Strokes Park House is a Palladian villa Strokes, County Roscommon is located on approximately 300 acres (120 hectares). The entrance leads directly from the city Strokes are said to be one of the widest streets in Ireland (along with O’Connell Street, Dublin and Main Street, Temple). The house is open to the public throughout the year, which is the Famine Museum due. [1]
History
The house was the family home of the Cromwellian “adventurers” family – the Pakenham Mahon – from the 1600s until the 1979th
In the early 18th century, the estate comprised over 11,000 acres (4,500 ha), scattered throughout the Northeast Roscommon, put together from the late seventeenth century as a result of land acquisition by Captain Nicholas Mahon around 1660. Later, his grandson, Maurice Mahon, bought several additional countries, after the elevation to the peerage of Ireland as the first Baron Hartland 1800.
Many evictions of poor sharecroppers occurred during the Great Famine.Mahon family alone in 1847 evicted 3,000 people. [2] After the killing of Major Denis Mahon in November 1847, as a direct response to the large-scale deaths of those Stoke Town Estate sent on famine ships to Canada [3] at the height of the famine, his only daughter, Grace Catherine, vowing never to return to his family seat. She was on honeymoon at the time, has been married just weeks earlier, Henry Sandford Pakenham, son Dean Henry Pakenham of Tullynally, and heir to the great Pakenham and Sandford Estates in counties Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. Grace Catherine never returned to the Strokes, but her marriage undoubtedly saved the estate from bankruptcy. On the threshold of starvation, the farm was in debt of over £ 30,000 have arisen as a result of family dispute heritage [4] , and expensive purchases of land that had been collected from the second half of the eighteenth century. [5] The marriage alliance (of which Henry Sandford Pakenham adopted the additional surname Mahon), joined the estates of both families to encompass over 26,000 acres and Strokes property remained one of the largest in Roscommon until his death in 1893. Pakenham wealth also enabled large-scale investments in various property improvements in the Strokes property, including drainage, peat cutting and farming systems, the development of the urban market in the city Strokes. Despite the family’s fortunes improve Stoke Town continued a policy of forced emigration to the United States and land approvals for tenant families. Today Stoke Town property is synonymous with the great famine and include National Irish Famine Museum. The Famine Museum in Strokes Park twinned with, Grosse Ile, Quebec, Canada. [6] Over 5,500 Irish people who emigrated during the famine Ireland are buried in mass graves on Grosse Ile. [7] Since 1979, Strokes Park has been owned by a Roscommon- based company, west Group, which has restored the house and garden with the help of largely original furnishings. 4-acre (1.6 hectare) walled Eden was opened in 1997 by the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, having been faithfully restored to its original glory with the help of support from the ERDF through the large gardens Ireland Restoration Programme and the FAS systems.
Strokes Park House was the setting for TV3’s 2013 documentary, The Big House .
Museum
Strokes park contains some of the best records from the time of famine. [8]The museum was built to the west of the group and all the documents on display in the museum are from the farm. The museum aims to explain the great Irish famine and to draw parallels with the prevalence of hunger in the world today.
References
- Jump up ^ Official website
- Jump up ^ History of Ireland (2008), History of Ireland, Volume 16 (No. 6 (November-December 2008))
- Jump up ^http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10423868%3A0%3A%3A
- Jump up ^http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10423868%3A0%3A%3A
- Jump up ^ History of Ireland , Volume 3, Issue 4th
- Jump up ^ http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/qc/grosseile/index.aspx
- Jump up ^ http://www.strokestownpark.ie/famine-museum
- Jump up ^ S. Hood, “The gates of power and profit in the Strokes, County Roscommon,” the Finn-Einar Elissen and Geir Atle Ersland (ed.), Power, profit and urban land.