The case study of a town and its rural hinterland during the Great Famine breaks new ground in the historiography of that cataclysm. The focus on a single community allows the author to highlight the cumulative and shattering impact of disastrous government relief policies on a population rendered prostrate by repeated failures of the potato harvest. He outlines in turn the shambles of the public works, the loathed soup kitchens, and most horrifically the appalling disease and mortality that occurred both inside and outside the Ennis Union Workhouse and its auxiliaries after 1847. Among the topics which this book illuminates are a huge upsurge in violent and non-violent crime, desperate individuals attempts to survive by stealing, and collective attempts to prevent the outward movement of food supplies. The brutal outrages of secret societies, and harsh judicial reaction also feature, in addition to the unsympathetic and often indifferent attitude displayed by officialdom at all levels towards those whose misery they were appointed to relieve. Important new insights are offered on a wide variety of other topics such as corruption on the boards of guardians, the bizarre election campaigns of 1847, the Special Commission of 1848 and the hangings which followed it, and a merciless campaign of evictions carried out by landlords in the district.