The Graves Are Walking

The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People

By: John Kelly

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

It started in 1845 and lasted six years. Before it was over, more than one million men, women, and children starved to death and another million fled the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters in the 19th century-it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perfect storm of bacterial infection, political greed, and religious intolerance sparked this catastrophe. But even more extraordinary than its scope were its political underpinnings, and The Graves Are Walking provides fresh material and analysis on the role that nineteenth-century evangelical Protestantism played in shaping British policies and on Britain's attempt to use the famine to reshape Irish society and character.

Perhaps most important, this is ultimately a story of triumph over perceived destiny: for 50 million Americans of Irish heritage, the saga of a broken people fleeing crushing starvation and remaking themselves in a new land is an inspiring story of exoneration.

Based on extensive research and written with novelistic flair, The Graves Are Walking draws a portrait that is both intimate and panoramic, that captures the drama of individual lives caught up in an unimaginable tragedy, while imparting a new understanding of the famine's causes and consequences.

©2012 John Kelly (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[Kelly's] exhaustive research covers every aspect, threading the gruesome events into a huge panoramic tapestry that reveals political greed lurking behind the pestilence." ( Publishers Weekly)

Explains many causes of the Irish potato famine

I recommend this book for lovers of history and nonfiction and for those close to anyone who learned to speak Gaelic in school. Author Kelly explains many causes of the Irish potato famine: the British Government, Irish landlords, human frailty (greed, stupidity, prejudice, fear), misfortune, and the wrath of God.) kelly also chronicles the devastating effects with mind-numbing facts about the potato blight, famine, typhoid and dysentery epidemics, massive emigration of the Irish people, and Irish loathing for Britain. I like how he included the impact of diseased and starving Irish people to England, Canada, and the United States. Good prequel to the Gangs of New York.

Every Irish American should read this book

As one who dislikes throwing around superlatives, I must call this book an astounding revelation. As an Irish American on my mother's side whose great-grandparents emigrated to New Orleans during the Great Famine, I now realize how profoundly uninformed I was about this tragic period in Irish history. If I thought about it at all, I just assumed it was caused by crop failures for a few years. Now I understand that it was greed, indifference, political expediency, British prejudice against the Irish for their perceived "laziness" and "unwillingness to help themselves" that caused a serious problem to become a catastrophe.

My sweet and gentle Irish grandmother, who was born in New Orleans in 1876, could not be riled by much, but we learned to dare not mention the English to her. I always thought that was quaint and amusing. I'd give anything if she were here today so that I could learn what she knew.

Very interesting

This was an easy book to stay with--a historical picture of the years around the years of potato crop failures in Ireland and Europe. Very descriptive of the effects on workers, their families. The role England played in NOT responding to the crisis. Money is the primary element in creating the death of hundreds of thousands of poor in Ireland. The book starts before the famine and carries it forward to the Irish exodus to other countries--and the disappointing reception these poor people received. Very interesting and very well written. Very nicely narrated.

A horrible tragedy brought to life

I love work which helps me understand and relate to how other people lived in other times and other lands. This historical work on the history of the Irish Famine is just such a book. I am Irish by heritage and some of my maternal ancestors came to America to flee the famine. But I had no idea...

The author details not only the terrible blight that caused the destruction of the potato crops upon which the Irish subsistence farmers depended to survive, but also the horrific consequences of the arrogance and indifference of the Irish aristocracy and the British government, and of the despotic and destructive decisions that added so much to the suffering and death. The Irish wouldn't call the events a famine; they would call it a deliberate starvation. You'll come to understand why. You'll also come to understand the economic realities that, in some cases, drove the impossible decisions the British and Irish ruling classes had to make.

It's a difficult story to hear, but it's true. Like the Black Plague in the 12th and 13th centuries and the Dust Bowl in 1930s America, the individual stories of human struggle, venality, suffering, death, survival and, in some cases, triumph, will both astound and confound you.

Detail details

I was torn between to much detail and detail so great that I could easily picture what the scenes were in vivid detail, no pictures needed. You must truely love history and want the entire picture to read this book. The books states at one point there were people of honor and there was. There were also people who took advantage of the situation to increase their bank accounts. Finally there were those who tried as best they could but lacked the resources they needed. Overall I enjoyed this read very much although, at times i felt overwhelmed with too much detail perhaps because it was such a terrible point in history.
I would recommend this book to understand what really helped and hurt the Irish people.

History is really a Hurtstory....

Informative and narrated well. The amount of pain and suffering the Irish went through during those days is profound.

Poor audio quality

Any additional comments?

The volume on the recording varied so wildly I found myself having to adjust it almost continually, as well as the median volume on this was abnormally low to start with. Although the book might have had promise, I finally had to give up after a couple of hours of real frustration.

Full detail of how the famine got started! How was involved

My fail my came from Cork, Waterford I’m 1837, before things got bad! They were talented, one whisky barrel maker, errs carder, jewelry maker!They still had to suffer the terrible trips over down below ships bait trips over the sea where many still died before getting to America,
Kathleen

All-around Excellent

Very well researched, weaving in both the Irish experience and the English response as the crisis mounted almost in slow motion. I especially appreciated the many personal stories of the profound suffering by the Irish and the excellent explanations of the English policies that shaped the calamity. I didn't know much about the Great Famine before - a very sobering account. The reader's narration was outstanding; using an Irishman was appropriate to authentically convey the Irish experience.

hardship, compounded by weak leadership

Gripping recap of the potato famine in Ireland, and the disease and death that went with it. John Kelly also tells about the Irish emigration to America, along with the difficulties of the trans-Atlantic journey of the weak and too often ill travelers. Awesome narration by Gerard Doyle.