Melancholy Accidents

Book excerpt: While most scholarly attention on violence in post-famine Ireland has focused on political crimes, this book examines non-political violence, which made up the vast majority of incidents in that period. Ireland's overall crime rate was below that of England and Wales, but the proportion of violent offenses to non-violent ones was significantly higher in Ireland. In Melancholy Accidents, Carolyn Conley decries the commonly-held belief that recreational and domestic violence was generally the result of understandable emotions. Conley demonstrates that the meaning of violence in post-famine Ireland was complex, personal, and often deeply traditional and idiosyncratic. This unique book will be valuable to a wide variety of scholars, including those who study women's history, European history, and social problems.