for The Great Blight

Between 1846 and 1851, more than one-million people--the potato famine emigrants--sailed from Ireland to America. Now, 150 years later, The Famine Ships tells of the courage and determination of those who crossed the Atlantic in leaky, overcrowded sailing ships and made new lives for themselves, among them the child Henry Ford and the twenty-six-year-old Patrick Kennedy, great-grandfather of John F. Kennedy. Edward Laxton conducted five years of research in Ireland and interviewed the emigrants' descendents in the U.S. Portraits of people, ships, and towns, as well as facsimile passenger lists and tickets, are among the fascinating memorabilia in The Famine Ships.

Charles R. Morris, Los Angeles Times
A useful and attractive introduction to one of the truly portentious events of modern history.

The Economist
For Mr. Laxton, a journalist of Irish descent, compiling the chronicles of horrific shipwrecks, unlikely rescue dramas and the specifications of the emigrant ships was obviously a labour of love.... But although his enthusiasm for the subject is undoubted, Mr. Laxton's method is haphazard and his handling of the context sketchy.

Library Journal
Fascinating...finally draws attention to the people and the ships that defined a moment in Irish and American history.

Irish Times
A splendid book, written in a fresh and accessible way, which will grip anyone with the most superficial interest in the Famine years.