Famine Warhouse 1848

How did an ordinary farmhouse near Ballingarry in County Tipperary become the site of a bloody siege and a monument of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848? In July of that famine year, rebels led by the Protestant aristocrat William Smith O'Brien besieged 47 police officers who had barricaded themselves into the McCormack homestead, taking five children hostage; after two of the rebels were killed the rising collapsed, and its leaders were later transported to penal colonies. The Warhouse, as the Widow McCormack's house became known, is now a small OPW museum whose contents illuminate the history of the rebellion, the trials of its leaders, their exile in Australia and escape to the United States, set in the context of the Great Famine and the upheaval that rocked Europe in 1848. Staff guide visitors round the restored house. Entry is free, but the museum opens part time, on weekend afternoons in winter and Wednesday to Sunday in summer, and only by appointment made at least two days ahead by phone.