Strokestown Park
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Strokestown Park House is a
Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
villa in
Strokestown Strokestown ( ga, Béal na mBuillí), also known as Bellanamullia and Bellanamully, is a small town in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is one of the 27 designated Heritage Towns in Ireland. Located in the part of the country marketed for Desti ...
,
County Roscommon "Steadfast Irish heart" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Roscommon.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Connacht , subdi ...
, Ireland, set on about . The house is open to the public, as is the Famine Museum on the grounds.


History

The house was the family home of the
Cromwellian Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in History of England, English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 ...
"adventurer" family - the Mahons - from the 1600s until 1979. By the early 18th century, the estate comprised over , scattered throughout north east
Roscommon Roscommon (; ) is the county town and the largest town in County Roscommon in Ireland. It is roughly in the centre of Ireland, near the meeting of the N60, N61 and N63 roads. The name Roscommon is derived from Coman mac Faelchon who built ...
, put together from the later seventeenth century as a result of land acquisitions by Captain Nicholas Mahon around 1660. Later, his great-grandson, Maurice Mahon, purchased several additional lands, following elevation to the
Peerage of Ireland The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...
as the first
Baron Hartland Baron Hartland, of Strokestown in the County of Roscommon, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 30 July 1800 for Maurice Mahon, who had earlier represented County Roscommon in the Irish House of Commons. He was the son of Th ...
in 1800. Many evictions of poor tenant farmers occurred during the Great Famine. The Mahon family alone in 1847 evicted 3,000 people. After the killing of Major
Denis Mahon Sir John Denis Mahon, (8 November 1910 – 24 April 2011) was a British collector and historian of Italian art. Considered to be one of the few art collectors who was also a respected scholar, he is generally credited, alongside Sacheverel ...
in November 1847, as a direct reaction to the large scale deaths of those sent on famine ships to Canada by the Strokestown estate at the height of the Famine, his only daughter, Grace Catherine, vowed never to return to her ancestral seat. She was on honeymoon at the time, having been married only weeks earlier, to Henry Sandford Pakenham, son of Dean Henry Pakenham of Tullynally, and heir to the vast Pakenham and Sandford estates in counties Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. Grace Catherine never returned to Strokestown, but her marriage undoubtedly saved the estate from bankruptcy. On the eve of the Famine, the estate was in debt with over £30,000 having accrued as a result of family dispute over inheritance and expensive land purchases which had gathered from the second half of the eighteenth century. The marriage alliance (by which Henry Sandford Pakenham assumed the additional surname of Mahon), united the estates of both families to comprise over 26,000 acres, and the Strokestown estate remained one of the largest in Roscommon until his death in 1893. The Pakenham fortune also enabled large scale investment in various estate improvement projects on the Strokestown estate, including drainage, turf cutting and agricultural schemes, development of the urban market in the town of Strokestown. However, despite the family fortunes improving Strokestown continued a policy of assisted emigration to Canada and land clearances of tenant families. Since 1979, Strokestown Park has been owned by a Roscommon-based company, the Westward Group. In 2022 the National Famine Museum and Palladian House were reopened after an extensive renovation process . The whole estate is now cared for and managed by The Irish Heritage Trust a not for profit charity. The walled pleasure garden was officially opened in 1997 by the
President of Ireland The president of Ireland ( ga, Uachtarán na hÉireann) is the head of state of Republic of Ireland, Ireland and the supreme commander of the Defence Forces (Ireland), Irish Defence Forces. The president holds office for seven years, and can ...
,
Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson ( ga, Máire Mhic Róibín; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her electi ...
, having been faithfully restored with the assistance of an ERDF grant through the Great Gardens of Ireland Restoration Programme and a FÁS scheme. Strokestown Park House was the setting for TV3's 2013 documentary, ''The Big House''.


National Famine Museum

Today, the Strokestown estate is synonymous with the Great Famine and includes the National Irish Famine Museum. The museum contains some of the best records from the time of the Famine. The museum was built by the Westward Group and all the documents on display in the museum are from the estate. The exhibit aims to explain the Great Irish Famine and to draw parallels with the occurrence of famine in the world today.Official website
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References


External links


Strokestown Park
- official site {{Castles in Connacht Buildings and structures in County Roscommon Country houses in Ireland Museums in County Roscommon Historic house museums in the Republic of Ireland Palladian architecture in Ireland