“Finding the Famine Irish: Insights from Archaeological Sites in Ireland and Canada”

“Finding the Famine Irish: Insights from Archaeological Sites in Ireland and Canada”
Dr. Katherine L. Hull, PhD.

We are looking forward to welcoming Dr. Katherine L. Hull, PhD, who will speak on her work, “Finding the Famine Irish: Insights from Archaeological Sites in Ireland and Canada” at an evening event, here at Rathcroghan Visitor Centre on Thursday, June 22nd, at 8.30pm.

Dr. Katherine L. Hull is Partner and Principal Historical Archaeologist for Archaeological Services Inc. (Toronto, Ontario) and Archaeological Advisor of the Canada Ireland Foundation.

“Why bother looking for the famine Irish? They were too poor to leave behind anything”— this is a commonly held idea that confronted her team of archaeologists in the mid-1990s as they began a research program on the rural Irish in the Strokestown area. Rather than being faced with a dearth of material culture, this multi-year excavation on the Nary holding in Ballykilcline, as well as the townland of Gorttoose and village of Mulliviltrin, demonstrated that even those considered to be at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, left significant evidence of their occupation. Once in Canada, the Irish of the diaspora seem to blend into the melting pot of emigrants.
The challenge to finding the Irish in their new home isn’t a lack of artifacts, but the homogeneity of the types of artifacts that all settlers purchased, used, and discarded. During this presentation, we will examine the archaeological difficulties and successes of finding the Irish at home and tracing Irishness across the Atlantic.

This is a free event, but places are limited. Please reserve your seat by emailing the Centre at

[email protected]

or by phone

071 963 9268