Classical Notes: A crash course on Asenath and her bleak Famine diary

Asenath Nicholson’s name is branded onto our national psyche as a vivid and compelling reporter during the Great Famine.

Her book, Annals of the Famine in Ireland, is an enduringly distressing eyewitness account of the catastrophe with its harrowing descriptions and crushing verdict on politicians, communities and religious bodies who abandoned the starving people to their terrible fate.

The Vermont-born Asenath (her first name comes from the Book of Genesis – had an ...