Great Hunger Monuments and Memorial Worldwide

Here is a selected list of monuments and memorials around the world commemorating Ireland's Great Hunger:

The memorial at the Custom House Quay, Dublin

IRELAND

  • Custom House Quay (Dublin). The memorial, titled "Famine" presents a group of famine refugees, cast in bronze, and was sculpted by Rowan Gilespie.
  • Stephen's Green (Dublin). A bronze monument unveiled in 1967.
  • "Famine Commemorative Arboretum(Dublin)
  • Strokestown, County Roscommon. Famine Museum. It has developed a working relationship with the Grosse Ile Memorial in Canada. Their stated purpose is to "create a greater awareness of the horrors of contemporary famine by demonstrating the link between the causes of the Great Irish Famine of the 1840's and the ongoing spectacle of famine in the developing world today."
    Coutesy of Kieran McAuliffe
    The memorial in Newmarket, Co. Cork.
  • Newmarket, County Cork. Not all famine memorials are elaborate monuments in large cities. East of Tralee in the north of Co. Cork, Newmarket is the ancestral home of the McAuliffe clan. While visiting the old clan territory Kieran McAuliffe of Toronto, Canada stumbled on this obscure famine memorial while searching the local cemetery for family stones. Kieran was kind enough to send on two photos of this simple, yet moving memorial. To see a close up of the plaque click HERE.

    Kieran is the author and illustrator of John Wilkes Booth Escape Route. Click on the title to buy it.

  • New Ross, County Wexford. A full scale, sea-going replica of a famine ship the "Dunbrody" and an interpretive museum, both on the Quay.
  • Ennistymon, County Clare. Monument sited opposite the Ennistymon Workhouse. As you pass between Lahinch and Ennistymon on the Ennis Road in County Clare, you may notice a small turnoff with a headstone and a touching remembrance dedicated to those who suffered and died during Tha Shein Ukrosh (indeed, the hunger).
  • Swinford, County Mayo.
  • Cappaghmore, County Limerick.
  • Belfast. Famine Memorial Window in City Hall.
  • Doolough, County Mayo. Stunning monument surrounded by mountains, placed where famine victims perished while attempting to seek aid from Delphi Lodge.
    The skeleton riggings on John Behan's Famine ship at Murrisk.

  • Murrisk, County Mayo. One of the most shocking memorials, a bronze sculpture of a famine ship located at the foot of Croagh Patrick. Unveiled by then-Irish President Mary Robinson in 1996. The ship's rigging is actually composed of skeletal, phantom-like, famine refugees. This sculpture was designed by Dublin-born sculptor John Behan.

    UNITED STATES:

  • New York City (Lower Manhattan). New memorial featuring a recreated desolate Mayo landscape in Battery Park City.
  • New York (United Nations -- midtown). Sculture designed by John Behantitled "Arrival," a gift to the United Nations on behalf of the Irish nation.
  • Philadelphia. (Unveiling in September). Sculpted by Glenna Goodacre, the artist who sculpted the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C. The monument will measure 22 feet long by 12 feet wide and 12 feet high, and will include 35 life-sized figures.
    Chicago's memorial in Gaelic Park.
  • Chicago. Gaelic Park.
  • Ardsley, N.Y. V.E. Macy Park. Sculpted by Eamonn O'Doherty, commissioned by Westchester County, unveiled June 2001. See Catholic New York feature "Great Hunger Memorial, Unveiled in Westchester, Is a Call to Compassion."
  • Boston. Monument downtown on the "Freedom Trail."
  • Rhode Island. Fund-raising underway for a memorial on the grounds of Heritage Harbor museum in Providence.

    GREAT BRITAIN

  • Liverpool. Monument at Hardman St. More than a million Irish arrived in Liverpool during the Great Hunger, many moved on to America and other places, but many settled there as well. Some who stayed did not do so by choice. In 1847 alone, more than 7,000 paupers were buried in mass graves in there.
  • Carfin, Scotland. Unveiled by Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at Carfin Grotto, outside Glasgow. Postponed from February, when local officials warned that it should not be done on the same day as the Celtic vs. Rangers football game, owing to the frequent outbreaks of sectarian violence after those games.
  • Cardiff, Wales. Celtic Cross, Cathays Cemetery, site donated by Cardiff City and County Council.

    AUSTRALIA

  • Sydney. Sydney Irish Famine Memorial, which emphasizes Irish women who emigrated.
  • Melbourne. The monument reads: "In memory of one million people who died in Ireland during the Great Hunger of 1845-52. In praise of tens of thousands of dispossessed Irish who sailed to Hobson's Bay to build a new life. In sorrow for the dispossession of the Bunurong and Woiworung people but in a spirit of reconciliation. In solidarity with all those who suffer hunger today."

    CANADA

    Celtic Cross moument in Kingston, Ontario.
  • Grosse Ile, Quebec. An enormous Celtic Cross sits on the high ground, an eye-catching symbol to every ship that sails the St. Lawrence River. The entire island has been designated a National Historic Site by the Canadian government. (Editor's Note: No one place on Earth experienced more misery in 1847 due to the Famine than did the quarantine station here.
  • Kingston, Ontario. At least 1,400 Irish emigrants, many who just survived Grosse Ile, died here and were buried in a mass grave on the grounds of Kingston General Hospital. ACeltic Cross was erected by the Kingston Irish Famine Commemoration Association at Ontario and West Streets on May 22, 1998.

    There are surely dozens, if not hundreds more monuments and memorials, large and small, around the Diaspora that we are unaware of. We at WGT salute all who have taken a hand assisted in ensuring that The Great Hunger will never be forgotten.

    Researched and written by Kieron Punch and Joseph Gannon.


    More From WGT on The Great Hunger:

  • New York Dedicates Famine Memorial
  • An Ghorta Mor -- Crossroads of A People
  • Grosse Ile, Quebec -- Journey of Hope, Island of Death

    Related Site: 

  • Jeanie Johnston Project (a recreation of a 19th-century Irish emigr...
  • The Great Irish Famine curriculum from the Nebraska Department of E...
  • An end to world hunger: Hope for the future

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Tags: An, Gorta, Mor

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