Free walking tour this month will highlight city’s Irish heritage and new dockside exhibition

A free heritage walking tour will highlight the links between Liverpool and Ireland.

Organised by ArtsGroupie and The Docklands Trail, the hour long walking tour will start at the Pier Head outside The Royal Liver Building and head towards Collingwood Dock.

It will guide walkers past historical sites before finishing at The Docklands Trail at Collingwood Dock – opposite the Titanic Hotel and next door to Everton’s new football ground – to see the new Revealing Trails Exhibition.

The exhibition documents Liverpool’s role in the foundation of the Global Irish Famine Way, an extension of the National Famine Way in Ireland and a network of trails that will connect locations around the world where Irish Famine emigrants settled, including the UK, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Australia.

The first section briefly tells the story of The Walk of the Bronze Shoes. Bronze shoes will mark significant sites, such as mass graves and where emigrants landed, and were cast from a real pair of 19th century children’s shoes found on the Strokestown Estate in Co. Roscommon, Ireland.

The second section of the walking tour considers the resilience of Liverpool’s people through the research and views of contemporary participants, and features collaborative community artworks led by local artists Lydia O’Hara, Tadhg Devlin, Pam Sullivan, and Nicola McGovern.

ArtsGroupie founder and creative director John Maguire says: “The works respond to the Liverpool Irish Famine Trail’s plaque sites, telling rich stories with how people connect with the history, their heritage and how what happened then maintains a connection with what is happening in our world today.”

The exhibition includes art works, artefacts and memories: “Everything you see was created in 2024, though items may have roots and references going back through the generations.”

John, who set up ArtsGroupie CIC in 2019 to promote and provide access to the arts across the region, and to take it onto the streets in the form of walking tours which also reveal more about the city and its history, goes on: “As a working class Liverpudlian from Irish descent I am passionate that more people understand their heritage and remember the important role Liverpool played in helping during the Famine years.

“I wanted to raise awareness of the Revealing Trails exhibition, and the free Docklands Trail that takes walkers to Collingwood Dock with containers that narrate a history of the North Docks and is close to Clarence Dock where Irish refugees came to Liverpool following the great hunger.”

Email ArtsGroupie at artgroupie@outlook.com to reserve a place on the walk which start this Sunday, October 20, at 11am.

The Revealing Trails exhibition at Docklands Trail Containers will be open:

10am-1pm, Wed 9 Oct, Sun 13 Oct, Wed 16 Oct and Sun 27 Oct

10am-5pm, Sun 20 Oct and Sat 26 Oct.

It’s free, but donations are welcome. Find out more HERE.

See what else is on across Liverpool City Region in our Calendar HERE.