ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE LIGHTING OF THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE CANDLE
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE LIGHTING OF THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE CANDLE AS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE COMMEMORATION CEREMONIES
The Great Irish Famine Event taking place here in Millstreet, Co. Cork, tonight is being held by the Big Issues Social Initiative as a dignified commemoration of all those who died during the Great Famine of 1845-50 and as a tribute to those who succeeded in their terrible journey to the New World. The Famine Village in the grounds of Drishane Castle has been built as a symbolic re-creation of a Famine era village. The walk in which many of you have taken part is one of the many symbolic walks along the famine roads of Ireland.
A ship of the Famine era is moored in Cobh harbour, one of the main ports of departure to the New World. Flowers placed on board by you, the descendants, will be given to the Atlantic waters in a gesture of remembrance to those who died on their terrible journey to escape death by starvation, disease or destitution.
The miserable epic of the Atlantic crossing in these years has been told so often and well that it hardly seems necessary to recount its dreadful details. Flanked by Skibbereen and Grosse Isle at either end of the voyage, the 'coffin ship' stands as the central panel of the famine triptych, depicting bondage and fever in the steerage, wailing children and mother's pleas from the darkness below decks, heartless captains and brutal crews, shipwreck, pestilence, and burial at sea. In its way the memory of the emigrant steerage has long been held as an icon in Ireland's oppression.
In March, 1847, the Cork Examiner noted that 'the emigrants of this year are not like those of former ones : they are now actually running away from fever and disease and hunger, with money scarcely sufficient to passage for and find food for the voyage'.