Understanding Ireland's Great Famine: New Perspectives

Conference: Understanding Ireland’s Great Famine: New Perspectives

27th-29th June 2014

Carlton Shearwater Hotel, Ballinasloe

Food Protest During the Great Famine in 1846 (c) Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

This inter-disciplinary and public conference will feature recent and exciting research by academics and communities which is revealing new insights and evidence: community archaeologies of the Great Famine in Galway and Clare, histories of popular protest and resistance around the country, new geographies of the Famine and the work of those who produced the recently-published Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, the colonial context of the Famine, studies of emigration, gender, race and class, workhouses, the impact of ideologies of modernisation and moral improvement, memory of the Famine and the study of memoirs.

The event will include contributions from academics based in US and Irish universities as well as independent scholars and community groups. The conference provides a particular opportunity to gain an insight into work being done to research the Famine at the grassroots level.

The keynote lecture will be given by renowned historian of the Great Famine Professor Christine Kinealy, Founding Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, USA on ‘The Bankers of Threadneedle Street and the Great Irish Famine’.

An optional field trip to South Galway on Sunday (places are limited) will give an insight into the physical legacy of the Famine in the landscape of the Slieve Aughty Mountains. An alternative option offers a trip to Woodville House and Walled Garden. The trip finishes with a visit to the Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna.

The conference brochure with registration form is now available for printing:

English version             Version Gaeilge