Abbeyleix petition to host national Famine Commemoration gets international support

A PETITION for Abbeyleix to host Irish Famine Commemoration Day is getting strong local and even international support, with signatures from as far afield as Australia and the USA.

Still in its first week, the online petition is part of a campaign to host the major national event, which is held annually on the third Sunday in May.

The completed petition will be presented to Minister Patrick O’Donovan, urging him to designate Abbeyleix as the national venue for the 2027 commemoration.

The online petition on the ‘change.org’ site, titled ‘Stand With Abbeyleix: A Community Prepared to Remember’, was launched by local historian Noel Burke, on behalf of the new Abbeyleix & District Historical Society.

The group contends that the heritage town is an ideal location for the event, due to its many connections with the devastating Great Famine of the 1840s.

An estimated 2,000 destitute people were buried at the rear of Abbeyleix Workhouse, now the site of Abbeyleix District Hospital/Community Nursing Unit, where a memorial headstone and limestone seat were erected last May by the Tonduff Cillín Committee.

Another famine burial ground is located on the town’s Carlow Road, where it was rediscovered by Martin Fennelly in the 1980s and poignantly named Gate to Heaven.

The Abbeyleix & District Heritage Society plans to stage a re-enactment, with people in period dress walking or cycling high nelly bicycles from Market Square to the hospital, the site of the old workhouse, where a prayer service will be held in memory of those who perished from starvation.

The re-enactment will feature an authentic replica of a horse-drawn workhouse cart, which was used to transport people and bodies. The wooden cart will be constructed in conjunction with Abbeyleix Men's Shed and artist Paddy Carroll, with the help of a €1,300 grant from Creative Ireland Laois.

The Abbeyleix campaign was backed by Laois Co Council last November, when there was unanimous support for a proposal from Cllr Marie Tuohy. She asked for an official council letter to be sent to Minister O’Donovan, at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, supporting the selection of Abbeyleix for the 2027 national famine commemoration.

Cllr Tuohy has also donated €3,000 of her council discretionary fund towards construction of the replica famine workhouse cart.

The petition organisers point out that Laois has never been chosen to host the commemoration, despite the fact that there were three workhouses in the county. They include Donaghmore Workhouse and Agricultural Museum, where a deeply moving famine exhibition tells the story of families who lived and died within the workhouse walls.

If Abbeyleix is selected, the group anticipates that Minister O’Donovan will visit the memorial in the hospital grounds and the Gate to Heaven, as well as Mountmellick and the Donaghmore Museum.

The people of Abbeyleix and the wider community will have a chance to sign the petition this Saturday at Cleland’s Eurospar or Breslin’s SuperValu, both on Main Street.

Encouraging people to support the campaign, Noel said: ‘This is more than a project. It is an act of remembrance, a way to restore dignity to those whose stories were nearly lost. Let the nation come to Abbeyleix in 2027, to remember with dignity, truth and heart.’