Poetry

[erik]

I am looking for poems that deal with lief aboard the emigrant ships from Ireland to America after and during the Great Famine. Who knows any titles?

Erik (Holland)

[Guest Andrew Moore]

I suspect that you won't find any published poems in digital form yet. Seamus Heaney considers the effects of the famine in At a Potato Digging. See www.universalteacher.org.uk/anthology/seamusheaney.htm#potatodigging But there may well be folk songs with lyrics that refer to the famine.

You should probably start by searching online for Irish political-cultural societies in Boston and New York. What you are looking for is probably in some people's heads, or on bits of paper.

Perhaps you can be the first to get the lyrics into a digital form, to share more widely.

[John Simkin]

See the following:

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_7.html

http://www.eirefirst.com/intro.html

http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/pr...s/forcedtoflee/

http://www.ucc.ie/famine/Links/irishfamine.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/3211/heaney.html

[Guest Raynah Thomas]

If I were approaching this topic I'd be looking at Irish folk/trad songs as a resource. Songs such as 'The Fields of Athenry' tell stories of the famine and the actions people took, and modern folk/rock bands such as the Pogues have dealt with the issue too. Very good for analysing the ballad form!

Try these for starters:

http://www.pogues.com/Releases/Lyrics/LPs/.../Thousands.html

http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/christy...ity_of_chicago/

Edited June 28, 2004 by Thomas Chance