Great Irish Hunger memorials in America

A look at the memorials built which pay tribute to and honor the suffering and perseverance of the Irish during the Famine Years.

Thousands suffering in Ireland made the journey across the Atlantic to America, and for those who landed in New York, the southern tip of Manhattan was among their first sights to behold upon arrival. That is the site of the Irish Hunger Memorial, designed by artist Brian Tolle, which contains stones from each of the 32 counties of Ireland in its half-acre. From the western end of the memorial, visitors climb the man-made hill to its peak 25 feet above the Battery Park City sidewalks and are treated to a view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, appropriate given their emblematic significance to the American immigration story.

The eastern end of the memorial is a sloping path that coaxes visitors to follow to a ruined roofless cottage. The cottage, an authentic ruin brought from County Mayo, is a tribute to those who were evicted and others who abandoned their homes in an effort to survive.

Along the base of the elevated memorial and through the center passageway are bands of texts separated by layers of limestone. The limestone, imported from Kilkenny, is more than 300 million years old, containing fossils from the Irish seabed. The text, nearly two miles long, tells the history of the Irish Famine. Illuminated by backlight, the text consists of quotations from autobiographies, letters, oral traditions, songs, reports, poems, recipes and statistics that pertain not only to the Irish Famine but also chronicle epidemics of hunger throughout the world.

Manhattan is also home to a sculpture designed by John Behan titled “Arrival,” which was given to the United Nations by the Irish government. The sculpture depicts a ghostly coffin ship and was unveiled in November 2000. A similar sculpture entitled “Coffin Ship” by the same artist was erected at the foot of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo in 1997.

The Western New York Irish Famine Memorial is located in Buffalo, with views of the old Erie Canal. Dedicated in 1997, the memorial is flanked by 32 boulders, one for each Irish county, that form the outer ring, and standing off center is a massive granite stone from Carraroe, County Galway. Its position represents the Irish Diaspora and it stands surrounded by inscriptions of names of Famine victims.

Massachusetts

Boston is home to two very different structures which honor the memories of Famine victims who flooded into the New England harbors in the 19th century. The Boston Famine Memorial located along the famous Freedom Trail in downtown Boston at the corner of Washington and School Streets, features sculptures of a family of immigrants arriving in Boston and another leaving the shores of Ireland. The figures, with torn clothes and sunken faces, allow visitors a glimpse into artist Robert Shure’s vision of the complexity of that impoverished struggle combined with the determination for a better life.

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Nster.com