Coffin Ship. The Wreck of the Brig St John

THERE is an old saying that a picture tells a story better than a thousand words, and it is true of James O’Mahoney’s harrowing illustration of the Great Famine.

Just one of the Cork artist’s many graphic images recalling that turning point in Irish history, it is re-printed in the Coffin Ship – The Wreck of the Brig St John, written by archaeologist and historian, William Henry.

Taken from a series of drawings commissioned by the Illustrated London News in 1847, many of which are reproduced in this, the latest in a long line of books on the famine, it depicts a forlorn scene on the road to Cahera, in Co Cork. An emaciated girl forages for potatoes, a starving boy beside her, while, in the background, a woman bends in the desperate search for food.