Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum
Ireland's Great Hunger Museum (Irish: Músaem An Ghorta Mhóir) is a museum of the Irish Great Hunger of 1845–1852 located in Hamden, Connecticut. Opened in 2012, the museum is part of Quinnipiac University. Exhibits focus on paintings and sculpture related to the Great Hunger.
The mission of Ireland's Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University is to collect, preserve, exhibit and study its collection of art, artifacts and literature related to the Irish Famine/Great Hunger that occurred from 1845–52. In doing so, it seeks to educate audiences of all ages about the underlying political, social, economic and historic causes of the Great Hunger, and the magnitude of the disaster on Ireland and its people. The museum contains the world's largest collection of Great Hunger-related art by noted contemporary Irish and Irish American artists as well as a number of period paintings by some of Ireland's most important 19th-century artists.
Works by noted contemporary Irish artists are featured in the museum's permanent collection including internationally known sculptors John Behan, Rowan Gillespie and Éamonn O'Doherty; as well as contemporary visual artists, Robert Ballagh, Alanna O'Kelly, Brian Maguire and Hughie O'Donoghue. Featured paintings include several important 19th- and 20th‐century works by artists such as James Brenan, Daniel Macdonald, James Arthur O'Connor and Jack B. Yeats.