The world’s largest collection of famine related art, currently on show in Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre, has attracted unprecedented numbers to Skibbereen.

Coming Home: Art and The Great Hunger, on loan from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, constitutes a direct link to the past of almost 6.5 million Irish, and 40 million Irish-American, people. The exhibition, which was seen by more than 58,000 in Dublin Castle, opened in Uillinn in late July and continues there until Saturday, October 13th, before moving to The Glassworks in Derry where it will open early next year.

Ryan Mahoney, Director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac said that they were “honoured to have brought Coming Home: Art and The Great Hunger to Skibbereen. It has always been the goal of Quinnipiac University to bring the collection back to Ireland. To include Skibbereen on the tour, an area that is synonymous with the Great Hunger, was important to all involved with this project.”

More than 18,000 visitors have viewed the exhibition in Skibbereen since it opened. There has been a marked increase in visitors to the West Cork Arts Centre from the US and elsewhere abroad, many of whom travelled specifically to see Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger. 50% of visitors mentioned it as the main reason they had travelled to West Cork, with a high proportion of families, and interest groups making the trip to Skibbereen.

Coming Home: Art and The Great Hunger will come to a close on Saturday, October 13 at 4.45pm and there will be a very special event at Skibbereen Town Hall which will include guest speakers; musician Bob Geldof, art historian Katharine Crouan, artist Dorothy Cross and journalist Mick Foley, hosted by former director of The Crawford Art Gallery, Peter Murray.

More information can be found at westcorkartscentre.com and artandthegreathunger.org