''Famine'' is a novel by Irish writer

Liam O'Flaherty Liam O'Flaherty ( ; 28 August 1896 – 7 September 1984) was an Irish novelist and short-story writer, and one of the foremost socialist writers in the first part of the 20th century, writing about the common people's experience and from their ...

published in 1937. Set in the fictionally named ''Black Valley'' in the west of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

(there is an actual

Black Valley The Black Valley or Cummeenduff () is a remote valley at the southern end of the MacGillycuddy's Reeks mountain range in Kerry, situated south of the Gap of Dunloe and north of Moll's Gap; it is used as a southerly access into the Gap of Dunloe. ...

County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...

) during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the novel tells the story of three generations of the Kilmartin family. The novel is critical of the constitutional politics of

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

, which are depicted as laying the oppressed Irish of the 19th century open to the famine that would destroy their society. In a review for the ''Irish Times,'' author John Broderick said of one of the novel's characters: "Mary Kilmartin (the heroine) has been singled out by two generations of critics as one of the great creations of modern literature. And so she is."John Broderick, Irish Times, 19 January, 1980.
/ref> In ''Great Hatred, Little Room: The Irish Historical Novel'', James Cahalan wrote: The novel is interspersed with sardonic socialist polemics, and contains an extreme representation of the landlord’s agent, Chadwick, who seduces and ruins Ellie Gleeson and exclaims against the peasants, "I’m going to root them out like a nest of rats." O'Flaherty dedicated the book to John Ford, in thanks and honor of his 1935 film adaptation of O'Flaherty's novel, '' The Informer''.

Character list

*Brian Kilmartin - Aged 71 at novel's start, he is a tenant farmer with land in the Black Valley. He was a migratory worker as a young man until he acquired his land from Thomsy Hynes. *Martin Kilmartin - Aged 25 at novel's start, he is Brian's oldest surviving son. *Mary Gleeson - Aged 19 at the novel's start, she is the wife of Martin. A beautiful woman with shining, black hair, she is the daughter of a weaver named Barney Gleeson. It is mentioned in the book that the women at that time kept their maiden name after marriage. *Thomsy Hynes - In his early 50s at the novel's start, he is the brother-in-law of Brian Kilmartin. At the age of eight, on his parents' deaths he had surrendered his land to Brian Kilmartin, his sister Maggie's husband. He has lived with the Kilmartins since then. *Maggie Hynes - Brian's wife and Thomsy's sister. *Michael Kilmartin - Brian's other surviving son, he is sick at the beginning of the novel.

References

1937 novels 20th-century Irish novels Novels by Liam O'Flaherty Novels set in the 1840s Novels set in Ireland Irish historical novels Works about the Great Famine (Ireland) {{1930s-hist-novel-stub