Tullig Famine Village

Tullig, from the Irish work Túllaig, meaning a hill. In 1841, the village of Tullig had a population of 269 people and there was 50 houses recorded. It had a bustling fishing and seaweed industry. The Strapa Mór is a difficult cliff path which was used for centuries to transport seaweed from the beach to nearby farms, where it was used as a fertilizer. Another enterprise, towards the end of the 19th Century, was the quarrying of the brown stone blocks from the Tullig cliffs. They were then loaded on a raft on the shore, and, when floated by the tide, were towed to their destination in Ross Bay, where they formed a retaining wall on the raised shore. As boats left Tullig Bay, rowers would have been careful to negotiate the “Custom Gap” between the three rocks at the entrance.  The village of Tullig was completely wiped out by the famine and there are no remains of this once bustling village to be seen. In 1849 the Illustrated London News printed a picture of the then deserted and desolate village.

As part of the initial Heritage Trail, it is not recommended that visitors be encouraged to stop at these ‘Heritage Areas’ as there are a number of existing issues and safety concerns raised during the project site assessment regarding primarily parking and access.  Visitors should only be provided with information as they drive, walk or cycle past the site without stopping. Drive by interpretation may include the use of a website, app, map, audio trail or podcast.

In the short term, it is recommended that adequate parking, signage and interpretation are firstly provided at a specific location on the trail to view the area where the village existed. As the village no longer exists, interpretation of the site must include some visual proposals to give an idea of what the village looked like in the past. One possibility could be a drawing of the old village engraved on Perspex glass, allowing the visitor to place the village on the landscape with their own eyes.

In the medium to long term, it is recommended that consideration could be given to interpretation in the form of reconstructing the famine village to give the visitor a more physical experience.

The following three statements apply to all site recommendations:

• ‘All proposals must comply with all planning, local authority and other statutory requirements.’
• ‘All proposals for development within, adjacent to or with the potential to affect a Natura 2000 site will be subject to an Appropriate Assessment Screening. To ensure that a Habitat Directive Assessment is carried out to assess the likely impacts on Natura 2000 sites in order to comply with Article 6(3) of the Habitat Directive and in accordance with the requirements of the European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations 2011.’
• ‘All projects must be undertaken in accordance with the Wild Atlantic Way Discovery Points Remedial Works Guidelines, including the Ecological Method Statement.’