05/09/2026
***Did you know that Kilturk, set in County Fermanagh in the show was a real place? *****
If you joined us for this summer at the The Round Room Dublin at the Mansion House, produced by , you'll remember Kilturk, the County Fermanagh setting and home of the McDonaghs and the Buckleys.
When Brian Warfield conceived Celtic Exodus as a musical play - he was very deliberate about where the story should begin. He felt that the devastating impact of the Great Famine on the northern counties of Ireland had too often been overlooked in the wider telling of the Famine story.
Research into the local impact of the Famine found Fermanagh to be the worst affected of the six counties that now make up Northern Ireland and the 10th worst affected of Ireland's 32 counties.
In 1841, Kilturk had a population of 1,097. Around a decade later, just 595 remained: a staggering decline of almost 46%, as hunger, disease, death and emigration transformed communities across Ireland.
Kilturk is near Newtownbutler in County Fermanagh, and is farming townload, in the parish of Galloon, close to Newtownbutler and the shores of Upper Lough Erne.
Not too far away, stands Crom Castle, seat of the Earls of Erne. The present great house had only recently been completed around 1840–41, just a few years before the potato blight arrived in Ireland in 1845. And the more we looked into the records, the more fascinating Brian's choice of Kilturk becomes. Remarkably, the McDonaghs really were living in Galloon (townload of Kilturk) parish during the Famine period. Surviving 1851 census records include Annie McDonagh, daughter of Patrick and Catherine (Kate) McDonagh, in the same parish in which Kilturk lies.
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Photo: Sand Lough, Kilturk West, Looking west from the Killard Road
IrishHistory IrishDiaspora Emigration Newtownbutler
