Here is a perceptive and convincing reinterpretation of economic development of Ireland after the Great Famine. Barbara Lewis Solow explodes the myth that Ireland’s economic difficulties were caused by defects in the land tenure system. In fact, she argues, the Irish economy made impressive progress in the decades between the famine of 1845 and the late 1870s. She investigates the sources and patterns of this progress, and, basing her conclusions on new quantitative estimates of significant economic variables, she reveals that there were determinants of Irish economic development much more important than the land system.