John Mitchell, The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps), introduction by Patrick Maume, Dublin, Dublin University Press

Review of a denunciation of British policy in Ireland in the nineteenth century, originally written in 1861, now republished in a new edition with an introduction by Patrick Maume in the Classics of Irish History series. The volume is well known as it puts forward the view that the famine in Ireland in the 1840s was a more or less deliberate act of genocide on the part of the British government. The review gives a brief presentation of the life and work of the journalist and radical John Mitchel before discussing his arguments in Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps). The review also points out that this new edition, as well as presenting a foundational text of Irish historiography for the first time for many years, coincides with new work reconsidering Ireland’s place within the British state system or seeing Ireland in a postcolonial framework.