Do you have a family story about the Great Irish Famine?
Last Spring I took part in an important and unique event held at Boston College. I was invited to share and record my ancestor’s experience with the Great Famine and their subsequent emigration to America. The Great Famine Roadshow stopped at many cities around the United States and Canada including Philadelphia, New Haven, Boston, Montreal and Toronto. Irish descendants were asked to come and share their family’s stories. The National Famine Museum in Ireland recorded their oral histories and archived them so that they can be shared with others. Listening to the many stories I heard from the Irish descendants in the Boston area, I was filled with a sense of connection to my ancestry, to Irish history and to those descendants around me. I also thought that by sharing the story of my great, great grandparents, I was honoring them and acknowledging their trials. To hear story after story of lives lost, desperate decisions made, and family’s being tore apart forever, was hard enough, but it also awakened me to the enormity of this Irish tragedy. It wasn’t just my family; it was millions of Irish families.
Did you know??
*According to the National Famine Museum, “The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s is now regarded as the single greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe.”
*According to the Great Hunger Museum in Connecticut, “close to 3 million people were lost to the Great Hunger: more than 1 million to death by starvation and related diseases, and more than 2 million to emigration, which continued at high rates through 1921.”
Here is a link to the Great Famine stories collected in Boston: http://greatfaminevoices.ie/boston/
To read more stories from other cities in the United States and Canada go to: http://www.strokestownpark.ie/great-famine-voices-roadshow/
Do you have a family story to tell about the Great Famine? Then the National Famine Museum wants to hear from you! Join the other “voices” and have your family history recorded in the archives.
To contribute a family memory or story online, contact Dr. Jason King at the Irish Heritage Trust: [email protected]
Let’s keep our family history alive!!