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Cet article se propose d’aborder la manière dont The Nation, organe du groupe Young Ireland, réagit à la Famine. Le reproche fut parfois fait aux nationalistes irlandais d’avoir eu la critique facile, sans rien avoir proposé de concret. Nous verrons que des propositions existaient bel et bien, mais d’une faisabilité pour le moins hypothétique: à cause du flottement, des évolutions ou des ruptures doctrinales du mouvement, mais aussi parce qu’elles se heurtaient à l’idéologie dominante. Une approche essentiellement chronologique permettra de suivre le traitement de la question dans les colonnes du journal, en fonction des contextes domestique et international.

This article aims at exploring the available means of political response in Ireland to the issue of the Famine. What comes first to mind is the case of the representative function, democratic, or approximately so, by the standards of the day; i. e., parliamentary activity. Compiling the records of all individual Irish MPs in Parliament over the period is a tempting intellectual task but clearly beyond the scope of this paper; instead, I approach electoral activity during the period, since elections provide the opportunity of assessment of past contributions, and of confrontation. In the specific context of the Famine, theoretically at least, Irish MPs at Westminster were instrumental in bringing about a better knowledge of what was going on – and indeed some did so in quite a sustained, articulate, and often humane manner. Conversely, elections are moments in a country’s life when voters can take their representatives to account; and clearly, there was much to account for.

Parts of this article were presented at the Agrégation/Research conference at the University of Caen, 23rd January, 2015. An earlier version appeared in Maryann Gialanella Valiulis and Mary O’Dowd (eds), Women and Irish history: essays in honour of Margaret MacCurtain (Dublin, 1997), pp. 109-124.