Book description
One of Canada's founding peoples, the Irish arrived in the
Newfoundland fishing stations as early as the seventeenth century. By
the eighteenth century they were establishing farms and settlements
from Nova Scotia to the Great Lakes. Then, in the 1840s, came the
failures of Ireland's potato crop, which people in the west of Ireland
had depended on for survival. "And that," wrote a Sligo
countryman, "was the beginning of the great trouble and famine
that destroyed Ireland."
Flight from Famine is the moving account of a Victorian-era
tragedy that has echoes in our own time but seems hardly credible in
the light of Ireland's modern prosperity. The famine survivors who
helped build Canada in the years that followed Black '47 provide a
testament to courage, resilience, and perseverance. By the time of
Confederation, the Irish population of Canada was second only to the
French, and four million Canadians can claim proud Irish descent.
Donald MacKay's 60-year career as a reporter, broadcaster,
historian, and author of 10 books has taken him to every Canadian
province and a dozen countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Two of his
books, The Lumberjacks and Scotland Farewell, were
runners-up for the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
Flight from Famine received Quebec's 1991 QSPELL Prize. He
lives in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
