I am indebted to my lifetime friend Robin O’Connor for his patient labouring through the first proofs. To Billy Patterson, a meticulous and humorous second filter; to John Conway of University College Cork and Senan Seclan and his eye for the smallest error; to Dr Paul Rouse of University College Dublin for checking the historical accuracy; and to Ronan Colgan who had the good sense to commission Dark Rosaleen.
I was inspired by two of Ireland’s greatest writers of the famine, Liam Flaherty and Walter Macken. I am indebted to the historians, among them Cecil Woodham-Smith, Christine Kinealy, Tim Pat Coogan and Treveylan’s biographers Jennifer Hart and Robin Haines. First-person accounts written at the time include Gerald Keegan’s Famine Diary, Asenath Nicholson’s Annals of the Famine in Ireland, Robert Whyte’s Famine Ship Diary and the writings of the Quaker James Hake Tuke.