A New Yorker recreates the amusing and frustrating experiences he endured while "relieving his tensions" on a 264-acre farm.

The Great Famine of 1845-52 was the most decisive event in the history of modern Ireland. In a country of eight million people, the Famine caused the death of approximately one million, while a similar number were forced to emigrate. The Irish population fell to just over four million by the beginning of the twentieth century. Christine Kinealy's survey is long established as the most complete, scholarly survey of the Great Famine yet produced. First published in 1994, This Great Calamity remains an exhaustive and indefatigable look into the event that defined Ireland as we know it today.

Brilliantly inventive and original. This debut novel tells the story of Calamity Leek: a girl who has never been allowed beyond the garden wall, until now. Lying in her hospital bed, broken, burned and scared, Calamity still believes that Aunty loved her. For as long as she can remember, Calamity, along with her sixteen sisters, lived in a Garden behind the Wall of Safekeeping. Like it said in Aunty's Appendix on the first page of the Ps: 'Everything has a purpose', and they were being trained for a very special one. In the Ns the Appendix said, 'Nosiness leads to nonsense'. As Calamity sees it, this is what led to their Garden's downfall, because when the sisters started questioning what was outside the Wall, they started questioning what was happening inside it too. But doubt is contagious. Watching your world crumble is frightening. And people who are frightened can be dangerous.

Includes bibliographies.