May 2016

The annual Famine Walk will take place on Saturday 21st May, registration from 12.45pm in Louisburg. The event is organised by Action From Ireland.

The First Famine Walk was organised in 1988 as a reminder of the ‘Doolough Tragedy’, one of the blackest events in Irish history occurred on 31st March 1849 during the Great Famine. The walk retraces the journey many starving people were forced to make through the Doolough Valley to attend an inspection and get famine relief. For some reasons the inspection was not made and the hundreds of people were told to appear at Delphi Lodge. They walked the eleven miles way in cold and wintry conditions, but, when they got to Delphi Lodge, they were refused either food or tickets of admission to the workhouse. On the journey back home more than 400 people died.

The walk is one of solidarity and remembrance and includes music, reflections and finished with ceol agus craic in a local pub.