Photos

Not a great photo; it was taken through a window, but hopefully insightful. This monument is located on the Ennis Road in County Clare between Lahinch and Ennistymon. It’s a memorial to those who suffered terribly during Tha Shein Ukrosh and was the first monument in all of Ireland dedicated to honor the famine victims, particularly the children lost during those terrible years. It’s officially called the Great Hunger Memorial (An Gorta Mor Memorial), dedicated on August 20, 1995, the 150th anniversary of the beginning of that period. It’s located across from a deserted workhouse and mass grave on the Lahinch Road. It was erected by a combined effort of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Board of Erin, Board of America and the Clare County Council. It was created by Alan Ryan Hall from Valencia Island, Co. Kerry, depicting an account found in Book Four of the archived papers of the workhouse, now preserved in the Ennistymon Library. The account revolves around a note that was pinned to the torn shirt of a barefoot orphan boy abandoned at the workhouse door on the freezing morning of Feb. 25, 1848. The note, now engraved (seen as the gold inscription on the panel to the left), reads: “Gentlemen, There is a little boy named Michael Rice of Lahinch aged about four years. He is an orphan, his father having died last year and his mother has expired on last Wednesday night, who is now about being buried without a coffin. Unless ye make some provision for such. The child in question is now at the Workhouse Gate expecting to be admitted, if not it will starve. Robs. S. Constable. One side of the memorial depicts the child standing before the workhouse door, while across is the head of an anguished mother, her two hands clenched in frustration above the sorrowful text of the note.

The Great Famine was caused by a potato blight, an attack by water mold, first visited on Ireland in 1845, part of a widespread crop failure throughout Europe, but a number of factors led to Ireland being particularly afflicted. The potato was not a staple on Irish tables throughout its history, as it is a New World crop. Legend has it that the first potatoes washed ashore in West Ireland in 1588 when a Spanish ship sought refuge after being attacked by the English and stranded by bad weather. History records the year as 1719 when the first potatoes were imported from America, and were grown in Londonderry. In a relatively short period of time, the potato became a significant crop, and up until the blight the Irish population grew from the introduction of various crops, including potatoes, from 5 million to around 8.5 million. Because potatoes are high in vitamin C, being deprived of nutrition also caused scurvy, a crippling condition. Some estimate that as much as 12% of the entire population of Ireland was lost in the early years alone; hundreds of thousands died in subsequent years in the wake of mass evictions by landowners who couldn’t collect rent from their tenants; this practice drove many poor and usually starving farmers into cities and towns where workhouses took in people who were forced to live in appalling conditions. They offered scant food and minimal shelter in exchange for long and tremendously long hours working people on road crews and in public works projects. The death caused by mismanagement and exploitation was a further source of frustration; it’s estimated that as many as 20,000 people perished in the Ennistymon workhouse alone. Many more thousands of people were put on ships bound for distant ports; the ships were often called “coffin ships” because of the appalling death rates. The total mortality from the famine varies widely; over eight million Irish were living prior to 1845, but only four million or so remained by the 20th century. Mass migration (the vast majority of the population was displaced at some point) made record keeping almost impossible. At least two million made their way to other countries during this period. Since many of the victims were children, particularly infants, birth records were often not kept, even by the church. Mass graves were dug for them because they could not be buried in churchyards; these graveyards exist in various parts of Ireland. Relief came from various organizations, much from America, but most help came too little, too late. As such, An Gorta Mor stands as one of the most devastating famines in modern human history, and this touching memorial commemorates the countless victims.