Famine Memorial is “offensive” to victims
The Famine Memorial in Tubbercurry which lies neglected and forgotten behind a recycling centre and housing estate is “disrespectful” and “offensive” to the victims and their families.
That’s according to NUIG History student Niamh McGee who visited the site of the 1852 Workhouse and mass grave at the back of Connolly Park housing estate last week.
“You wouldn’t know it’s there at all. There definitely should be more signs and advertising about it. Even if you google it, there’s nothing. I only found it because my Mum goes cycling and spotted it. It’s very hard to find,” she told this newspaper.
Upon locating the site, which is one of only three Famine workhouses in Sligo - Sligo town, Tubbercurry and Dromore West - McGee was distinctly underwhelmed by what she saw.
“I was expecting a lot more. It would be disappointing to see, especially if you were a tourist and you had come especially to Tubbercurry for it. You’d be really let down. It’s really, really overgrown. There are some small gravestones less than a foot tall that you could trip over,” she said.
“There is a mass said there once a year but apart from that nobody seems to go near it. It’s really disrespectful. We all know how horrible the Famine was.
“So many people were affected. It’s offensive to the victims and their families to think their graves are neglected,” she said. The Ballymote student believes it could be done up similar to the one in Carrick-on-Shannon both to respect the dead and for tourism
By 1852 when the Tubbercurry Workhouse opened 30 percent of the population had either starved to death or left Sligo.