Major new online resource to be released by UCC as part of 2018's National Famine Commemoration

Next year's National Famine Commemoration will take place on Saturday 12 May in University College Cork (UCC), and will be hosted jointly by UCC and Cork City Council.

University College Cork

The focal point of the 2018 commemoration will be the launch of The Great Irish Famine Online.

Speaking at the official announcement, UCC President Professor Patrick O’Shea said: "The University has supported and invested in research on the Great Irish Famine for over twenty years. The award winning publication The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine* is internationally regarded as the most original and insightful publication on this topic.

“This research continues as reflected in the Famine Online Project led by Mike Murphy, Cartographer, UCC. This flagship collaborative project includes colleagues from the Department of Culture Heritage and the Gaeltacht and Education and Skills. It will result in the creation of a new digital resource of global significance of which all the partners can be immensely proud.”

Outlining the benefits of the initiative, Professor O’Shea said, “The project will make unique information globally available and for free. It will facilitate people across the world to explore and analyse the information pertaining to the famine for each of the 3,000 parishes and 1,600 towns across the entire island of Ireland.  

"The Great Irish Famine Online is a fascinating new resource that will make important contributions to new understandings of our past. This is one of the biggest contributions to Irish famine knowledge, research and education. It will allow people to explore this tragic event like never before, made possible by the use of modern technology”.

*Published 2012. Details.