More sites to see: Our web critic looks at Irish famine websites

National Archives

The National Archive's site (www.nationalarchives.ie/ famine.html) is likely to be the first port of call for anyone doing research on the famine. Among the many interesting ways they have of looking at that period of Irish history is the nature of criminal activity, such as the way in which the severe rural distress resulted in the increase in certain types of crime, and to what extent this led to a change in the profile of people transported to Australia at the time.

Famine in Dungarvan

This excellent site (within www.dungarvanmuseum.org) is produced by the Dungarvan Museum Society. Here we learn that Dungarvan was a notable potato-growing area at the time and provided upwards of 18,000 barrels of potatoes a year to the markets in Dublin. The section on the workhouse diet and its effects, which includes the recipe for making 100 gallons of workhouse soup for 800 people, is particularly good.

Famine in Donegal

Donegal seems to be very well served by historical web sites and this one (www2.magmacom.com/ jward/famcont.html) is a fine addition. The homepage has an astonishing contemporaneous quote from the London Times: "For the poverty and distress and misery which exist, the people have themselves to blame". From there it starts off with Ballyshannon, and the first report of "potato disease", and then continues with reports and statistics from around the county.

Carrick-on-Shannon

This web site (www.iol.ie/ gartlan/fampt1.htm) is only two pages long, but quality is always better than quantity. The first page opens with a very touching poem by M J McManus on the Carrick- on-Shannon workhouse (one of three built in Co Leitrim under the Poor Law Act of 1838) where he was born. The text is stark and brutal in telling of the deplorable conditions in the workhouse: even the fact that the people there were referred to as inmates is shocking.

Views of the famine

Compiled by a man called Steve Taylor, this site (http:// vassun.vassar.edu/sttaylor/ FAMINE/) contains articles published during the famine in the Illustrated London News, the Cork Examiner, the Pictorial Times and Punch. A terrific amount of research and hard work has gone into this site, which makes it very worthwhile reading indeed. As well as the articles it has an extensive series of drawings of famine scenes from 1843 onwards.