"No one seriously interested in history gets their knowledge of history from novels."
Joe never claimed to be seriously interested and is no different from the vast majority of British, or, I suspect, America people who read little o the subject but who are periferably interested in the subject and get their understanding from various sources, in America's case, quite often from personal family experiences.
As far as this topic is concerned, as I have pointed out, up to now there has been little published and readily available specifically dedicated to it - the case was true of the Famine up to the 150th anniversary of the event.
Uris is an excellent novelist and recognised as such - I would need a little more evidence that he was not a good historian - many novelists are because of their research into detail.
He uses Irish history as a background for storytelling, whereas "Peter De Rosa" uses a storytelling technique to recount actual historical events.
For about a century there was only one substantial work on the Great Irish Famine - written by an Englishwoman, yet there were numerous novels, many giving an extremely vivid picture of the time, which filled in the gap.
Liam O'Flahert's 'Famine' is probably the best of these and its effect was life-changing to many people - a novel.
Reading Uris is certainly not a "lazy way" or learning, especially when there was so little else, though it may be a silly way to try to become an expert, which Joe never claimed to be.
Jim Carroll