The Emmigrants Commemorative Centre

Fáilte – Carna, Connemara

Welcome to The Emigration and Diaspora Centre Project – Carna, Connemara.
This is the story of Connemara and emigration.

The Windy Peninsula...

Carna and Cill Chiaráin (Kilkieran) are on the far West coast of Connemara in the West of Ireland. These two areas comprise the peninsula of Iorras Aithneach – ‘The Windy Peninsula’.

‘The Windy Peninsula’ is renowned for its rich traditions of music, ‘sean-nós’ singing, ‘sean-nós’ dancing, folklore and storytelling. It is a community steeped in seafaring and fishing over the centuries and it has an illustrious tradition of boat building – Galway hookers and sailing boats included. But it was a tough place to live; the land was poor. The infrastructure was bad an there was little means of regular earnings. Emigration was the only option for very many people.

The Emigrants and Diaspora Centre will tell that story

It will be a monument in honour of our emigrants.

It will be a symbolic gathering point for the people of this community and their descendants wherever they may be.

It will portray the changing face of a rural Gaeltacht areas and the effects of emigration.

A blessing for the future

The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh (on right) looks on as Carna Parish Priest, Fr Pádraig Standún, blesses the foundation stone for the Emigrants Commemorative Centre in Carna. September 23rd 2014.

Searching for the past

Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston looks through the old roll books in the Carna Primary School to find the names of his aunts, the Walsh’s of Callowfeenish. On the left, Máire Greene, the School Principal and immediately to her right is Sergeant Winnie Cotter of the Boston Police, the Mayor’s first cousin. Mayor Walsh’s mother, Mary Walsh, a native of Ros Muc, is on the left of the picture.

If those walls could talk

The old building from 1887. It was once a school and later the Carna Parish Hall. It will be blended into the Emigrants Centre.

The Emigrants Commemorative Centre was officially opened on the 12th of May, 2018 by the Mayor of Boston, Martin J. Walsh, alongside the Minister of State at the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in the Irish Government, Joe McHugh, T.D.

This photographs show Mayor Walsh and Minister McHugh jointly cutting the ribbon to officially send the Centre on its way.

This photographs here show Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Minister Joe McHugh jointly performing the cutting of the tape.

The building itself is also shown here – the Emigrants Commemorative Centre as it sets out on a road that will, hopefully, see this area benefit in social, economic and cultural terms as a result of the project.

Address

Emigrants and Diaspora Centre Office
c/o Údarás na Gaeltachta House,
Carna, Connemara,
Co. Galway
Ireland

Contacts

Email: foram@eircom.net
Phone (Secretary):
+353 87 3983189
Phone (Chairman):
+353 87 2515352

Links

Irish Genealogy Toolkit
Irish Genealogy