"How can you say there has been only "one serious published work in a century and a half"
Joe
The Famine ended in 1850 - between then and 1995, the150th anniversary of its beginning, there was only one comprehensive study of the Famine - 'The Great hunger' by Englishwoman, Mrs Cecil Woodham Smith, and that was written in 1962
For political and possibly social reasons, the subject was avioded - "like the plague" so to speak!
Ireland needed and continues to need somewhere to send its constantly emigrating population and Britain is the first port of call, so why upset them by rubbing their noses in one of their great atrocities.
Even the centenary produced nothing
A combination of The Celtic Tiger and the century and a half anniversary opened the floodgates and produced the works you found on Amazon.
"As for cremation, this link (click) indicates that there are at least five crematoriums in Ireland, instead of the two you speak of."
I stand corrected Joe - all are relatively new,
Only Glasnevin existed when we moved here 18 years ago, the Cork one was till being fought over (I'm amused to see the address - the original application was for one in the ork town of "Ovens"
The rest all post-date that and are very recent - probably since the Clerical sex scandals hit the fan
"died without baptism, not without the "last rites."
Again, I stand corrected - still a heathen at heart
You appear to be defending these atrocities - they have always been regarded as offensive to the ordinary people - there have been recorded examples of children being secretly dug up from Killeens and reburied with their families
Interestingly, since the church's decline there has been a move to recognise the stigma of these monstrosities and acknowledge them as the injustice that they were
You will find no deliberate misinformation in my post, a piece of ignorance on religious jargon and a failure on my part to keep up with rapidly moving events in Ireland, that is all
Your explanation is yet another feeble excuse used by the church to justify injustice
"Hungry Grass"!!!! Whatever fairy-tale will we get next?"
I have explained what the term refers to - it is a superstition here regarding the famine which has a foundation in the fact that the whole Ireland is covered with unmarked graves holding the corpses of those who were not buried because the English were too concerned with driving the survivors off their lands and, if possible, out of the country to allow them to bury their dead.
Every culture on the planet has similar superstitions, so please don't make this another missile for your hatred of the Irish
"So Carroll has worked the thread round now to the Famine "
I worked this around to nothing - Joe raised the question of the importance of burial, I gave examples
If you cannot understand the relevance of beliefs such as this to explaining the importance that Catholics (not just the Irish ones) attach to the ritual of burial, then you are out of your depth in subjects such as this.
You want to revisit settled subjects like Sabra Shatila or the Famine to try and win back the territory you have long lost, feel free to re-open th relevant threads - don't clutter up this subject with it.
More "lies" and still no examples
"So Carroll has"
"Carroll claims "
You seem to have blown this one yet again and are left with only personal insults nad attempts at talking down to - good
Now perhaps you'll leave the stage and let those who are happy to discuss this subject do so with the degree of respect you are obviously unable to aspire to
Perhaps we can persuade Ake to take his antediluvian, homophobic hatred back to the sewer in which it should never have been dredged at the same time   
Jim Carroll