, New York, Chicago and Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine seeks to achieve a greater understanding of the Famine, through its 50 chapters and includes contributions from over 60 scholars from the arts, folklore, geography, history, archaeology, Irish and English languages and literatures. Included, are case studies of famine emigrants in cities such as Liverpool, Glasgow, New York and Toronto. The Atlas features 400 images and 200 maps that have been digitized in an ambitious project by collating maps of individual parishes and townlands that are based on census records.

Cork University Press has established an enviably high reputation in producing atlases. The latest – of the Great Irish Famine – maintains and enhances this record. Not only are the maps themselves innovative and attractive to look at, but they communicate clearly an abundance of information, often unfamiliar. The cartography is accompanied by a wealth of other images, sometimes strikingly beautiful, and also hauntingly distressful. In addition, a starry cast of experts provides incisive and illuminating commentary on all aspects of the disaster.  All in all, this is likely to prove one of the most original and enduring studies of the grievous famine -Toby Barnard, Oxford University

http://corkuniversitypress.com/Atlas_of_the_Great_Irish_Famine_/357/

ISBN 978-185918-479-0, €59, £55, Hardback, 299 x 237mm, 728pp, 200 maps and 400 illustrations, 60 contributors, September 2012

Further information: http://greatirishfamine.ie/

Minister Deenihan Provides Copies of the ‘Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-52’ to City and County Libraries Nationwide

Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, is pleased to announce today (Tuesday 30^th October, 2012) that he has provided each of the county and city libraries nationwide with a copy of The ‘Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-52’, which is edited by John Crowley, William J Smyth and Mick Murphy, and which was recently published by Cork University Press.

Minister Deenihan said:

‘In recognition of the important role that libraries play as community centres of culture and learning, I am delighted to now provide a copy of this beautiful and important publication for each of the county and city libraries in Ireland. I hope that they will find it to be a useful and informative resource and that it will be of assistance in publicising and educating communities around Ireland about the history of the Great Irish Famine’.

The failure of the potato crop during the 1840s was a transforming event in Ireland. There is nothing else in the history of the Irish people that can be likened to the Great Famine, either for its immediate impact, or its legacy of emigration, cultural loss and decline of the Irish language. It brought a shattering direct loss of life, established a momentum in emigration that endured for many years and polarised social and political relations in Ireland and with Great Britain. It is now widely accepted that a million people perished between the years 1845-1852 and that an additional one million and a quarter emigrated. In 1835, the number of native Irish speakers was estimated at 4 million, but by 1851 only 2 million spoke Irish as their first language.”