Remembering the Peter Robinson Settlers of the Ballyhoura Region - 200th Anniversary

SAVE THE DATE: 15th - 21st September 2025

Join us in 2025 as we remember the settler families of Ballyhoura Country who set sail from Cobh in 1825 to Ontario- establishing a new life in what we know today as Peterborough in Canada.

Going from one complex economic and political crisis to another, their stories of resilience and courage survive through their diaspora worldwide. 

• Step back in time and experience the newly commissioned “1825: The Robinson Experiment” with Callback Theatre, premiering for this week long event.
• Connect with the homes of the settlers through Meet and Greets in the settler communities homeland across the Ballyhoura area of North Cork and Limerick.
• Explore, touch and taste the communities of origin through heritage walks, talks and tours
• Listen to traditional Irish Music, Storytelling and dance.
• A magical remembrance concert and hybrid one day conference in Saint George's Arts and Heritage Centre in Mitchelstown.
• Take part in a very special event which will be held to create a forever memorial remembering our settler families and their “roots” in the Ballyhoura region.

If you wish to take part in the commemoration of the Peter Robinson Settlers, or would like to find out more please fill out the below contact form:

Contact Form

May 21 1825 “We the undersigned Clergymen and Magistrates hereby certify that the above named persons who have been selected by Mr. Robinson from the neighbourhood and Mitchelstown and from the borders of the counties of Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, are persons totally unable to pay for their own passage to America and come within the description of persons deemed fit subjects for emigration to Canada, being persons without employment and generally bred to agriculture, and who have lately been dispossessed of their lands……”. – We also beg to add that our best thanks are justly due to Mr. Robinson for his unremitting attention to the selection of proper persons for emigration and his willingness at all times to attend to the suggestions of the Gentlemen in the neighbourhood”.

Find out more about The Peter Robinson Settlers - An Assisted Emigration Programme.