Tipperary Senator to lead annual famine and rebellion memorial walk
Senator Imelda Goldsboro will lead the walk on July 26
Senator Imelda Goldsboro will lead this year’s Famine 1848 Walk in Ballingarry on Saturday, July 26, at 3pm.
The 19th annual walk commemorates all those who suffered and died during the Great Famine and the Young Ireland 1848 Rising which took place in Ballingarry in the middle of the Famine.
The leader of the Young Irelanders, William Smith O’Brien, was MP for County Limerick.
He was born in Dromoland Castle, into the O’Brien of Thomond family.
In the House of Commons in London, O’Brien was the strongest critic of the British government’s famine policy, which led to deaths on a massive scale in Ireland.
A million people died and a million fled the country.
The Walk commences at the National Flag monument in The Commons, where the tricolour, a flag of 1848, has been flown daily for the last 36 years.
Tradition states that the flag was flown there during the Rising.
In 1848, The Commons was a mining village, which it long remained, and the Mining Museum in the two storey Old School will be open to visitors from 2pm to 6pm on the day of the walk.
Visitors en route to the walk will not miss the new murals on Famine Rising 1848 in Ballingarry village, now a stop for tourist buses.
The Rising in its final phase started in The Commons when the Callan police, 47 heavily armed men, arrived to arrest O’Brien.
He had erected barricades in the village to prevent his arrest.
He was surrounded by his Young Ireland companions and his local supporters, miners, tradesmen, labourers and small farmers.
The walk traces the route of the Rising.
It will be led off by the Moycarkey pipers.
Having marched up through Ballingarry, the Callan police seeing the barricades in front of them in The Commons veered towards Farranrory to get away from the rebels, and they seized the McCormack house.
It is now a state national heritage site, museum and visitor attraction under the Office of Public Works.
Officially known as Famine Warhouse 1848, the house is the destination of the walk.
There O’Brien actually shook hands with some of the police through the parlour window as he attempted to make peace but the police all together opened fire on the insurgents.
The house is a distance of about one and a half miles from The Commons.
If walkers choose to complete the circuit by the upper road, as many do, the total distance back to the starting point is four miles.
When the walkers reach Famine Warhouse 1848, Senator Goldsboro will give her Walk Leader’s speech, there will be a brief account of what happened at the house, refreshments will be served from the tea room in the courtyard, and traditional music will be played and sung in English and Irish by the local group, the Bold Bandits.
The house is now a museum with a historical exhibition on the entire context spread through its rooms.
The story of the event can also be viewed in the audio-visual room in the courtyard.
The captured leaders O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, Terence Bellew Mac Manus and Patrick O’Donohoe were sentenced to death in a state trial for High Treason held in Clonmel Courthouse.
They refused to appeal for clemency.
The sentence was later commuted by special act of parliament to penal exile in Van Diemen’s Land.
Senator Imelda Goldsboro is from Ballingarry, and has served for many years on the County Council, before becoming a member of the Senate this year.
In the Senate, she is Fianna Faíl spokesperson on Transport, Social Protection and Rural Development.
As well as her Walk Leader’s speech, she will make a presentation to John Webster, who is retiring from the position of OPW caretaker of the house museum after 24 years.
The walk is organised by the Ballingarry 1848 committee.
All are welcome on the occasion, whether walking or not.
The usual caveats about the weather apply, and the organisers say to come prepared for sunburn and rain in the one outing.