A visual arts exhibition inspired by the Claddagh and the area’s experience of the Famine, originally exhibited in the Galway City Museum, is to be shown in London.
Claddagh 1847-1849- A Famine Graveyard Remembered by Galway artist Edith Pieperhoff opens tomorrow at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith. It will run until September.
The exhibition focuses on a Famine graveyard in the Claddagh. The cemetery contains headstones dating back to the 16th century, but no headstone or any other memorial bears witness to the hundreds of Famine victims who are also buried there.
The only reminder is the Claddagh Church Cemetery Book, which lists, in immaculate handwriting, the hundreds of dead that succumbed to hunger and famine related diseases. The names in the book form the basis of this exhibition and various media are employed to bring the names out of obscurity.
The exhibition was first shown in the city museum last year after Edith had served as its Artist in Residence.
“Edith's ability to look at a difficult part of Irish history and to produce an exhibition as touching as that on the Claddagh was quite astounding,” said museum director Sarah Gillespie. “An exhibition such as this helps to focus the mind on the tragedy suffered by individuals, rather than highlighting the overall statistics.”
Edith Pieperhoff is originally from Germany but has since become an Irish citizen and has lived in Galway since 1985.
