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Dr Dan Donovan, Famine Hero
Dr Dan Donovan was a hero of the Great Famine in Skibbereen. Born in Rosscarbery, he studied medicine in Edinburgh before being appointed as the first Medical Officer of Skibbereen workhouse in 1839. Dr Dan saved many, many lives through his work during the Great Famine in Skibbereen, raising awareness through his writings and endangering […]
Timothy Collins
Abbeystrewry, Skibbereen
A Famine Village
The site of the pre-Famine ‘Village of Meenies’, to the north-west of Drimoleague village, is now commemorated by a plaque erected by the Drimoleague Community Association. Researched and compiled by staff at Skibbereen Heritage Centre, this panel tells the story of a local community ravaged by the horrors of the Great Famine. Meenies was not […]
Windmill Hill/The Rock – Windmill Lane
Skibbereen is one of the most significant towns in Ireland in terms of its Famine heritage; it truly was the ‘ground zero’ of Ireland’s Great Hunger. And Windmill Hill/The Rock was one of the worst-affected areas in Skibbereen. Windmill Lane During Ireland’s Great Hunger of the 1840s, the small street leading to Windmill Hill/The Rock […]
Windmill Hill/The Rock – Skibbereen’s Origins
The earliest known settlement in the area we now call Skibbereen, the Gortnaclohy McCarthy Reagh Castle, once stood c. 1 km south-east of the town in the townland of Gortnaclohy.Skibbereen’s newly-opened facility, The Rock Amenity Park, once formed part of this McCarthy territory, and is situated on land referred to today as ‘The Rock’ but […]
Windmill Hill/The Rock – Civil War Shooting
Windmill Hill/The Rock was the site of a fatal shooting during the Irish Civil War in 1922, when the IRA split into two opposing factions — those who supported the signing of the Treaty which marked the end of the War of Independence, versus a cohort that strongly opposed it. In the early stages of […]
Windmill Hill/The Rock – The Great Famine
Skibbereen is one of the most significant towns in Ireland in terms of its Famine heritage; it truly was the ‘ground zero’ of Ireland’s Great Hunger. And Windmill Hill/The Rock was one of the worst-affected areas in Skibbereen. Because it was a ‘Union Town’ with a Workhouse, thousands of desperate starving people poured into Skibbereen […]
Windmill Hill/The Rock – ‘Rock-Cut Houses’
Intriguing rock-cut structures on the Windmill Hill/The Rock were excavated over a six-week period in 2015 by staff and students from the University of Maryland with the support of Skibbereen Heritage Centre. The results of this study indicate that these structures were most likely originally carved out for use as part of some industrial process […]
Lough Ine (Lough Hyne)Poem
All West Cork children of a certain era can quote one poem by rote from their school days – the ‘Lough Ine Poem’. This famous verse was written by a man called Michael Fitz-James O’Brien who was described in his obituary as an ‘Irish Bohemian / American Fantasist’ Fitz-James O’Brien was a direct descendant of […]
The McCarthy Excavation ‘Backstory’
Research by the academics from Maryland University, Professor Stephen Brighton and his PhD student Drew Webster, tells us that two families lived in the ‘McCarthy homestead’ near Baltimore where the archaeology dig has been taking place. The McCarthy family, who built the structure, lived there from c. 1860 to 1911, and the Lordan family who […]