A review by hobby33
The Graves Are Walking. John Kelly by John Kelly

4.0

Brutal read. Even though it's a 150 years later, Ireland has yet to fully recover from the devastation caused by this famine. The suffering of the poor in Ireland is so disturbing because there seems to be no real reason why it needed to be so severe. Yes, the blight destroyed the potato crops that the poor were relying on for survival. But it seems to be the mismanagement by the British government and the lack of support from the Irish landowning class (along with a healthy dose of anti-Irish prejudice) that ultimately condemned the poor in Ireland to mass starvation and death. The blight, not being man-made, couldn't have been avoided, but the other causes of the Irish famine easily could have.