Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847

Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred is Thomas Gallagher's narrative history of the Great Famine, first published in 1982. It reconstructs the two worst years of the famine in close, ground-level detail — the failure of the potato crop, the British government's inadequate and often punitive relief policies, evictions, mass starvation, disease, and the desperate emigration that followed, much of it to the United States.

Gallagher draws on contemporary accounts, letters, and official records to depict both the scale of the catastrophe and its lasting political legacy: the deep and enduring Irish-American resentment toward Britain that the famine years produced. The book is widely read as one of the more accessible narrative histories of the famine for a general audience.