National Famine Museum

The state-of-the-art National Famine Museum at Strokestown Park illuminates a dark period in Ireland’s history, the famine of the 1840s. “The Great Hunger” as it became known, was one of the biggest social disasters of 19th-century Europe in which over two million people either died or emigrated.

The museum immerses you in these harrowing times through innovative audio-visual exhibitions and imaginative story-telling featuring documents from the estate archive. Strokestown Park, the location of the first landlord assassination during the famine, is uniquely positioned to showcase the parallel lives of the aristocratic landlords of the time and their poor tenants.

It was from Strokestown Park that 1,490 famine emigrants journeyed on foot to Dublin in 1847 in the hope of boarding ships bound for the UK and North America. The National Famine Way is a historic 165km trail that allows you to follow in the footsteps of these desperate souls.

There is a lot more to experience at Strokestown Park. Take a guided tour of the grand Palladian mansion to see what life was like for gentry and servants alike in centuries past. Or head outdoors to enjoy the pretty Victorian rose garden and Ireland’s oldest restored glasshouse before exploring the mature woodland trails.