History
Follow the story of Strokestown’s Famine Emigrants whose journey is marked by bronze shoe sculptures along the route. The trail is topped and tailed by iconic museums – “The National Famine Museum” at Strokestown Park in Co Roscommon and “The Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship” and “ EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum” at the Dublin end.
The Story of the 1,490
“Remember your soul and your liberty”, declared James Quinn, a forty-five year old Irish emigrant from Lissonuffy on the Denis Mahon estate in Co. Roscommon, to his two young sons Patrick (12) and Thomas (6), as he lay dying in the quarantine station on Grosse Isle, Quebec, in late August, 1847.
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The 1,490 on the Coffin Ships
The story of the tenants’ fate after they left Dublin is a harrowing one. They travelled on open deck packet steamers to Liverpool where they waited in the cellars of quayside buildings at Liverpool docks to board their ships to Canada. The four ships they boarded – Erin’s Queen, Naomi, The Virginius and The John Munn – were badly fitted out and poorly provisioned. Almost half of those who embarked died aboard ship or in the ‘fever sheds’ at Grosse Isle when they arrived in Quebec.
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What Happened to the 1,490?
The search for the 1,490 Strokestown Famine emigrants and their descendants in North America is being led by Professor Mark McGowan from the University of Toronto. Since 2015, he has taught advanced undergraduate research seminars in which students have gained practical experience using routinely generated records to track down survivors of the 1,490 and locate their places of settlement in British North America and the United States.
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