This year marks the 175th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Irish Famine. During a seven-year period, from 1845 to 1852, more than a million men, women and children perished and one and a quarter million people fled Ireland.
To mark the anniversary, a two-part documentary based on University College Cork’s Atlas of the Great Irish Famine has been created in partnership with RTÉ television.
The Great Irish Famine project on RTE.ie/history will tell the story of the disaster, from the failure of British policy in Ireland to the generosity of the Choctaw Nation, from the roles played by women during the Famine to the effects of Irish emigration all over the world, and from evictions to food riots.
The documentary, called The Hunger: The Story of the Irish Famine, narrated by Liam Neeson, will be broadcast in Ireland on November 30 and December 7 on RTÉ 1 television.
In conjunction with the documentary, Dr. John O’Halloran, president of University College Cork (UCC), announced the launch of a new website on the Great Irish Famine.
Hosted by RTÉ and edited by Dr. John Crowley, UCC, the website is a source of information about the Great Irish Famine. It includes new research by leading scholars in the area.
Dr. Crowley said the Great Irish Famine is an “event that occupies not only a central place in Irish history, but also the history of the Irish in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.”
Neil Leyden, head of RTE.ie, said, “Our aim is to curate the entirety of RTÉ’s historical content from across our platforms to give our audience a deeper understanding of Irish identity. The Great Irish Famine is, in many ways, the defining event of modern Irish history and core to understanding us as a nation and a diaspora.”
The documentary and website are the product of a partnership between RTÉ History, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine
The trailer of The Hunger can be viewed on YouTube, along with brief interview with Dr. John Crowley.
