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Dublin: Irish Famine Exhibition Entry Ticket
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The Irish Famine - more accurately described as the Great Hunger - was the most catastrophic event in Irish history, and one of the worst famines in modern history when you measure deaths as a proportion of population. What makes it so hard to sit with is the context: Ireland at the time was part of the British Empire, the wealthiest empire in the world. Food was available throughout the famine years. Yet over a million people died from starvation and disease, and millions more were forced to emigrate. This exhibition asks how that could have happened - and walks you through the answer.
You’ll find it on the second floor of the Stephens Green Shopping Centre, open every day from 12pm to 6pm. The story unfolds room by room through storyboards - the workhouses, the evictions, the coffin ships, the disease. Each room has seating for the 15-minute overview film, and on display are two original 19th-century newspaper articles describing the catastrophe, two personal letters (one from a tenant to his landlord, one from a father to his son), and an original cast iron soup pot. These aren’t replicas - they’re the real thing, and that matters.
Allow at least an hour for your visit. Translation manuals are available in French, German, and Italian, and you can pick up the exhibition in book or USB stick format at the reception desk. The USB version presents the storyboards as short films set to music, with the overview film included - a good way to revisit everything once you’re home.
Go mid-week if you can. Stephens Green Shopping Centre gets busy at weekends, especially around the ground floor. Visiting on a Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon means you’ll have the exhibition rooms largely to yourself, which makes a real difference when you’re reading about something this weighty.
Pair it with a walk around the Green. St Stephen’s Green is right outside the shopping centre doors, and spending 20 minutes in it after the exhibition is a natural way to decompress. The park itself has a monument to Theobald Wolfe Tone near the Grafton Street corner - it adds a bit of broader Irish history to the day.
The USB stick is worth getting. If you’re the kind of person who wants to share what you’ve learned with people back home, the USB version lets you do exactly that. The storyboards presented as short films work really well for anyone who couldn’t make the trip themselves.
Don’t skip the personal letters. The two handwritten letters on display - one from a tenant to his landlord, one from a father to his son - are quietly devastating in a way that statistics aren’t. Give yourself time with them.
Getting there is easy. The LUAS Green Line stops at St Stephen’s Green, and it’s an easy walk from Grafton Street. If you’re coming from north of the Liffey, the 15-minute walk from O’Connell Street through the city is pleasant and gives you a feel for the centre before you arrive.