Tag Archives: National Famine Museum

May 1, 2024 · 8:13 pm

Global Irish Famine Way

The Global Irish Famine Way extends internationally the National Famine Way Ireland and will be the largest heritage trail in the world. It is designed as a physical and digital heritage trail that will for the first time tell the global story of the Great Irish Famine.

The compassionate reception of the Famine Irish around the world has a universal message resonant today and expressed by the trail’s dedication:

“Dedicated to all those who offer hope through compassion and success through opportunity to the stranger on your shore.”

“Tiomnaithe dóibh siúd a thugann dóchas trí thaise agus rath trí dheiseanna a sholáthar don choimhthíoch a thagann chun na tíre.”

Contents

Overview

Purpose

Project Partners

Organisation

Outcomes

Launches: Canada, Ireland, UK

Future Sites

Conferences 2024 and 2027

Appendix I – Historical Background

Appendix II National Famine Way Stages, Walk 20-25 May

Overview

Starting at the National Famine Museum, the National Famine Way is a 165km trail in Ireland that traces the footsteps of 1490 tenants from Strokestown, Roscommon, to Dublin in 1847 during the Great Irish Famine. It was be their last journey on Irish soil and their first on their way to new lives as part of the Irish diaspora.

The Global Irish Famine Way extends the National Famine Way to follow the journeys of all the Irish Famine emigrants around the world, including the UK, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Australia. The Bronze Shoes and access to information that mark the National Famine Way will also mark each significant location on the Global Irish Famine Way.

Purpose

The international extension of the National Famine Way as the Global Irish Famine Way traces the journey of the Irish Famine emigrants around the world with a series of sites marked by Bronze Shoes and QR codes accessing local information and links to the National Famine Way mother website in Ireland. Locations include sites in the UK, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Australia.

The Global Irish Famine Way:

  • creates a physical and digital living history of the Famine Irish as a significant event in the development of the Irish diaspora and in its own right an event of global significance. 
  • imparts a universal story more relevant than ever, a story of human agency in the face of catastrophe and of the compassion the immigrants encountered on their journeys to new futures.
  • promotes public history, public awareness, shared international heritage, local engagement, research, discourses on humanitarian relief, and heritage tourism.
  • To receive a set of Bronze Shoes, local organisations must enter into a legal agreement with an authority for the long-term maintenance of the marker, erect a plinth and install a QR code.  

Project Partners

The Embassy of Ireland, Ottawa, and the National Famine Museum, Strokestown Park (Irish Heritage Trust), County Councils (Roscommon, Longford, Kildare, Westmeath, Meath, Fingal, and Dublin), with academic experts, local community groups, and heritage agencies including Parks Canada and related stakeholders globally.

Organization

Under the aegis of the National Famine Museum of Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland Ottawa, there is an informal leadership group comprising academic and other experts, supported on the ground by a volunteer network of GIFW Local Committees.

Outcomes

Anticipated outcomes include:

  • Enhancing public awareness of the global significance of the Famine and its role in the development of our diaspora.
  • Deepening the links between Ireland, the UK, Canada, the US, South Africa, and Australia and promoting our shared heritage.
  • An opportunity to thank recipient countries, settler and Indigenous, for their compassionate response to the Irish humanitarian disaster and to recognise the heroic efforts of first responders and fundraisers.
  • Recognise that most Irish survived and prospered in their new homes, adding to the rich contribution of previous generations of Irish emigrants.
  • Promote the universal message still relevant today: to the strangers on your shore, offering hope through compassion and success through opportunity.
  • Uniting widespread groups of Irish community activists around a common project.
  • Political outreach to political and community leaders, academics and activists.
  • Promotion of public discourse on responses to humanitarian crises, their causes and solutions.
  • Heritage tourism, linking Famine sites in Ireland to related global locations.

The Voyage of the Bronze Shoes: Launch of the Global Irish Famine Way, Canada:

In collaboration with the Marine Institute of Ireland, the cargo of Bronze Shoes will depart on the RV Celtic Explorer from Galway, arriving at St John’s Newfoundland and Labrador on 8 May.  On 9 May there will be a reception by the Embassy for the crew and members of the Marine Institute, Canadian researchers joining the Celtic Explorer’s research in Canadian waters, those involved in the refit of the Celtic Voyager at St John’s (which has been sold to Nunavut), the Irish community, academics, and VIPs.  On the morning of 10 May, The Bronze Shoes will be carried ceremoniously to St John’s Basilica for a commemorative event and the installation of the first Bronze Shoes. There will be a symposium on the events of 1847 and associated links between Ireland and Canada.

Over the following months, Bronze Shoes will be transported up the St Lawrence to Quebec City for installation at sites including Grosse Île, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, with other possible sites at Middle Island and St John (New Brunswick), and Niagara (Ontario).

    The Famine Walk: Launch of the Global Irish Famine Way, Ireland

    Sunday 19 May is the National Famine Commemoration Day. The Walk with the Bronze Shoes along the National Famine Way will take place 20-25 May concluding in Dublin. The National Famine Museum is collaborating with Country Councils, tourism promotion agencies, performing artists, and local schools to promote the Global Irish Famine Way. For further details see Appendix II.

      Liverpool Irish Festival: Launch of the Global Irish Famine Way, UK

      After arrival in Dublin and temporary display, the Bronze Shoes will be stored until transferred to Clarence Dock Liverpool in October where they will be paraded to the Famine Memorial for installation as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival between 17th and 27th of October.

        Future Launches

        Outreach is ongoing to establish partners to develop sites in Canada, the US, South Africa, and Australia. It is envisaged that each site will develop a local Irish heritage trail.

          Conferences 2024 and 2027

          The Embassy is co-hosting a conference with St Michael’s College at the University of Toronto entitled Canada, Ireland and Transatlantic Colonialism 28-30 May which will reference the Global Irish Famine Way and the broader context of the Famine in Ireland within the colonial framework.

          Plans are underway for a major conference in 2027 (180th anniversary) hosted by the National Famine Museum of those involved in the Global Irish Famine Way.  

            Eamonn McKee

            Ambassador of Ireland

            Ottawa

            1 May 2024

            Appendix I – Historical Background

            The National Famine Way is a marked heritage trail from Strokestown to Dublin that follows the 1847 journey of 1490 tenants and family members from the estate there on their way to Canada, via Liverpool, in an emigration scheme sponsored by their landlord Denis Mahon (assassinated the following November). The trail is marked along its 165km route by over thirty bronze shoes cast from a pair found bound together and hidden in the thatched roof of a 19th cottage.

            The Strokestown tenants were part of almost 100,000 people who fled the Irish Famine to Canada in 1847.  Upwards of 20% died during this exodus. Over 8,000 died on the voyage.  In Canada, malnourished and stricken with typhus and other diseases, they died in numbers on landing. The two main burial sites were the quarantine station at Grosse Île (5,400 remains) and at Blackrock Montreal (6,000[1]).  Other burial sites are located at Toronto and Kingston (around 1,000 each); Partridge Island (601), Alms House Saint John (595) and Middle Island (96) both in New Brunswick[2]; Ottawa (360[3]); Cornwall (50) and elsewhere, some sites lost to memory.

            Recent research by Prof Mark McGowan, not yet publicly available, indicates that over 70 Canadians died assisting the Irish on their arrival from disease contracted from the Irish.  New research also details fundraising by Indigenous nations and bands to offer relief. Acknowledging these outstanding examples of compassion forms an important dimension to the Global Irish Famine Way.

            In Britain, while Liverpool was a major embarkation point for Famine emigrants heading across the Atlantic, the city and its hinterland also attracted Famine emigrant settlement. According to census returns for 1851, the Irish-born population of Lancashire doubled over the previous decade to 191,000, or 10% of the population while the Irish-born population of Liverpool itself rose to 22%.

            In the US, half of all immigrants were Irish in the 1840s. It has been estimated that upwards of two million Irish emigrated to the US between 1845 and 1855, almost a quarter of Ireland’s population. Some 7000 famine emigrants were interred at the Staten Island Quarantine Station, New York, in 1847 alone. A simple monument marks the remains of a common grave for those who died on Staten Island, estimated to be in the thousands but many buried in haste without records. By 1855, one-third of New Yorkers were Irish-born. The Irish Hunger Memorial is located at Battery Park City, Manhattan. There is an Irish Famine Memorial in Boston, a major entry point for Famine emigrants, as well as Philadelphia.

            Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary, established the Pauper Immigration Scheme to relieve pressures on Irish workhouses during the Famine and labour shortages and gender imbalances in the colonies. The first ship, appropriately called the Earl Grey, departed on 3 June 1848 and arrived in Sydney on 6 October. 1848 and 1850, ships carried over 4114 orphan girls from every country in Ireland to Australia, landing in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne (Port Philip).

            The website for the Irish Famine Memorial Sydney reads: ‘The memorial to the Great Irish Famine and the young women who came from the workhouses of Ireland to Australia between 1848 and 1850 on a special emigration scheme is the vision of the Irish community in Sydney. The Irish Famine Monument was commissioned by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (HHT) [name changed to Sydney Living Museums in 2014] and funded by donations from Government bodies, the Land Titles Office and the Irish Community. It was inspired by the call of the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson during her Sydney visit in 1995, that all Irish communities remember the Irish Famine and strive to alieviate poverty in the world today.’  The monument was supported by the Emigrant Support Programme.

            The Famine Rock, Melbourne reads:  ‘Erected by public subscription and unveiled on 6 December 1998 by His Excellency, Richard O`Brien, Ambassador of Ireland, in the presence of Councillor Brad Matheson, Mayor on the 150th anniversary of the arrival in Hobson`s Bay of 191 Irish orphan girls on the Lady Kennaway – Melbourne Irish Famine Commemoration Group.’

            According to research carried out by Dr Ciarán Reilly at NUI Maynooth, 61 young women were sent from Wexford to Cape Town in South Africa, 20 of whom departed in May 1849. He writes ‘The success of this little-known scheme was helped by the fact that there were a number of Irish priests in Cape Town, including the Reverend Arthur McCarthy from County Wexford, who received the Wexford girls and secured employment for them, ensuring that they did not fall victim to the vices of the city.’ (Irish Independent, 5 June 2020).

            Eamonn McKee

            Ambassador of Ireland

            Ottawa

            Appendix II National Famine Way Stages, Walk 20-25 May

            May 2024
            DAY 1DAY 2DAY 3DAY 4DAY 5DAY 6
            DATE20 th May – Mon21 st May – Tues22 nd May – Weds23 rd May – Thurs24 th May – Fri25 th May – Sat
            START / FINISHStrokestown – ClondraClondra – AbbeyshruleAbbeyshrule – MullingarMullingar – LongwoodLongwood – MaynoothMaynooth – Dublin
            DISTANCE20 km32.6 km27.3 km30.3 km28.75 km27 km
            TIME9 am – 4.30 pm9.00 am – 5.00 pm9 am – 4.30 pm9.00 am – 5.00 pm9.00 am – 5.00 pm9.30 am – 4.00 pm

            [1] An estimate based on contemporaneous accounts but subject to confirmation.

            [2] William Spray records the following: Deaths at sea 823; Miramichi 96; Alms House at St John 595; Partridge Island 601.  Total in 1847 2,115, not including Fredericton and St. Andrew’s.

            [3] 314 deaths reported by the Bytown Emigrant Agent, from June to August, 1847, as published in the Bytown Packet, September 4, 1847, with an additional 46 deaths recorded by the Bytown Emigrant Hospital from September to December 1847, according the archives of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa.

            Leave a comment

            Filed under Canada, Ireland, Irish America, Irish Heritage of Canada, Uncategorized

            Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

            April 12, 2024 · 3:12 pm

            Gratitude Event at the Irish Residence

            Remarks in Honour of Indigenous Famine Relief, 1847

            11 April 2024

            H.E. Eamonn McKee, Ambassador of Ireland

            Fáilte roimh, bienvenue, welcome, biindigen!  Distinguished visitors, guests, friends.

            I want to begin by formally thanking the representatives of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Wendat nations who gave us aid in the worst year of the long history of the Irish, 1847. They saw our refugees arrive on these shores and river banks, stricken and starving. They collected food for those already here.  They collected money to send to Ireland.  That act of compassion, of agency in the face a catastrophe that had befallen another people, shines out from the pages of history.  Go raibh míle maith agaibh! Thank you! Merci! Kitchi Megwitch.

            That page in our shared history would have remained closed were it not for the story keepers and on this occasion the story finders.  I want to acknowledge Jason King, historian at the National Famine Museum and Professor Mark McGowan for not only finding this story but for promoting it. Their efforts have shone a light on this page of history and led this event and other events of gratitude and commemoration for the historic support of our Indigenous friends.

            I want to acknowledge Jason King, the Museum and the Irish Heritage Trust for inspiring these events. I want to sincerely thank the team at the Embassy, particularly Anna McCready, for organising this event at the Residence.  She’s done a magnificent job.

            Thank you to Ross Davison for his wonderful music on the Uilleann pipes and to Two-Spirit David Charette for his powerful singing and drumming.

            As always, to Anishinaabe Elder and Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, Claudette Commanda, your land acknowledgement and words were beautiful and inspiring.

            In gratitude and commemoration, we are planting a copse of River Birch here at the Irish Residence. We could not think of a more appropriate symbol of thanks for this occasion. It is a native species, one used often to sustain lndigenous life, like the birch bark and resin used to make the emblematic canoe. The gardener, Ian Lawford, who planted the first one told me that by the time he had begun to plant the second tree, a small bird had landed on the first one to watch him.  I like to think this was a good omen. I want to thank Ian and his team for the great job that Urban Tree Works have done.  We look forward to seeing this copse grow in the years to come, just as we look forward to the growth of our relationship with our Indigenous friends.

            In May, we are launching the Global Irish Famine Way.  It is a heritage trail that will mark the passage of Irish famine emigrants in Britain and Canada, and later in the US, South Africa and Australia, even as far as Tasmania. With QR codes, it will be both a physical and a digital telling of this story, one of agency and resilience in the face of catastrophe, in the main man-made.

            Each location will have a set of Bronze Shoes, cast from a pair found in the thatched roof of a 19th century cottage in Ireland. They were bound together and hidden as if to say that though we may depart, we remain bound to our home.

            One plinth will mark the grave of some 300 Irish famine refugees who died here in Ottawa and lie somewhere in Macdonald Gardens Park.  Ottawa City Council will vote on a very strong motion of support for this on 1 May.

            We also plan to put a plinth and Bronze Shoes here in this Birch copse to tell the story of the help we got from our Indigenous friends and allies. 

            The Global Irish Famine Way will be dedicated to all those who gave hope through compassion and success through opportunity to the strangers on their shores.

            To me, this sums up the philosophy of the Indigenous, demonstrated not just in 1847 but throughout history and sustained to this day.

            Thank you.

            Go raibh míle maith agaibh. Kitchi megwetch

            Embassy of Ireland

            Ottawa

            2 Comments

            Filed under Uncategorized

            Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

            June 25, 2023 · 6:04 pm

            Colonial Twins: Ireland, Canada, and the Great Irish Famine

            Address to the Famine Summer School at Strokestown Park House, 24 June 2023

            Four Propositions

            First, that the Ireland, England’s first island colony, played a key role in the development of its first continental colony, North America, and its later colonies in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and elsewhere.  That role continued in British North America even more forcefully during and after the American Revolution.

            • Anglo-Irish from late 1700s (Guy and Thomas Carlton, John Parr, Walter Patterson, George Hamilton and his brothers, John Caldwell, Richard Bulkeley et al) to the Three Governor Generals (Monck, Young and Blackwood) before, during and after Canadian Confederation.  Wellington played a decisive role in the development of Canada after 1812 with his project which I call ‘Fortress Canada’.
            • Irish Protestant tenant farmers leaving Ireland after 1800, notably from Ulster and Wicklow/Wexford.
            • Irish Catholic tenant farmers, soldiers, and labourers, drawn by opportunities in the building of canals, jobs in the lumber industry, and the prospect of land owning.
            • Middle class Influencers: Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Nicolas Flood Davin, Ogle and James Robert Gowan, George Arthur French, explorers, missionaries, educators, journalists, and leading business figures.

            Second, that local national government is a key factor in social and economic success and destiny. Conversely, its absence is a key determinant.  Ireland and its capital city prospered in the 18th century with a strong (Protestant but indigenous) Parliament.  Both collapsed into extreme poverty, urban decay, and economic malaise in the 19th century (Belfast excepted).  The abolition of the Irish parliament in 1800 combined with the nature of Britain’s direct rule, are the key determining factors influencing the development of Ireland socially, economically, culturally, politically and demographically.  The origins of the Famine and the authorities’ response to it lies in the Act of Union of 1800.  The abolition of the national government and its role in the Famine does not feature as it deserves to in the historical narrative.  The Anglo-Irish Ascendancy that agreed to the abolition of their parliament signed their own death warrant by handing power to London (e.g. the Encumbered Estates Act).  The fate of Denis Mahon perfectly illustrates that the fate of the Anglo-Irish when disempowered in the face of a great calamity.

            Third, that Canada was the future that Ireland never had: The Rising of 1916, the executions, the War of Independence and partition dramatically shifted the paradigm from the consensus of Irish nationalism that reigned from 1870 and earlier.  What the Fenians failed to achieve in 1848, 1866, 1867, and 1870, they achieved spectacularly with the Rising, against the backdrop of fifty years of refusal by London to grant Home Rule.  The official narrative of the new nation state offered no room for the role of the Irish of the Empire, nor even of Redmond’s National Volunteers, ten thousand of whom fought and died in WWI to validate Ireland’s claim to nationhood.  It also therefore obliterated three centuries of Irish involvement in Canada.

            The outcome in terms of public history has been to generate a misleading narrative of rebellious nationalists – read Catholics – and loyal unionists.  In fact, the historical record suggests that reversing the polarity would be a more accurate reading.  This has implications for all-Ireland reconciliation and greater mutual understanding.

            Fourth, that Irish settlement overseas is the product primarily of colonialism not immigration, though immigration takes place of course, the search for economic opportunities abroad.  However, colonialism provides the only coherent narrative for the Irish abroad over three centuries.

            Transatlantic colonialism is also necessary to understanding the creation of the North Atlantic axis between Western Europe and North America, and indeed the fate of the Indigenous of the Americas.  This relationship has been globally consequential: victory in two world wars, the Cold War and now reshaping global geopolitics. 

            Ireland and Canada wrested our destinies into our hands in 1867 and 1922. Had we done so more contemporaneously our bilateral relationship would have been very different. With this new autonomy, new official narratives were required about what we stood for in terms of values and ambitions.  In the early formative period, this rendered inconvenient the degree to which Ireland was involved in the Empire: 30% of the British Army in the 19th century, 70% of Wellington’s Peninsular Army, innumerable administrative positions, and participation in settler projects. 

            However in recent decades, just as Canada has wrestled with the colonial impact on the Indigenous, Ireland has begun to recover the complexity of its past, and the many strands of Irish identity that have varied by social position and over time. I have often said that Yeats’ line about 1916 as a terrible beauty is born, is really the birth of a terrible simplicity. Our history is complicated as is our role overseas. Not for nothing is this motto of our project Fifty Irish Lives in Canada 1632-2016: “It’s complicated!”

            The Famine in Canada and Ireland:

            In 1847, Canada learned the lesson of not controlling its immigration laws.  For many Irish in Canada, the Famine has created a false origin story.  As Prof Mark McGowan has stressed throughout his research, Irish settlement patterns in Canada were established in the generations before the Famine.

            For Canadians today, we have to remind them of the heroic and compassionate story of their response to the arrival of Famine refugees.  Their assistance, often at the cost of their own lives, is a universal story with a moral lesson about helping the stranger on your shore.

            The Famine created the iron triangle of the farm, the church, and the pub.  The farm had to be passed on to one son intact. Sexuality had to be policed. The Church was there to do that. The pub was the social life of men waiting for their parents to retire so he could inherit the farm, the necessary condition for marriage. The pub was the place you went not to meet someone. The land clearances and consolidation of farms enabled by the Famine generated the strong farming class that dominated the politics of Ireland.  The vacuum of direct rule empowered the Catholic Church not just in its partnership with the strong farming class but in the provision of health and education.  Famine enabled the Catholic Church to rise as the pre-eminent national organization for the mass of the population. That Ireland of the second-half of the 19th century owed so much to the formative influence of the catastrophe of Famine, rendered memorialization problematic until recent years. To remember the Famine was to revive guilt, loss, gain at the expense of the victims and helplessness. Best forgotten because it was too traumatising to remember. 

            It is only in recent decades and the efforts of Jim and Caroilin Callery, and a new generation of historians, that the Famine is taking its rightful place. I would to pay tribute to Jim and Caroilin for what they have achieved here at Strokestown House.  The establishment of the National Famine Museum and the mobilisation of historians like Jason King, Christine Kinealy and Mark McGowan has focused new attention on this seminal event. Their efforts have not only deepened our understanding but altered our perception of the Famine.  It has done so by putting the tenants and the tragic fate of Denis Mahon at the heart of the story, based on the rigorous use of the archives here.  The many creative ways in which this Museum tells this story have influenced both academic and public history. It is a wonderful achievement that has yet to offer much much more.

            We are now graced with the next iteration of the story of Strokestown House and its tenants. Hunger and Hope, The Irish Famine Migration from Strokestown, Roscommon in 1847. The book is a brilliant addition to the history of Famine, edited by Christine Kenealy, Jason King and Mark McGowan. Through great sleuthing and research, they uncover and retrace the journey of the tenants from Roscommon to Canada. The title Hunger and Hope eloquently sums of a human story of trauma and resilience.

            If we are now through post-revisionism grappling with the Famine in our collective understanding, we have yet to approach the role of colonialism in Ireland and the role of the Irish in colonialism.  I would argue that the role of the Act of Union must be considered as a formative event in the unfolding narrative of the Famine and its ramifications, for example. Yet the role of colonialism in Ireland is much wider than the Famine, its ripples reaching to issues of the present day. This deserves analysis and understanding, well worth the dangers of navigating the shoals of counter-factual history. We cannot understand the role of the Irish in Canada over three centuries, nor arguably in many parts of the former British Empire, without the framework provided by colonization in Ireland and transatlantic colonialism. That is a topic for another day.

            Eamonn McKee

            Strokestown House

            24 June 2023

            Leave a comment

            Filed under Anglo-Irish, Canada, Ireland, Irish Heritage of Canada

            Tagged as , , , ,