'A Nation of Beggars'?

This is the first full account of the role of the Irish Catholic Church in the Great Famine of 1846 and its aftermath. Donal Kerr shows how these years saw a sharpening of religious tension as Protestant Evangelicals made an all-out effort to Protestantize Ireland. The famine and the violence that followed soured relations between Church and State, and finally destroyed Lord John Russell's dream of bringing a golden age to Ireland.