This fantastic video tells the story behind the new Kilkenny Famine Experience, which opened recently at MacDonagh Junction Shopping Centre.

The video features unique insights into the project, as well as interviews with centre manager Marion Acreman, and Kerry Tupper, the descendant of a Kilkenny workhouse emigrant. There is also footage from the day of the official opening, when dignitaries, diaspora, historians, genealogists and others came together to honour the memory of 970 Kilkenny victims.

Using accounts recorded in local newspapers articles, minute books from the Board of Guardians and osteo-archaeological analysis of the victims, the Kilkenny Famine Experience offers new insights into the lives of Irish people in the 1840s, one of Ireland’s bleakest periods.

The free audio-visual tour, set on the site of the former Kilkenny Union Workhouse, is now open to the public. Marking the memory of Kilkenny’s 975 famine victims, visitors will be offered new insights into the lives of Irish people in the 1840s. www.kilkennyfamineexperience.com.