An Gorta Mor: The Great Hunger

 

"It began as a plant fungus that traveled in a crate of potatoes from America to Belgium in 1843. Within one and one-half years the wind borne blight had converted Ireland's once abundant potato crop in countless acres of black, rotted vegetation, precipitating the worst social disaster of the 19^th century.

Between 1845 and 1850 more than one and one-half million Irish men, women and children died of starvation and disease. By 1855, more than two million Irish citizens had fled the country, most by crowding themselves into “coffin ships”, rickety vessels from which a large number of the sick and emaciated passengers would not leave alive. Fifty years after the start of the famine, more Irish-born people were living in America than in Ireland.

The Great Hunger was protracted by prejudice, ineptitude and gross human indifference.

At that time, Ireland was governed by Great Britain, the world's wealthiest empire, which had the resources to significantly lessen the effects of the crop failure. Instead, the British government, during all the years of the Great Hunger did everything in it's power to export tons of food and livestock out of Ireland. Their taxes and economic policies caused gross shortages of inexpensive food and resulted in the eviction of the already destitute Irish from their rented homes and land.

More than 160 years later, the effects of the Great Hunger are still evident. Millions of the survivors' descendants populate the globe, including over 40 million Americans who claim Irish ancestry.

We, the descendants of all those famine Irish immigrants who rest in this cemetery and in the main part of St. Mary's Cemetery proudly dedicate this memorial in their memory on October 1, 2007. Let us never forget An Gorta Mor."

The above words are inscribed in a 2007 memorial in St. Mary's Cemetery in my town of Milford, Massachusetts. (St. Mary's Cemetery also has the distinction of being the site of the only example of an Irish Round Tower in North America.)  More importantly, however, is the fact that many of the original survivors of the Irish Famine (the Great Hunger or An Gorta Mor) who eventually settled in Milford rest in St. Mary's Cemetery.

The monument was the culmination of almost ten years of hard work by caring Milford residents who recognized the importance of remembering the sacrifice and suffering of the famine victims. Over 1,000 monuments were restored, hundreds more were cleaned, roadways were re-constructed...the list goes on. As the Friends of Old St. Mary's Cemetery eloquently state on the reverse side of the monument, “It is our hope that every Irish immigrant soul that lies in this sacred ground knows how proud we are of them and of the incredible legacy they have passed on to each of us”.