Famine Era Artist Daniel McDonald

There is very little in the way of contemporary art from the Great Hunger. One of the best is the painting shown above entitled The Discovery of the Potato Blight in Ireland. It was originally entitled The Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store but was shortened, either by the artist or someone else, after its painting.

The painting depicts a stunned family looking at a ruined crop. Everyone is huddled around a rotting pile of potatoes. There are several items of note in the painting. It includes at least three and possibly four generations in the family sharing the potato field (as well as a dog). The looks of despair and defenselessness are especially disheartening, particularly the older man with a top hat and cane looking up to the heavens.

The picturesque landscape, with brighter blue sky on the left and looming thunder clouds on the right, captures the mood. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the painting is the crying woman.

The painting is at the University College Dublin. It was purchased by author Cecil Woodham-Smith at an auction in 1966. She promptly donated the painting to the university in gratitude for the university’s help in writing her 1962 seminal book The Great Hunger – Ireland 1845-1849. The painting hangs in the corridor of the National Folklore Collection on campus.

The artist is Daniel McDonnell, born in County Cork in 1821. His father James was a caricaturist and draftsman who taught Daniel drawing at an early age. Daniel quickly became noted for his pencil and ink drawings, including portraitures and caricatures of locals. His etchings were published in Tribute, a Cork literary publication, when Daniel was only thirteen. Daniel’s work was later exhibited at the Royal Hibernia Academy in Dublin while Daniel was in his early twenties. Daniel left Ireland for London in 1844 but returned during the famine.

His Discovery painting is indeed one of the few that shows an actual scene of the Hunger. It was displayed at the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom in 1847.

Daniel was one of the few painters in the era that depicted country people without overly sentimentalizing or idealizing them or, at the other extreme, caricaturing them. Two of his works are shown, both owned by Crawford Art Gallery in Cork City, Ireland.

Crawford Art Gallery holds another McDonald painting in its collection. It’s entitled Eviction Scene and is circa 1850. It is a heart-wrenching painting of a family facing eviction during the Hunger.

As in The Discovery of the Potato Blight in Ireland, the painting has the same romantic landscape, despairing family of at least three generations (including a child and a dog), and the women despair. It also features the well-dressed landlord with two uniformed members of the constabulary. The Irish man appears as a heroic figure, standing tall and holding on to his shovel.