The Tragedy Ireland Repressed

Ireland produces nearly endless literature and poetry about its history, even its darkest moments. The Troubles, one of the worst recent campaigns of paramilitary terror in the Western world, has been turned into a kind of tourist attraction in Northern Ireland. Ireland produces endless films about repressive Catholicism and tear-jerkers about emigration. Novels about isolation abound, along with short stories by authors like William Trevor about rural alienation. Yet, the greatest tragedy of Irish history is almost never addressed in the Irish arts.

Over 30 years ago, Irish commentator John Waters wrote that the Irish Potato Famine — known there as “the great hunger” — was “like so many other matters of importance in Irish life, subjected to a peculiar collective repression.”