Errill Famine Project wins County Heritage Week Award for Laois

Errill Tidy Towns won the Laois County Heritage Week Award for their project to mark the 175th anniversary of the great famine in Errill, by erecting a commemorative plaque and limestone seat, near the site of what was once a soup kitchen, to feed desperate people of the town during the famine.

This is phase one of the group’s famine pot project. Phase two will be the installation on site of the actual famine pot that was used in the soup kitchen. The pot was kindly donated by a local family and was on view on the evening.

A research project on the history and impact of the famine on the Errill area was undertaken by Aisling O’Dea, Fiona O’Dea, Michelle Bourke, Jenny Galbraith and Cathy Galbraith as part of the Laois Volunteering Scheme - Local History Research Project 2020, under the guidance of Peadar Cleary of Errill Tidy Towns.

The Heritage Week event was attended by a large group of local people as well as Laois County Council CEO John Mulholland, Laois Heritage Officer Catherine Casey, Directors of Services Angela McEvoy and Donal Brennan, Cllr John King, Trevor Stanley manager of the Donaghmore Famine Workhouse Museum, and descendants of Sadie Kinahan.

Professor Emeritus William J. Smyth, who unveiled the commemorative limestone seat, noted that one third of the local population had disappeared during the famine through death or emigration. Half of the local children disappeared. Most of them had nobody and were forgotten. One of the missions of famine commemoration is to give memory back, he said.

He stressed that it was not a famine in the sense that there was food, but instead was an Gorta mor. “The potato blight was an ecological disaster. What happened was a political disaster - a failure to act. It was always too little and too late.”

Retired detective Eamon Cleary was instrumental in unearthing much of the history of the local area during the period. He recalled that the famine was not spoken of during the 50s and 60s and very little was handed down verbally on it.

It was only when he undertook some research himself in UCD that he discovered the submission of Sadie Kinahan (Costigan) for the Folklore Commission in 1937. She pinpointed where the soup kitchens were locally and outlined the situation.

The CEO of Laois County Council John Mulholland complimented the committee on their work. Cllr John King also paid tribute to their work and said that the seat was “a headstone of history.”

Speaking on behalf of the Kinahan family, John Kinahan thanked the committee and said the family were delighted with the part his mother played.

He thanked Eamon Cleary for his excellent work, noting that his mother had never spoken about it outside of her submission to the Folklore Commission. The evening rounded off with three recitations by local poet Michael Creagh.