Over the next few months I’ll complete my tour of misery in Ireland (and hopefully complete my jigsaw). Most of the trips have been far from miserable, but I have sought out tales of suffering, misery and hardship as told through our museums and heritage sites. I’ve traveled thousands of kilometers up, down and across the country to see how sites tell the stories of conflict, starvation, emigration and death.

So far I’ve visited twenty-three counties and I’ve another four counties – Kerry, Clare, Offaly and Fermanagh to visit over the next few weeks.

However, there are five counties where I currently have no sites to see – Cavan, Longford, Leitrim, Armagh and Kildare (and only one site in Clare). I’d like to be able to include all thirty-two counties in the book so if anyone has any suggestions of places to visit in those counties please let me know.

The key criteria is that there has to be some interpretation associated with the site – a memorial, statue or plaque isn’t sufficient (though I do stop by any that I happen to be passing). Ideally, the museum or heritage site should have some connection with the stories that it tells – places such as Wicklow Gaol, the Irish Workhouse Centre in Portumna, the Dunbrody Famine Ship in New Ross where the site is crucial to the visitor experience are ideal, but I’ll go anywhere that tells a story associated with a place rather than a generic story of the famine in Ireland – anything to get that jigsaw finished!

If anyone has suggestions for places I might visit please let me know via here, or twitter (@gillianmobrien) or email: g.p.obrien@ljmu.ac.uk.