'We're gutted' - owner of Donegal's iconic Famine Village after fire destroys two thirds of heritage tourist attraction
The owner of the iconic Famine Village on the Isle of Doagh in Inishowen has spoken of how they have been left devastated after a fire destroyed around two thirds of the heritage complex which had become one of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions.
Pat Doherty told the Journal how the fire started at around 3.30pm on Saturday, with the cause of the blaze yet to be determined.
Mr Doherty praised the four fire brigades who battled the fire into the early hours of Sunday morning, and the local community who arrived at Doagh Famine Village with diggers and machinery to assist the operation.
“At least 65% of it is gone, the fire just raged through it,” Mr Doherty said. “The one good thing is we’re lucky no-one was hurt. We’d four fire brigades that were here they got it under control and also saved other houses here, even neighbouring homes because it was a big fire.
"The fire was away at the back, so the Eviction part, the Orange Hall, the Republican Safe House, the part about Travellers, and the local history of Inishowen, that is all gone. And we’d also just got it set up to go into six different languages so everyone could read it in different languages. That was just set up and ready to go, but everything is gone now.”
Mr Doherty said the fire brigade saved what they could, and expressed his own sorrow after a labour of love at witnessing the destruction at his ancestral homestead, which has been developed over the years and became a major tourist attraction year-round with around 30,000 visitors during the summer season and the festive village at Christmas attracting a further 15,000 people every December.
"We’re gutted,” Mr Doherty said. “We’ve been at it since 1997, then over the years we had bits added onto it. The Tourist Board would say we were the last self-sustaining place of its kind. We didn’t need funds, we just survived off what came in at the door. There are very few museums in Ireland that can survive like that. We got a lot of different groups, different religions, backgrounds from Northern Ireland too.
"The tourist attractions in Inishowen would work together. We’ve cruises and busloads of people booked in for this summer and a lot of the buses would come here and they’d stay overnight locally in Inishowen.
"It would take a massive amount of investment to get going again. It’s a big job.”
A routine investigation will now be conducted to determine the cause of the blaze.
Mr Doherty said he wanted to thank the Fire Service, An Garda Síochána and the local community, all of whom rallied to their assistance on Saturday.
“Farmers came in with diggers, slurry tankers, they crossed fields to get here,” Mr Doherty said.
Doagh Famine Village has provided guided tours that have taken hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the world “on a journey through life in Ireland... showing how families learned to survive and adapt as society evolved from the Great Famine in the 1840s to the present day”.