One of the most important heritage destinations in Ireland dedicated to the impact and legacy of the Great Famine.
The National Famine Museum plays a vital role in sharing Ireland’s famine story and delivers a state-of-the-art, multi-sensory, interpretation-rich visitor experience within Ireland’s Hidden Heartlands. The destination also features Strokestown Park House & Gardens and the National Famine Way.
National Famine Museum
The immersive National Famine Museum on the stunning Strokestown estate is a compelling and emotive visitor experience. Visitors can explore the parallel lives experienced in Ireland’s darkest times by 19th-century landlords, tenants, and cottiers.
The interactive displays and compelling exhibitions encourage visitors of all ages to engage with the famine story.
The redeveloped museum opened in 2022 and was made possible with funding from Fáilte Ireland and Westward Holdings Ltd, the property owners, overseen by the Irish Heritage Trust.
Strokestown’s Palladian House
A tour of Strokestown Park’s Georgian Palladian House offers intriguing clues to the Irish experience in centuries past for people living vastly different lives.
Soak in the atmosphere of a house where generations of gentry left their influence. Visit the galleried kitchen to sense what life was like for the staff downstairs. Explore the charming nursery and the school room, before heading outdoors to enjoy the gardens and explore Strokestown Park’s woodlands.
Walled Gardens and Woodlands
Refresh your senses and exercise your imagination in Strokestown Park’s 6-acre walled gardens and its lush mature woodlands.
Take time to wander at a relaxed pace and soak in the serenity of rural Roscommon. A rich variety of outdoor spaces await you, including colourful pleasure gardens and abundant fruit and vegetable gardens. Strokestown Park’s woods offers space for contemplation, as well as opportunities for adventure on our family-friendly woodland trails.
The National Famine Way
The National Famine Way is a 165km trail that traces the footsteps of the Strokestown tenants – men, women and children – who were marched from Roscommon to Dublin in 1847 after they failed to pay their rent.
In Dublin, they boarded a ship to Liverpool before sailing to North America on some of the worst coffin ships of the time. Not all survived. They became know as the ‘Missing 1490’.
The 165km historical trail weaves mostly along the Royal Canal. It starts at the National Famine Museum and ends at the Famine commemoration in Dublin Docklands close to EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum.
In the corridor between the formal dining room and the galleried kitchen you’ll find a telephone – a thoroughly modern piece of technology in the 1920’s!
The Strokestown Park Famine Archive is one of the most important collections of documents about the Great Irish Famine anywhere in the world with over 55,000 original famine-era documents.
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Visit Strokestown Park House, Gardens & National Famine Museum to discover the intimate and intriguing links between dramatically different Irish lives.
Visit, tour, explore, experience.
Events at Strokestown
Strokestown Park House, Gardens & National Famine Museum make a compelling location for events from the biannual Famine Summer School to family-friendly seasonal events that make the most of its atmospheric indoor and outdoor settings.
