Skibbereen Heritage Centre

Contact Us Contact Us
Opening Hours Opening Hours
Directions Directions
Donate Donate

Diaspora Story Project

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 […]

The Provincial Bank & the Great Famine

This building was once the site of the Provincial Bank of Ireland and its manager in the 1840s, JW Clerke, was very active in Famine relief as was his father before him, Dr St John Clerke, a medical doctor during the 1822 famine in Skibbereen. JW Clerke was a the treasurer of the Skibbereen Committee […]

Karol Egan

Great grandmother’s first cousins, 6 brothers & 2 sisters involved in ‘the war’.

First Land Survey of Ireland

The 17th century was an extremely turbulent time in Ireland. Post the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, resentment festered amongst the Gaelic Irish until a rebellion followed in 1641. The infamous witness statements of the Protestant settlers, the 1641 Depositions, recorded massacres and outrages against them by their native neighbours over the following year. Thousands […]

Grace Sidaway

Account of prison life of captured IRA Volunteer through letters home

Sharon Hosford (Teacher)

Multiple stories from a Methodist family perspective: house burnings, raids by IRA, saving a Rep. on the run, finding love during the Lusitania disaster, shooting a donkey in error and much more ….

Sharon Wolfe (Teacher)

Several stories about period: house burnings, an ‘informer’ on the run, place where bodies are reputed to be buried by IRA and mischief against neighbour

Emily Dullea

Story of saving an IRA man from the Black and Tans

Emily Collins

Three Lakes ambush and other stories, including one of the Spanish Flu.

1 2 3 … 46