John Mitchel

The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps) John Mitchel

The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps), first published in 1861, gives John Mitchel's perspective on the politics and events surrounding the Great Famine, and he is unequivocal in concluding that the catastrophe was as the result of a deliberate policy on the part of the British government to rid Ireland of its excess peasantry. His famous quotation, 'The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine', comes from this book. Mitchel illuminates not only the horrors of the famine, but the frustrations and absurdities associated with it too as, for example, in food produce leaving Irish ports when so many people in the land were starving. The book also provides a useful insight into the Repeal Association, Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation, with all of which movements John Mitchel was successively involved.