Skibbereen is situated in west Cork, it's name means 'Little boat harbour' Prior to the plantation of Ireland the McCarthy clan were the main land owners. The river Ilen which runs through the town reaches the sea at Baltimore.

At the height of the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849) in 1847 the body of an unnamed boy, taken for dead, was placed in a coffin in the Town Square and conveyed for burial to the Abbey Cemetery. As he was lowered into the pit, the youth regained consciousness and walked unaided from the grave. It is probable that some 8,000-10,000 Famine victims are buried in the Famine Burial Pits of Abbeystrewery Cemetery.

Skibbereen is also the name of a song about the Famine, and the impact it and the British Government had on the people of Ireland. The song, known as Dear Old Skibbereen, takes the form of a conversation between a father and a son, in which the son asks his father why he fled the land he loved so well. The father relates to his son how the famine ruined his farm in Skibbereen, and killed his wife.

Read the words and listen to the music of Skibbereen.