Famine Graveyard Commemoration Ceremony taking place in Dunshaughlin

The annual Famine Graveyard Commemoration Ceremony, organised by Dunshaughlin and District Historical society, is set to take place at the Dunshaughlin Famine Graveyard on 28th September at 3pm.

The graveyard is located behind the Dunshaughlin Workhouse on the Dublin Road with approximately 1,000 people interned at the site.

The annual ceremony will honour the people who lost their lives at this during the Great famine which was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852.

A booklet will also be launched called ‘Celebrating our Place Dunshaughlin & Culmullen’ which arose from interactions between Dunshaughlin and District Historical society and Heritage Keepers in Galway.

Heritage Keepers is an organisation which holds a series of online workshops to introduce participants to the variety of resources available to local historical, heritage and environmental groups. Dunshaughlin and District Historical society was chosen to participate in the programme this year and Heritage Keepers provided a grant towards the costs of producing the booklet.

The booklet is intended to be a guide for some of the historical features in Dunshaughlin and it will be a record of a selection of the research undertaken by society members over the past decade.

They will also be launching their Oral History Recording project to gather stories, memories and experiences from members of the community. These informal chats will take place over the coming weeks and those interested should email dunshaughlinhistoricalsociety@gmail.com or ring Pat O'Sullivan 085 8703616, Roisin Blake 086 8412260 or Patricia Lynch 083 3194107.