The Wicklow World of Elizabeth Smith, 1840-1850

Elizabeth Grant was a landlord in Wicklow during the Irish famine. This book contains edited highlights of her journals by two historians, cataloguing the period from 1840-1850, during the height of the famine.

Grant presents as person who believes in economic justice, one who would be at home with Keynesian economics today. She believed in the education and wellbeing of her tenants, not only for selfless promotion of them, but also for her own and the country's prosperity. The book presents sections of her (often unimpressed) thoughts about the gentry, other landlords, the farmers and shopkeepers, and the way of life in Wicklow over 150 years ago. Her insights are an amazing historical record, particularly as an account that was not show more intended to be published, and as such has a great deal of candour.

Sometimes the book's editorial narrative is a little too colloquial for a general reader, but it is well compiled and the quotations and sections of Grant's writing well selected. show less