The Tree Sentinels – Famine Memorial

History Of The Tree Sentinels

When Ann Shaw walked around South Reen Farm with Susan O’Toole, she explained to Susan the horror that had occurred on the land underneath their feet and the desolation that was left behind.

Learn More

The Letter To The Duke Of Wellington

Written in 1846 to Duke of Wellington from Nicholas Marshall Cummins describing the devastation at South Reen, the first account of the Potatoe Famine in Ireland to be published in England.

Visit Skibbereen Heritage Center

Skibbereen Heritage centre has two primary exhibitions, one on The great Famine and one on Loch Hyne, it also has a genealogy service having created a database of over 350,000 genealogy records.

About The Book

Poems and Drawings in Memory of the Great Hunger in Ireland

Susan O’Toole has again been moved by the plight of the long-departed residents of South Reen and the hardship they endured. Having put up a memorial to the residents, she now imagines their suffering through poetry and drawings. Remembering those unmourned and breaking the silence that surrounds that time is the string that resonates throughout these poems and drawings.

Foreword

In 2001 my old school friend Ann Shaw bought South Reen Farm, which was adjacent to her home on Blind Harbour. Ann stopped in to tell Mary O’Sullivan, an elderly neighbour whom Ann had known since she was a child forty years earlier, about the purchase. Over a cup of tea, Mary shared a schoolbook she had kept since her childhood.

Sometimes events are too hard to speak of…

About The Author

Susan O'Toole

Artist from West Cork, Ireland.

Susan O’Toole lives in the beautiful countryside of West Cork, Ireland. She appreciates her quiet life in the community with good neighbours and the friendly folk from the local village. She has been creating public art in West Cork for over twenty years.