The Victim by Rowan Gillespie.
In 2018, Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University will send 50 pieces of art from its acclaimed collection home to Ireland for eight months. The works will go to The Coach House at Dublin Castle and West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen for the exhibition Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger.
This major undertaking aims to strengthen the deep cultural connection between Ireland and its diaspora by showcasing the world’s largest collection of Great Hunger-related art never before exhibited on Irish soil.
Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum Ryan Mahoney said: “The exhibition is coming home for the first time ever. “We’re bringing our collection home to Ireland where it needs to be seen after five years of having it on display here in the US. In that time, we’ve seen tens of thousands of people coming through our doors.”
Many of the works are graphic, depicting the horrors of the Great Famine. Some focus on the plight of those who travelled on coffin ships from Ireland to the US.
The show will be at Dublin Castle from March to June and at the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen from July to October. It will be on display at the Glassworks in Derry from January to March next year.