Two great failings lie at the heart of the Great Famine: private charity and state relief. The former is so wide and diverse that it’s extremely difficult to assess. The latter Ó Murchadha describes as “abysmally small in volume”. Much of what was provided was swallowed up in administrative costs, employing extra officials who spent more time restricting relief rather than making it available.
Trevelyan, the treasury head, was "the most entrenched ideologue of them all". He expressed "the deep-seated anti-Irish racism" that pervaded British society at all levels when he said the "great evil" in Ireland wasn't the famine but "the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people". Very readable and based on scholarly research, the book makes extensive use of the many local studies of recent years and provides harrowing eyewitness accounts of the catastrophe.
