The official opening of the Strokestown Park House and Famine Museum took place yesterday afternoon when the Tourism Minister Catherine Martin visited the attraction.
Many others involved in the project were also on hand to mark the opening of the centre after several years of working on the project.
Anne Norris was there and spoke to some of the people connected with the project over the past number of years.
She spoke first to Jim Callery of Westward Holdings who first had the idea of the museum after the company bought Strokestown House, and he came across documents there relating to the famine from his own area.
He told her it was far from being an easy purchase at the time given the turn in the economy shortly afterwards.
Paul Kelly is CEO of Failte Ireland which invested millions of euro in the visitor experience.
He spoke about the attractions importance for the future development of tourism across the entire region.
John O’ Driscoll who’s General Manager of Strokestown spoke to Anne about the visitor numbers so far since the initial opening in July of this year, and the other side attractions they hope will keep people coming to the site all year round.
And finally to Tourism Minister Catherine Martin who was brought on a quick tour of the facility when she arrived yesterday.
She described it as a unique centre which tells a very important story from our history.
