The Heritage Center in Skibbereen shares the history and legacy of the Irish potato famine.  The horrors of the experience are what we tend to hear about, but not the political and social aspects.  Government workhouses that delayed payments until people died, and shelters so crammed that each person had less than a square metre of space.  People pawning their clothes so much that much of the death was directly due to freezing rather than starvation. A British government that continued to EXPORT food throughout the famine, and that proudly wrote off their indifference and deliberately inadequate response by declaring it was “God’s wrath” for the “sins” of the Irish people.

In the end, Ireland lost half its population either to death or to emigration, and today’s population is still less than it was before the famine in 1841.  Those who remained were scarred, living in a post-traumatic nightmare trying to rebuild their lives and their country. Music and stories and happiness were lost for decades.  Our host told us that it’s only recently that we understand the genetic impact of generational trauma, and only recently that people have even started to really talk about the famine.  The Joy and openness I’ll talk about soon are real, but they are arising out of a nation-wide and still very-fresh tragedy (compounded by more recent wars and struggles I did learn enough about to write about - only heard very vague references to “the problem” times.)

The crumbling stone buildings we walk past, then, aren’t just great photo ops - they’re evidence of the travesty of losing half their population in the famine, and also the remains of a British colonization that gave land ownership to connected Englishmen while relegating Irish farmers to tiny rental cottages scattered about the land.  Many many more old buildings aren’t crumbling; they are people’s homes, proudly and resolutely maintained and upgraded by families through the generations.  While we were so proud of our “heritage” 1936 home in Vancouver, people here humbly raise their families in buildings from the 18th and 16th and 14th centuries.

Even the castles are real.  The ones we see on Disney and Game of Thrones were and are daily reality here.  A drive along the coast surprises us with cliffside towers and walls.  People are proudly and painstakingly restoring old homes and even castles (read this story about Jeremy Irons’ castle in Kilcoe).  And under the romance of it all is the grim reality that they were built not just to impress but to impress - vast heavy remains of centuries of war and invasion and fear.  As a non-violent Quaker I shudder to think of how much of my most thrilling travel adventure is based on war and colonization and oppression.