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Self-published my first novel in November 2010 and 3 more subsequently. I have been researching the Irish famine of 1845-52 for about two years. "The Poor Law Inspector" is one of several projects arising from that research. It is based on the real life experiences of Captain Arthur Kennedy between 1846 and 1850.

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Frank Parker

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Books

Historical Fiction
(Fic)

Called to Account (formerly The Poor Law Inspector)
by Frank Parker

From the author of Strongbow's Wife and A Purgatory of Misery comes another searing account of a terrible period in Irish history. When a government official exposes the unpalatable truth about the famine in mid-nineteenth century West Clare he is called to account by the men he accuses. Abandoned by his masters, he has only his strength of character and the love of his wife and daughter to sustain him as he fights famine and disease in a land teeming with destitute men, women and children. "Sounds interesting!"

Chapter 1
Introduction

I like to imagine Arthur Kennedy and Crofton Vandeleur each about to embark on his journey to Cork for the assizes at which the charge of slander was to be heard. Each looks in a mirror – shaving, perhaps, or combing a beard; adjusting the tilt of a hat or the folds of a neckerchief – and reflects on the similarities in the other's background to their own. Each was the son of a Protestant land owner, each grew up on the shores of an estuary – one on the North East coast of Ireland, the ...