The Depiction of Eviction in Ireland 1845-1910

Dispossession has a long and tortuous history in Ireland, reaching back to the eleventh century. In the Victorian era, evictions became major social, cultural and political events, especially with the notorious clearances of the Great Famine years. In numbers, evictions declined dramatically after the mid-1850s, but in terms of media attention and political import they reached their zenith in the 1880s after the founding of the Irish National Land League. When tenantry defended their abodes, reporters and artists flocked to the scene and their descriptions of these conflicts form the central part of this book. Drawing on memoirs, ballads, poems, folklore and novels and providing numerous illustrations of contemporary prints and photographs, Curtis provides the first book-length study of rural evictions over a period of sixty years.