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At the height of the Great Famine, an Irish landlord named Major Denis Mahon was murdered as he drove his carriage through his property on his way home from a meeting of the Roscommon Board of Guardians. Mahon’s estate was home to thousands of tenants, most of whom were facing starvation, destitution and eviction by the close of 1847. Mahon had already removed some 3,000 of the 12,000 tenants on the estate by offering emigration assistance to some, offering a pound or two to others to peaceably surrender their holdings and approving forced evictions for those who refused to submit. The murder sparked substantial public controversy in Ireland and in Great Britain and inspired newspaper debate and parliamentary disagreement. Award-winning journalist Peter Duffy tells the story of the murder and its connection to the cataclysm that would forever change Ireland and America. With full access to the surviving primary documents, including Mahon’s private letters and extensive legal documents from the murder trial, Duffy endeavors to come to the truth about Mahon’s murder and the landlord’s complex role with regard to his estate and the local community.
Peter Duffy is the author of The Bielski Brothers. He has written for The New York Times, The Village Voice and Newsday, among other publications, and has won numerous national and regional writing awards. A descendant of emigrants from Co. Roscommon, he lives in New York. |
