The FAMINE Lithograph by A. Mac Clure
recalled at
THE OPENING OF THE LIMERICK ATHENAEUM

"The Sword of the Destroying Angel still gleamed in the memory of a stricken people; want and misery eating into the very marrow of their bones; homesteads, abandoned and fields deserted; the graveyard gorged with happy dead; the workhouse choked with intolerable living; and if these horrors were not enough to appal the soul, there was to be heard at every hour the wild heart cry of the emigrant, as it rang through ruined villages, and sounded on the startled ear as a fitting accompaniment to those mournful processions that waded their way to the lonely harbours of a country, which to the superstitious seemed as doomed...

It was while the shadow of that terrible night lay on their souls, that a new impulse was felt in the breasts of Irishmen; a desire to raise a crushed and prostrate people through the agony of a power which has worked miracles in every quarter of the globe; which has changed the condition of man, and even the face of nature, which has converted the savage into the civilised being, and sterility into beauty and abundance; which has been, since the history of the world began, the wonder worker of every succeeding age. A new impulse was felt in the breasts of Irishmen-the Spirit of Industry".

John Francis Maguire MP,
performed the opening ceremony the Limerick Athenaeum
on December 8, 1855

John Francis Maguire MP (1815-1872) was called to the Irish Bar in 1843. He was elected MP for Dungarven in 1852 and was Mayor of Cork in 1853 when he wrote the book "The Industrial Movement in Ireland - as illustrated by the National Exhibition [Cork] of 1852" in which he says that Ireland must develop a sense of self- reliance in order to achieve freedom. He returned to the Athenaeum to promote his book "The Irish in America" in 1868. In 1870, .he supported the Home Government Association founded by Isaac Butt in his newspaper, the Cork Examiner. His popularity is indicated by the number of people, including political enemies, and Queen Victoria who signed a testimonial at his death in 1872.