Description

Edited by the esteemed Charles E. Orser Jr., Unearthing Hidden Ireland delivers a brilliant, interdisciplinary investigation into the material culture and daily lives of the tenant farmers of Ballykilcline, County Roscommon. The book centers on a community that engaged in a historic, multi-year rent strike against the Crown land estate in the decades leading up to the Great Famine, culminating in the total clearance and forced emigration of its residents. Orser combines rigorous archival research with the physical evidence unearthed during extensive archaeological excavations of the vanished cabins. The text provides an unmatched look at the pottery, clay pipes, building structures, and personal effects of the peasantry, offering a tangible look at how rural families navigated poverty, resistance, and colonial land policies in 19th-century Ireland.