The Famine Museum

Strokestown, County Roscommon, Ireland

The Famine Museum commemorates the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s, the single greatest social disaster of 19th Century Europe. Between 1845 and 1850, when blight devestated the potato crop, in excess of two million persons -- approximately one-quarter of the entire population -- either died or emigrated. The Famine is a central event in recent Irish history and consiousness for both Irish people and emigrant populations throughout the world.

The Famine Museum is located in the stable yards of Strokestown Park, a landed estate which enjoyed an international reputation during some of the worst months of the Famine when the landlord, Major Denis Mahon (1787-1847), was assassinated. The Major had attempted to clear 8,000 of his destitute tenants through eviction and assisted emigration [particularly to Canada]. The extensive Strokestown estate papers (1690-1979), now regarded as the best 'big house' archive in Ireland, are used to explain the significance of the Famine in national terms. Throughout the museum, the visitor is challenged to reflect on the ongoing spectacle of contemporary global povery and hunger.

Ireland's first museum to its greatest tragedy, the 18th Century Famine which claimed over a million lives and the disappearance of a quarter of the population, was officially opened on May 14, 1994. President Mary Robinson, Official Patron of the Museum, officiated at the opening at Strokestown Park.

Addressing some 2,000 attendees, President Robinson said "...we in Ireland are no longer children of famine, having moved to relative prosperity through a series of historical privileges." She paid tribute to Luke Dodd, the curator and prime mover of the Museum and to James Callery, a local businessman whose firm contributed some 1.1 million pounds to the project.

Nineteen ninety-five marked the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the blight which devastated the potato crop and led to the emigration or death of two million Irish men and women, altering the course of Irish society and that of much of North America. It was also the west of Ireland which was affected most during the disaster, and as President Robinson remarked during the launching of the Museum in 1991, "It is in this part of the country that the folk memory of the period is the strongest." Most importantly of all, however, is the fact that the Strokestown estate [where the museum is now housed] gained an international noteriety during one of the worst years of the famine when the landlord, Major Denis Mahon, was assassinated by his tenants following his attempt to clear the estate of two-thirds of its poverty-stricken and starving population through assisted passage to Canada and mass eviction.

The archive of Famine related estate documents is, conceivably, the best single archive of its type anywhere in Ireland.

The Famine Museum forms a part of the overall restoration of Strokestown Park, the remains of an 18th Century estate which comprises one of the great descendancy manors, yards, gardens and 300 acres of the original demesne and holdings of 30,000 acres. The property was purchased by James Callery, a local businessman, in 1979 from Mrs. Olive Pakenham-Mahon whose family had lived there for over three hundred years. In 1991, restoration work began on the six-acre garden complex which was also opened in 1994.

"The museum's account of the Great Famine is not merely a comemoration, nor simply an end in itself,"says Luke Dodd, the thirty-five year old County Sligo man who is the energetic force behind the museum. He goes on to say, "While the museum will provide the visitor with a means of understanding the Great Famine, and some of the events and forces which have shaped modern Ireland, it will also seek to instill an awareness of how political and economic principles, which led to the starvation of 1.3 million people in Ireland in the 1840s, still persist on a vastly magnified global scale. The prediciments of developing countries today are, in many respects, comparable to those in Ireland in the 1840s."

The museum has been affiliated with a Masters Degree in Colonial Studies at University College, Galway, so that it will become a centre for ongoing research. Kenneth Hudson, who runs the European Museum of the Year Awards program, has called the Famine Museum "potentially the most interesting museum to be developed in Europe in the past fifty years.

The cost of building the museum - 3.5 million dollars - was mostly raised from benefactors in Ireland, Europe and North America. Additional funds are still needed to complete all facets of the project. Contributions should be sent to:

VISITING TIMES:

The museum, stately house and gardens are open to the public from May 1 to September 30, Tuesday-Sunday, 11:00-17:30 [closed Mondays]. All three facilities are available to pre-booked groups [20+] outside the open season.

Admission: adult IR£2.70. Concession rates available.

Strokestown is located on the N5, 90 miles west of Dublin. The gate to Strokestown Park is the focal point at the eastern end of the town of Strokestown. The Museum director is Luke Dodd. His telephone number is [078] 33013.

  To Return to the Main Page Click Here