The Great Famine had a huge impact on the development of journalism and the press, not only in Ireland but internationally. The scale and complexity of the catastrophe forced journalists to find new ways of reporting news, and develop new techniques of interrogation -- including narrating the stories of ordinary people. The work of Irish journalists attracted others from around the world, who travelled to Ireland to see for themselves how such a calamity could take place so close to the center of the world's greatest empire. The Irish Famine was the worst humanitarian disaster of the nineteenth century, and how the press reported it established many of the norms of disaster coverage to this day. --Back cover.