Irish Historical Studies: The Great Famine in Kinsale; Castle Hyde: the changing fortunes of an Irish country house; The shawlies: Cork's women street traders and the ‘merchant city’; The committal of two Mallow children to an industrial school in 1893; Fleeing from famine in Connemara: James Hack Tuke and his assisted emigration scheme in the 1880s; Thomas Bermingham: nineteenth-century land agent and improver

• Published in: Irish historical studies 2019, Vol.43 (163), p.149-151
• Main Author: Bhreathnach, Aoife
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Bermingham, Thomas; Biographies; Children; Dooley, Terence; Emigration; Employment; European history; Famine; Flanagan, Catherine; Historical analysis; Local history; Martin, Susan Marie; McCarthy, Martin; Moran, Gerard; Nonfiction; Smith, Cathal; Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) (185?-59 BC); Tuke, James Hack
• ISSN: 0021-1214; 2056-4139
• DOI: 10.1017/ihs.2019.26

Apart from one book, the selection under review focuses on the nineteenth century, providing a local perspective on the employment strategies of the poor, land improvement schemes, poor relief and gentry lifestyles. Located on the River Blackwater, Castle Hyde was part of an economy dominated by the garrison town of Fermoy and the port town of Youghal. The author, who is a relative of the McCarthy girls sent to an industrial school run by the Mercy sisters in Kinsale, is more interested in the local history of Mallow than exploring the decisions taken by the McCarthy family. The tenants refused attractive offers of paid emigration, preferring to relocate to hilly land on which Bermingham built roads and cottages, proving that the obstreperous poor were not without influence.