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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > Periscope > Did Irish leader Daniel O’Connell help make the Famine happen? -- “Graves are Walking” book tells powerful Irish Famine truths

Periscope by Niall O'Dowd

Did Irish leader Daniel O’Connell help make the Famine happen? -- “Graves are Walking” book tells powerful Irish Famine truths

Posted on Friday, September 14, 2012 at 08:19 AM

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Famine memorial in Dublin

“Striding nearer every day
Like a wolf in search of prey
Comes the famine on his way”

That poem in “The Nation,” the journal of the Young Irelanders, who were the Irish republicans of 1846 summarizes what was occurring as Ireland headed full tilt for the Famine and disaster.

In his new book “The Graves are Walking” John Kelly gives an extraordinary insider account of the events that led to the Famine and the machinations on high and the suffering of the peasants below.

It is still an insane thought that the most successful country in the world at the time allowed millions to starve in Ireland, its’ closest colonial neighbor.

Imagine the US, the land of plenty, allowing millions of Hawaiians to starve in a Famine there and you get some sense of the absurdity.

This book reveals insights which have rarely been glimpsed and it does not shun controversy.

The role of Daniel O’Connell as liberator of the Catholic masses is well documented.

But also documented here is O’Connell’s disastrous decision to throw in his lot with Whig leader Lord John Russell who became Prime Minister in July 1846 at the beginning of the worst period of the Famine.

O’Connell did so to help gain the repeal of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, which was at the source of so many of Ireland’s problems.

But in the process he backed a man who had become a fully-fledged free trader who insisted that market prices must be received and no government intervention made – even when the result was millions of Irish starving because they could not afford to buy the imported corn.

Russell’s predecessor, the Tory leader Sir Robert Peel, as Kelly points out, had adopted a far more humane policy and had been widely praised for ordering and freeing up imported corn for starving Irish the previous year when the worst of the Famine was blunted.

Kelly has made a profound point about O’Connell that it was the biggest mistake of his life as Russell paid no heed to repeal and the Irish starved by the millions.

The book is scathing about the various British viceroys who came over to Ireland during that period, but kind to the many incredible charities, such as the Quakers and many American organizations as well who did their best to alleviate the suffering.

There is a hilarious chapter on Monsieur Alexis Soyer, a French chef who had proclaimed he had the perfect ingredients for a gourmet soup to save the starving Irish and was much praised in The Times of London and elsewhere.

He even demonstrated this for hundreds of aristocrats in Dublin watched by a “large and brilliant assemblage” and no doubt by the starving peasants as well. Even Monty Python could not have done such a scenario justice.

M.Soyer, gourmet soup and all were soon dispatched back to Britain and obscurity.

The fate of the Famine ships is also discussed in great detail, as is the sense of impending doom in cities such as Montréal as the famine increased and the Irish boats kept coming, discharging their wretched cargo.

The scenes at Grosse Ile, the quarantine Island as depicted by Kelly would bring tears from a stone, while the unlikely rise of the Irish in New York from Famine masses to political power is also documented.

A great read if you’re Irish and even if you’re not. "The Graves Are Walking" is already deservedly a best seller in Ireland.

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44 comments

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lcobryan | Sep 15, 2012, 06:26 PM EDT

Are the Irish under attack now? The IMF and this ridiculous premise for a book? The famine was our fault? We couldn't afford the imported corn. But why did we need the corn? Yes, the blight destroyed the potato crop but that was the only crop. The british landowners stole all the other food we produced along with our livestock to pay their rents and feed the english. Why are we even talking about corn? Why doesn't he talk about rent abatement?

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jacersagain | Sep 15, 2012, 05:50 PM EDT

Sorry Niall @ 11.23am today, your sales pitch for a book that alleges some blame lies with Daniel O’Connell for An Gorta Mór is out of order. The notions in the book, as described by you above are just too much for any decent Irish person having high regard for The Great Liberator, ones which would appear to present a revisionist history of events of early 19th century, are reviling. How anyone, even John Kelly, can think they can give an insider account of events of 160 years ago is derisible. Given the reaction of most of the posters below, you have in fact discouraged people from buying the book. I’m reading an excellent new book ‘Dublin 1916’ by Claire Wills which is fascinating because it not only gives first-hand accounts of what happened in the GPO and in Dublin during the Rising but also gives reactions of the media, poets and prose writers of the time. Now there’s a good read.

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odubslaine | Sep 15, 2012, 04:57 PM EDT

"I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually..." Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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Searlit | Sep 15, 2012, 02:58 PM EDT

Didn't they Have Daniel O'Connell in jail near the end of his life? I don't know if I could stomach a read that blames the genocide on The Great Liberator! He was the only one able to take the yoke off the neck of the Irish, by defeating the last legacy of the penal laws. I don't think it's a useful way to promote a book. Sorry, Niall.

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mlchellus | Sep 15, 2012, 11:26 AM EDT

Toilet paper. The Irish died because they didnt have a potato or open their mouths to feed on the soup - RUBBISH. Revisionist history is only done to sell books. It was ethnic cleaning - same as England tried to do in India. JOHN KELLY & O'DOWD - Read some history books, apologize to the O'Connell family and grow an Irish soul.

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Niall O'Dowd | Sep 15, 2012, 11:23 AM EDT

folks it would help some of you if you bought the book rather than comment on what you have not read. It is a valuable insight into the Famine , incredibly well researched and thought through

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mamaginnty | Sep 15, 2012, 10:46 AM EDT

O'Dowd trying to sell a book of fiction. All people have to do is read the Penal Laws that the irish had to live under. Yes they went hungry when blight hit the potato crops, but that turned out to be a great cover-up to the genocide that followed then. O'Connell died well before the true horror began.

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cillowen | Sep 15, 2012, 10:11 AM EDT

banned for

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cillowen | Sep 15, 2012, 10:10 AM EDT

the concern over katie exposed boobies is most displeasing to nigh all patriots unlike the blasphemous video that gets them creaming.

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cillowen | Sep 15, 2012, 10:10 AM EDT

Tooth fairy - John Mitchel viewed him as a soft lad who was so into believing the goodness of the occupier. Living to experience their gravitas it was then curtains for him - getting him outta town.

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modochartaigh | Sep 15, 2012, 12:11 AM EDT

oTuachair | Sep 14, 2012, 04:22 PM EDT The Whigs believed in a libertarian "freedom," the same as Paul Ryan. This would include local rule and no interference by government to aid the poor or suffering. The Whigs represented the newly powerful business ownership classes. Peal and his party represented the old gentry (many of whom were also business owners), who had some sense of obligation to the less fortunate. Of course not all members of either class supported the party that represented their overall culture or ideology. In contrast a while later you had Proudhon in France begin to articlulate a philosophy that "Worker ownership of the means of production is Freedom" and that capitalist or government ownership of the means of production is theft. This philosophy is roughly put into practice by the worker owned coop movement in the US and elsewhere and most interestingly in the large Mondragon businesses in the Basque region of Spain (they are doing well in this Spanish recession). I'm going to have to report your post for abuse. Americans can't handle the truth and it is an abuse of free speech to tell the truth. (throwing pearls before swine)

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sirpeter | Sep 14, 2012, 10:26 PM EDT

Is there anything sacred..Another attack on the character of another Irishman whose only wish was to free his people from political injustice and the repeal of a union with a savage British system.Daniel O’Connell was dead in 1947.He must have thrown in his lot with Russell on his death bed. Oh! says IC but we are only the messenger.A lot of people died of starvation.Lets see what Irishman we can half blame for that.Niall your articles are depressing.Well we have sunshine at the moment so it's a different country now stupid.No!! It's not different stupid. It's the same country and I love it rain or shine.Been on this site for a year I'm glad I'm not Irish American.Ye are a disgrace!! Ye act like Americans.

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Tom Mo | Sep 14, 2012, 10:13 PM EDT

We are not being helped by dwelling on the past. Why dwell on the mistakes? John Kelly is just trying to sell a book to the Irish who read the New York Times. The same liberals who just adored that Limerick whore Mc Court, with his "Angela's Ashes" scutter.

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kubs | Sep 14, 2012, 09:36 PM EDT

Oh, so he must have seen the Famine coming but just ignored it for political favors, is that it? Let's let England off completely, why don't we. " Irish are to blame for their own plight" Wasn't that a Crown mantra thru the ages as they took the best land, the best crops, & forbade the best of old Irish culture . I have no great love for D.O'C. but let's remember that your (non-British) history books have documented evidence of the landed gentry moving thousands of wagons of foodstuff out of Ireland for sale in England, past the starving Irish on the roadsides. But, what the hell, let's put the blame on someone with an O' in his name. It sells books & salves the conscience.

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Woodman | Sep 14, 2012, 08:53 PM EDT

Daniel O'Connell was the worst Irish sellout ever. He opposed armed struggle and got all worked up about slavery in the USA, while is own people starved to death and were much worse off than any so called slave in the USA. The worthless pig spent most of his time in London.

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