The Great Irish Famine

Calling all history aficionados – doing anything on Friday the 7th March? No? Great. Because on that very day in The Garden Restaurant, Muckross House there’s going to be a couple of public talks on that still oh-so prickly subject, The Great Irish Famine. Yes, you know the one. It involved potatoes, or more accurately, a great lack of potatoes.

Speaking on the night will be a pair of intellectuals who are more than qualified for the task at hand. Kay Caball, a genealogist and author from Listowel will be discussing the story of 117 Kerry girls sent out to Australia from workhouses in the county in 1849/50 as part of the  Earl Grey ‘Orphan’  scheme. The other speaker is Michael Murphy, who is part of the geography department in UCC and was recently involved in the Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, a book documenting how the famine affected different parts of the country. He’ll be discussing the famine from a Kerry perspective.

It all sounds very intriguing and the icing on the cake is that attendance is free. So you have no excuse really, do you? Even if history isn’t really you’re thing this should still be a more than entertaining evening. If you want any more information check out http://www.muckross-house.ie/muckross/muckross-events/the-great-irish-famine-public-talks/. Oh, and it all kicks off at 7.30pm.