Books & the Arts / A new book offers a comprehensive and heartbreaking account of the most terrible catastrophe to befall Ireland in the modern era. John Banville The premise of Rot, Padraic S.

Also referred to as "The Great Hunger", the Famine, which was caused by a potato blight, lasted between 1845 and 1849, decimating Ireland's population and resulting in emigration on an ...

Ireland, 1845, and the potato crop has failed, bringing terrible hunger and plague. Everywhere people are dying or emigrating. The family of young Eily, Michael and Peggy, around whom this story ...