THE world’s largest and most prestigious exhibition of famine-related art will tour Ireland in 2018.
The artworks, created by some of the most eminent Irish and Irish-American artists of the past 170 years, will make the journey across the Atlantic from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut.
They will be displayed in Ireland over a period of eight months, firstly at the Coach House in Dublin Castle (March – June 2018), then at the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen (July-October 2018).
Speaking at the weekend at the Annual National Famine Commemoration in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys welcomed the visit next year of Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger.
"This will afford an opportunity for us in Ireland to experience the world’s finest collection of Famine related art at first hand,” she said.
John Lahey, President at Quinnipiac University added: “Bringing home this important collection of Famine-related art has been has long been an ambition of Quinnipiac University.
"The Famine has had particular significance with the Irish abroad and it is a true honour to bring to Ireland this profoundly moving exhibition.”
Professor Niamh O’Sullivan, the Museum’s curator described as a momentous occasion.
"It may have taken a century-and-a-half to look the Famine in the eye, let alone consider its long afterlife in Ireland, and around the world," she said.
"But the art in Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum is far from merely illustrative; it stands proud as powerful, reflective and inspirational expressions about who we once were, and how we became whom we are today – each piece chosen for its quality as art."
