Great Famine (Ireland) - Memorials

Memorials

Further information: List of memorials to the Great Famine

The Great Famine is memorialised in many locations throughout Ireland, especially in those regions that suffered the greatest losses, and also in cities overseas with large populations descended from Irish immigrants. These include, at Custom House Quays, Dublin, the thin sculptural figures, by artist Rowan Gillespie, who stand as if walking towards the emigration ships on the Dublin Quayside. There is also a large memorial at the Murrisk Millennium Peace Park at the foot of Croagh Patrick in County Mayo. Among the memorials in the U.S. is the Irish Hunger Memorial near a section of the Manhattan waterfront in New York City, where many fleeing Irish arrived. An annual Great Famine walk, the brainchild of the Irish author/humanitarian, Don Mullan, from Doolough to Louisburgh, Co. Mayo, was inaugurated in 1988 and has been led by such notable personalities as Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The walk, organised by AFrI (Action From Ireland), takes place on the first or second Saturday of May and links the memory of the Great Hunger with a contemporary Human Rights issue. Commemorating the Doolough Tragedy, the walk was covered by the three major US television networks: ABC, NBC and CBS, during its first three years.