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Collection Description
The Lender Family Collection
The Lender Family Special Collection is part of the most extensive collection of art and literature in America devoted to Ireland’s Great Famine, one of the worst tragedies in human history and the single worst catastrophe in 19th century Europe.
The collection includes over 700 volumes on the actual famine period and others focusing
on peripheral issues that helped shape the events surrounding the tragedy. Some of these
volumes are extremely rare and were written at or close to the time of the famine itself, such as
S.W. Blackall’s Labour on the Land: Containing a Plan for the Employment of the Destitute Poor on Agricultural Occupations (1846). Some include tragic and moving accounts and
personal recollections taken from letters and diaries of the period.
Others, by present-day authorities and scholars, such as Christine Kinealy’s The
Hidden Famine: Poverty, Hunger and Sectarianism in Belfast, 1840–50 (2000)
examine the significance of The Great Hunger, until recently the focus of little scholarly
research in both Irish and international history. Historical novels, essays and personal
reflections contribute to the record of The Great Hunger from other perspectives.
Recently added to the collection, the Parliamentary Papers include all the valuable items published by the British on Ireland. These include the exceedingly rare four volumes of The Bogs of Ireland which include 68 magnificent maps of Irish bogs, a copy of the six volume set on the Disturbances in Ireland published in 1825 and a complete set in twelve volumes of The Parnell Commission. The remainder of the collection consists of some 4,000 individual items on all aspects of Life in Ireland during the Nineteenth Century.
The intention of Quinnipiac University is to build on this valuable resource for scholarly
research. Quinnipiac is proud to take a leadership role in educating people in this
country and throughout the world to the reality and implications of this tragic period in
human history.