An Irishman's Diary

IT’S a truism that survivors of the Famine and their descendants dealt with the trauma, for a century or so afterwards, by trying to forget it. Or, if not forgetting, then at least by never talking about it.

The point was unwittingly illustrated during the recent debate over that sale of a Famine archive by the Adams auction house. Welcoming news that the documents would remain in Ireland, two letter-writers on this page urged the Government to establish a national Famine museum where the collection could be housed. But the fact is that such a museum – complete with even larger archive – already exists, and has done for more than 20 years.

The apparent amnesia about the museum at Strokestown Park House in Roscommon is a rank injustice to the man who founded it, in the process saving the 18th-century mansion from demolition. Jim Callery was an unlikely heritage hero in that – with apologies to second-hand car dealers everywhere – he was a garage owner, whose earlier run-ins with the big-house landlords had little to do with conservation.

When he started out in business 51 years ago, he was a scrap merchant, more or less. “Second-hand car sales was a very respectable profession by comparison,” he recalls, laughing. And although he rose in time to be the head of Westward Garages, with the Irish franchise for Scania trucks, his initial interest in the then-distressed Strokestown House was purely mercenary. He wanted part of the estate to expand his business, whereupon he would sell the rest, to whatever fate awaited it.

Strokestown’s elderly dowager, Olive Pakenham Mahon, had taken a dim view of some of his previous ventures. Even so, she sold him the property in 1979 and thereby saved it. If there was a moment when the former scrap dealer first sensed his new vocation, it may have been while glancing through the mansion’s vast collection of documents and finding a Famine-era petition on behalf of starving tenants in the townland of his birth, Cloonahee.

The letter warned that, although they were a “peaceful people”, violence would be inevitable if relief was not forthcoming. And so it proved. Major Denis Mahon’s treatment of his tenants is still debated. But he was murdered in November 1847, en route from a meeting of the relief committee.

At any rate, Callery decided to go into the heritage business. And with his art historian cousin Luke Dodd playing a lead role, Strokestown opened to the public in 1987 as the only museum of its kind in Ireland or the world. The house itself is now frozen in time, circa 1914: a fateful year for the Anglo-Irish ascendancy (the war would make Olive Pakenham Mahon a widow) and for much of Europe’s old order. The converted former stables house the Famine museum, with the 40,000 documents relating to the former tenantry at its heart.

As the recent archive sale illustrates, auction houses would be only too happy to get their hands on such a collection. And at least until three years ago, the house and lands at Strokestown Park might have been attractive investments too. “We’ve had lots of opportunities to cash the whole lot in,” says Callery. “But for better or worse, we made a very costly business decision and stuck with it.” Having founded a Famine museum when the subject was still being “swept under the carpet”, he might at least have looked forward to receiving credit when, as has happened since, the policy of amnesia was abandoned. In fact, he’s still waiting.

It was bad enough that the first National Famine Commemoration Day was not held in Strokestown, Skibbereen being the venue chosen instead. But the museum “wasn’t even mentioned” in the ceremonies. This is in keeping with a lack of official support.

With poetic resonance, the project has been starved of funding from the outset.

Its founder remains undaunted. Two years ago, after prompting from Dr Terence Dooley of NUI Maynooth, the museum lent its archive to that college, for professional cataloguing and conservation. Maynooth was then establishing an Archive and Research Centre at Castletown House, and Callery and his wife Adeline subsequently provided an endowment for the employment of an archivist.

Opening the centre in late 2008, President Mary McAleese called it a “national treasure trove”. And this was apt coming from her, because the Strokestown documents record the case of her ancestor, Mary Lenaghan, one of a group given Famine relief in 1846.

Dr Dooley would now naturally like to see the recently-sold archive added to the trove, facilitating future exhibitions “at Castletown, Strokestown Park, and museums and interpretive centres in the localities from where [the material] originated”. Not surprisingly, he has also become an enthusiast for the cause of Strokestown Park House itself which “tells a story of international resonance and has the potential . . . to become one of the leading tourist attractions in Ireland”.

For people to know it exists, and to stop calling on the Government to set up a national Famine museum, would be a start. But whatever happens, nobody can dispute Jim Callery's entitlement to a proud boast, which is also a statement of fact. "We arethe National Famine Museum," he says. Letter writers please note.

• fmcnally@irishtimes.com