Teaching the Irish Famine in America

Amidst debate curricula in several states have been altered to include the Irish Famine

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Maureen Murphy, the acting dean of the School of Education and Allied Human Services at Hofstra University, and Director of the Great Irish Famine curriculum for schools in New York State, is also an assistant director of Yeats Summer School in Sligo. She is pictured here with students at Yeats Summer School.

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“We avoided at the time framing it like the Armenians or in that light. People were scared of that sort of particularism,” she said. “Our concern was not to provide classrooms with a particular point of view but we wanted students to read primary source materials, write with clarity and be able to analyze the data.”

The Irish Famine curriculum is now taught in public school in several states and each approach varies based on a given state’s legislation. While controversy has surrounded the construction of these curricula and how to teach it, the value of this education lies most obviously in what the wisdom of the past can teach about hunger prevention and relief now and in the future.

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