The Great Irish Famine: A History in Documents
In the fall of 1845, a mysterious blight ravaged Ireland’s potato harvest, beginning a prolonged period of starvation, suffering, and emigration that reduced the Irish population by as much as twenty-five per cent in a mere six years. The Famine profoundly impacted Ireland’s social and political history and altered its relationships with the United Kingdom…
Irish-English Relations: A History in Documents
In 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland noted that “there is a path of fatality which pursues the relations between the two countries and makes them eternally at cross purposes.” For better or worse, Ireland has frequently been defined by its relationship with its neighbor to…
Editing The Great Irish Famine
[Karen Sonnelitter reflects upon her experience editing her book in the Broadview Sources Series, The Great Irish Famine.] The greatest challenge of producing an edited primary source collection on the Irish Potato Famine is choosing what to include. The Famine is perhaps the most well-studied topic in Irish history, and reducing it to a brief introduction…
A Toast to a New Stamp Act Sourcebook
What better way to celebrate a victory than with a series of toasts. A group calling themselves the Sons of Liberty did just that on the occasion of the repeal of the Stamp Act. This document is included in Jonathan Mercantini’s newly published The Stamp Act of 1765, the second title to appear in the…