Both contemporaneous and modern commenters on pre-Famine and Famine Ireland often assume a high level of background violence. Mc Mahon’s impressive data set of information about homicides for much of the first half of the nineteenth century, however, shows this picture to be incomplete at best. Homicide in Ireland was not much different from that in England at the time, and it compares favorably with that in the modern United States. Methodologically, the book supplements various time series of homicide rates with numerous case studies of individual homicides, providing a great deal of background and breadth.
Nineteenth-century studies of crime often focus on homicide counts because they are usually the most reliable data available. Mc Mahon supplements police reports with newspaper records and grand-jury accounts from selected counties, collecting demographic information as well as information about motives and even weapons. The nationwide estimates are most reliable from 1837 to 1850,...