Belfast City Council to develop programme of commemoration for the Famine
Belfast City Council has agreed to develop a programme of commemoration to mark the Irish Famine anniversary next year.
Elected representatives at a committee at City Hall have agreed to an SDLP motion to mark the 180th anniversary of the Famine in 2027, focusing on “the contemporary shared experience of communities, the impact on Belfast, Ulster and the island of Ireland at the time and in the years that followed.”
The commemoration will look at international aspects such as emigration and the role it played here and in the history of other countries, altruistic relief from home and abroad, and aims to “tell the stories of ordinary people whose experiences have been forgotten.”
The motion states: “This will be an opportunity to discover more about our collective history from this period, and in addition will support the council’s bid to host the National Famine Commemoration in Belfast in 2027.”
SDLP Councillor Gary McKeown forwarded the motion, and the decision will have to be ratified by the full council at its November meeting, where it is expected to pass. A report will be returned by council officers with a potential programme of events and activities.
The host town or city for the 2027 National Famine Commemoration has not yet been officially announced, and the decision rests with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and the National Famine Commemoration Committee in Dublin.
Last October Belfast Council showed an expression of interest in hosting the National Famine Commemoration to the Department at the Republic of Ireland government. The commemoration has never been held in Belfast and has only taken place in Northern Ireland once before, at Newry in 2015.
In January 2024 it was revealed a request by Belfast Council to the government of the Irish Republic to host the National Famine Memorial Day 2024 was rejected by Dublin after it emerged only Leinster applications were being accepted – a fact Belfast councillors were unaware of.
At the time SDLP Councillor Carl Whyte described the system of provincial rotation used by the government in the Republic for hosting the Memorial Day as “very annoying.”