Content area
Full Text
"A Nation of Beggars"? Priests, People, and Politics in Famine Ireland, 1846-1852. By Donal A. Kerr. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1994. Pp. xiv, 370. $65.00.)
This sequel to the author's Peel, Priests and Politics: Sir Robert Peel's Administration and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1841-1846, might alternative have been entitled Russell, Priests and Politics. It is essentially a study of the Irish hierarchy's politics during the administration of Lord John Russell. For Kerr, Russell is a tragic figure who looked upon his accession to the premiership in 1846 as an opportunity to make the Irish equal citizens within the United Kingdom through a well-thought strategy which included a generous minded plan to endow the Catholic Church without the usual demand for a government role in...