Ireland Park Irish famine memorial, Toronto Canada

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Ireland Park at Eireann Quay, Toronto
opened by H.E Mary McAleese, President of Ireland.
Ireland Park honours the Irish immigrants who fled during the Famine of 1847 and the 38,000 who arrived in Toronto that summer when the City's population was a mere 20,000. Ireland Park is a bridge that will link two nations and two cities. It is the story of a destitute people overcoming unimaginable hardship and suffering, and speaks to the kindness and generosity of Canadians, which is as consistent today as it was in 1847.

It is a reminder of the trauma of famine, which still exists in many parts of the world today. The failure of a harvest is an act of nature. Starvation is the result of our failure to respond with generosity to those who are hungry in our world today

Ireland Park Foundation is a charitable, non profit organization whose purpose it is to create venues and materials that symbolize the arrival and settlement of the Irish in Canada. Objectives include:
.Commemorate the 1,100 people who lost their lives during this tragic period in Torontos history including both the Irish immigrants and those who died trying to help them.
.Celebrate the contribution of the Irish who went on to make meaningful contributions to Toronto and Canada.
.Create awareness of the economic and cultural contribution of the Irish to Toronto and Canada before, during and after the famine period.
.Re-enforce the Canadian traditions of welcoming waves of immigrants from around the world.
.Provide a strong foundation for the ongoing celebration of Irish heritage and its contribution to Toronto and Canada.
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Premier McGuinty joins President of Ireland Mary McAleese and Toronto Mayor David Miller at the official opening of Ireland Park in Toronto.
[Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP (born July 19, 1955, in Ottawa, Ontario) is a Canadian lawyer and politician and, since October 23, 2003, Premier of Ontario.
He grew up in an Irish Canadian family with nine brothers and sisters, with younger brother David representing the riding of Ottawa South in the Canadian House of Commons since 2003.]
In the summer of 1847 the Toronto Waterfront witnessed one of the greatest human tragedies in the history of the city. Between the months of May and October of that year, over 38,000 Irish Famine emigrants arrived from Ireland at a time when the city's population was just 20,000 people.
Over 1,100 didn't survive

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Irish famine memorial park offers direction for waterfront
Christopher Hume
It's called Ireland Park but don't expect shillelaghs or green beer.
Hidden on the shore of Lake Ontario in the shadow of the Canada Malting Silos, this tiny but monumental space was conceived as a memorial to the thousands of Irish immigrants who came to – and died in – this city.

Despite its rather odd location just east of Bathurst St., the pocket park packs a preternatural punch. The designer, architect Jonathan Kearns, has used a minimum of elements but to maximum effect.
The main feature is Kilkenny limestone, a dark and rugged stone quarried in Ireland. Kearns has incorporated it in slabs, blocks and as large chunks seemingly ripped out of the ground and transplanted here. The result is a remarkable landscape-within-a-landscape.
Surrounded by the ruins of Toronto's industrial past and the hopes of its waterfront future, Ireland Park straddles a number of worlds. Amid the ear-piercing din of the Island Airport – no quiet jets here – and the traffic of the harbour, the sudden advent of sacred space is even more surprising.

The city has done little more than provide the property. The concrete edge along the water remains a mess, the silos have been empty for years. Then, there's the nagging question about the airport across the channel, which Mayor David Miller has failed to close despite years of trying. If anything, with the announcement that Porter Airlines has gained permission to fly to New York, the airport might be enlarged, against the wishes of most Torontonians.
But at Ireland Park, all this fades into the noisy background of our urban chaos. In the deliberately rugged setting of Kearns' space, what matters are issues of life, death and memory.

Perhaps the most engaging aspect of the new facility is the inscribed names of Irish immigrants who died after fleeing the famine of 1847. These names are carved in stone, but on surfaces of rocks placed so close together they can barely be read. In this way, they remain almost out of reach and just beyond easy comprehension.
"We could only find 675 of 1,100 names of those who died," Kearns explains. "The rest may be buried in a mass grave at St. Paul's Church."
For many visitors, the highlight of Ireland Park will be five bronze figures sculpted by Rowan Gillespie, an Irish artist who produced a similar series for a companion park in Ireland. It has seven pieces, two more than Toronto – a reference to those who died after leaving their homeland.

Though they verge on melodrama, Gillespie's figures speak of the apprehension, fear, loneliness and hope experienced by immigrants.
Finally, there's a glass-block tower reminiscent of the nearby silos. As well as connecting the park to its neighbours, the lighthouse-like structure will serve as a beacon, especially at night when lit from within.
"My brother [Robert] and I invented the project about 10 or 11 years ago," says Kearns, a practising architect who arrived here in 1975. "The Irish community in Toronto came up with most of the money, $2.5 million. We're trying to raise another million so we can create an endowment."

The park has clearly galvanized the community, the president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, Premier Dalton McGuinty and several thousand others attended the official unveiling yesterday.
Now let's hope the park will have the same effect on the city, that it will galvanize our no-can-do bureaucrats and dim-bulb councillors into grasping the potential of a revitalized waterfront.
These kinds of projects are exceptions that prove the rule, but in a city beset by its inability to rise above its entrenched habits of mediocrity, only the exceptional will do.

IRELAND'S FAMINE DEAD - TORONTO, 1847
The 675 Irish victims of poverty known by name. Their names will be forever engraved in the limestone at Ireland Park and have been returned to the citizens of Ireland in a commemorative book presented to H.E. President of Ireland, Mary McAleese on the occasion of the opening of Ireland Park, June 21, 2007.
Following is the list of the Irsh who did not make it. It is the foundations intention to continue the search until they have found all the names and space has been left in both the wall and the book to add these names when they are found.

W. Acton
Edward Ahern
Margaret Anderson
David Armstrong
Hugh Atkins
Robert Atkins
John Auldy
Susan Bailey
Henry Barrett
Sally Ann Baxter
Thomas Beaty
William Bell
Margaret Bell
Alexander Berryman
Oliver Berryman
Sarah Ann Biggar
Thomas Biggar
Robert Black
Peter Blake
Thomas Boles
Jane Boles
John Bolster
Francis Booth
Mary Ann Booth
Margaret A Bowman
Andrew Bowman
Marry Brannen
James Brennan
Elisa Brooks
Mary Brophy
Mark Brophy
Oliver Brown
William Brown
John Brown
Sarah Brown
Bridget Bryan
Michael Burke
Mary Burns
Richard Burns
Catherine Burns
Catherine Burns
Mathew Burns
Bridget Burns
Nancy Burns
Thomas Butler
Thomas Cahill
Edgens Calbraith
Rose Calgie
Pat Calgy
Pat Callaghan
Cornelius Callahan
Fanny Campbell
Robert Campbell
Johnston Campbell
David Campbell
Susan Canary
Alice Carey
Elizabeth Carey
Martin Carlow
Joseph Carroll
Thomas Carroll
Julia Carroll
Biddy Carroll
Anne Carroll
Margaret Carroll
Honora Carroll
Bridget Carwady
Pattie Casey
Catherine Casey
Catherine Casiello
Pattie Caskill
George Cass
Bessy Cassady
Rose Cassady
Patrick Cawlor
Joshua Chambers
Rachel Cherry
Rachel Cherry
Pattie Clarke
Biddy Clary
Rose Clifford
James Clifford
John Cochrane
William Coke
Martin Collins
Mary Collins
Bridget Collins
William Collins
Anne Commerford
Mary Commerford
Matthew Conighan
Mary Anne Conn
Margaret Conn
Patrick Connell
Catherine Connell
John Connolly
Mary Connors
James Conolly
Mary Conroy
Anne Conroy
William Conroy
William Cook
William Cooke
John Corcoran
Mary Jane Correy
James Cosgrove
Eliza Costello
James Courtney
Michael Cowan
Jane Cox
Andrew Creagh
Johanna Creagh
Mary Ann Creagh
James Crown
James Cuff
Ann Cugheen
John Cullen
Patrick Cullin
Eliza Cummerford
Pat Cummerford
Martha Cummins
Robert Cunningham
Jane Cunningham
Sarah Cunningham
William Cunningham
Sarah Cunningham
Hugh Cunningham
Hugh Curry
Hugh Curry
Benjamin Deacon
John Deairt
Mary DeLaney
Michael Delaney
William Dempsey
James Dempsey
John Dilworth
Benjamin Dixon
Catherine Doherty
Catherine Doherty
Bridget Doherty
James Donavan
Nelly Donavan
John Donnelly
Francis Donnelly
Michael Doohy
Margaret Doole
Owen Duffy
Mary Duffy
Edward Duffy
Michael Duffy
Sarah Duggan
Anne Dundas
John Dundas
Henry Dundas
John Dunevan
James Dunevan
P. Dunevan
Ann Dunn
Charles Dunwoodie
Arthur Dunwoody
Samuel Dunwoody
James Dunwoody
Anne Dunwoody
William Earl
Margaret Edmonds
James Edmonds
Thomas Edmunds
Robert Edwards
Margaret Elliot
James Elliott
William Evans
William Evans
Mary Fagan
Alexander Fagan
Martin Fallin
Margaret Farrell
Peggy Fitzgibbon
Margaret Flaherty
Michael Flanagan
William Fleming
Infant Fleming
Mary Flemming
Ann Flynn
Mary Foley
Mary Foley
Biddy Foulkin
Frederick Fox
Robert Fox
Frederick Fox
Janet Fox
William Fox
Frederick Fox
Mary Gahan
Ann Galbriath
Mary Gallagher
John Gallagher
William Gallaher
Catherine Galvin
William Garrety
Nicholas Garvin
Judy Gaughan
W. Gaughan
Nelly Gelleghan
Marry Gihory
Paul Gildy
Bridget Gilhooly
William Girvin
John Glass
Michael Gleason
James Gleeson
Mary Gleeson
Mary Glover
James Gogin
John Golaghan
Anne Gorman
Catherine Gorman
Eliza Graham
Ann Graham
William Graham
James Graham
John Grant
George RobGrasett
John Grihim
Patrick Grimes

Thomas Grindale
Mary Hagan
Margaret Hagarty
Mary Hagerty
Joseph Hamilton
Joseph Hamilton
John Hanalan
Patrick Hanalan
Ellen Hanigan
James Hanlan
Pattie Hannan
James Hannery
Archibald Hare
Edward Harkin
Mary Harkins
William Harleton
Eliza Harleton
William Harrison
Judy Hartegan
Biddy Haskins
Richard Hastings
Ellen Haughter
Julia Hayes
Jane Anne Heatby
Eleanor Heather
John Heatley
Thomas Heatly
Thomas Helm
Susan Henry
John Henry
Felix Henry
Joseph Henry
Felix Henry
Margaret Henry
Patrick Henry
Jane Henry
John Hickey
Peter Hickey
Patrick Hickey
Michael Higgins
Michael Higgins
Gess Higgins
Mary Anne Higgins
Betty Higgins
James Higgins
James Hinton
Betty Hirvins
Bridget Hogan
Mary Hogan
Ann Hogan
James Hogan
Ellen Hogan
Charles Hogan
Eliza Hogan
Sarah Holden
B. Howard
Michael Howard
Ellen Howard
Joseph FraHowe
Ellen Hoy
A Widow Hughes
Thomas H. Hunter
Benjamin Hunter
Eliza Bell Hunter
Burgess Hunter
David Alex Hunter
Burn Hutchinson
Betsy Hutchison
Arther M. Hutton
Edward Hyland
Richard Hyland
Margaret Hyland
John Hyland
William Hyland
Patrick Hyland
Richard Hyland
Mary Hyland
Bryan Hyland
Ann Hyland
John Hyland
William Jameson
Daniel Jaucle
William JoJohnston
Neil Johnston
Frederick Jones
Richard Jones
Margaret Joyce
Mary Joyce ( Joice)
Richard Kearney
Martin Kearney
Simon Keeton
Rachael Kelam
Honora Kelly
James Kempston
Catherine Kennedy
Martha Kennedy
Sarah Kennedy
Mary Ann Keogh
John Kerney
John Kilpatrick
Nancy Kilpatrick
Elizabeth Kimpston
John Kinahan
Eliza Kinchin
Thomas King
Ellen King
Paul Kingston
Thomas Kingston
James Kingston
Cherry Kingston
Julia Kinney
Jane Kirkpatrick
Adam Kyle
Jane Lafferty
Thomas Lally
John Lam
W. Lambert
Julia Lane
Martha Lang
Johanna Lannigan
Catharine Lawson
David Leahy
Johannah Leary
Bessy Leary
Patrick Leary
John Leary
Mary Ann Leary
Breden/Br Lee
Margaret Lenneghan
Catherine Lennox
Anne Jane Lettice
Mary Little
Maragaret Little
Roger Longhney
Margaret Lonnery
Ellen Lorer
K.M. Lundegan
David Lynch
Mary Lyons
Flora MacDonald
Judy Machen
Hagar Machen
Mary Machen
Daniel Maddigan
Margaret Magee
Alexander Magee
Ellen Maher
Mary Mahoney
Eliza Mahoney
Anamia Martin
Bartley McAndrew
Thomas McBrien
Ann McCaffery
Anne McCaffery
John McCall
Pattie McCallin
Anne McCallum
Betty McCallum
Eliza Ann McCann
Thomas McCardle
Jane McCausland
Robert McClary
William McClelland
Eliza McClelland
James McCloy
Jane McCloy
James McCloy
Charles McCloy
Pattie McClusky
John McCormick
Mary McCormick
Catherine McCroghan
Luke McCue
Sarah McCurdy
Charles McDermot
Thomas McDonough
Margaret McDougall
John McDowell
Edward McElderry
Mary McGee
Catharine McGee
Elizabeth McGee
Elizabeth McGee
Alexander McGee
W. McGee
Joseph McGill
Nancy McGillvray
John McGinn
Mary McGregor
Nancy McGuire
Samuel McGuire
Nancy McGuire
James McGuirren
Samue McKay
James McKenna
James McKeogh
John McKervie
Jane McKnight
James McKron
Fields McLaughlin
Mary McLean
Mary McLellan
Mary McManus
Patrick McManus
Anne McMurray
Ann McMurray
John McNabb
John McNabb
Mary McNaughton
Michael McNaulty
Flora McQuade
Hugh McTeren
John McTiernan
Catherine Mealey
Pattie Meehen
Brady Melbourne
Jane Mellon
Judy Merideth
John Middleton
Johnston Miller
Bridget Mitchell
Peggy Molloy
Thomas Monaghan
Patrick Monaghan

Martin Monahan
Bridget Monghan
Mary Monghan
Catherine Moone
Susan Morris
Stephen Morris
A.J. Morrison
Will Morrison
Anne Morrison
W. Morton
William Morton
Mary Mowbrey
James Mulholland
Ann Mullen
Ann Mullen
Sarah Mulroney
Patrick Murphy
Biddy Murphy
Catherine Murphy
James Murphy
Patrick Murphy
Benjamin Murray
Ann Murray
Anthony Murray
Mary Ann Murray
Hugh Murray
Mary Murriky
Henry Musgrove
Richard Nash
Mary Neal
Mary Neale
John Needhan
Catherine Nevin
William Newell
James Nisbet
A. Noble
Ellen Noonan
John Nowood
Mary Nunan
Mary O’Brien
Ellen O’Brien
Michael O’Bryan
Pattie O’Bryan
John O’Hara
Catherine O’Hara
Henry O’Hara
Mark O’Hara
Biddy O’Neill
Patrick O’Rieley
Peter Ovens
Thomas Owens
Mary Ann Owens
William Oxley
Mary Padden
Mary Ann Paterson
Mary Ann Paterson
Richard Patten
Maragaret Patterson
James Patton
Michael Patton
Margaret Peterson
Catherine Phair
Lowdon Poke
James Pollock
Robert Porter
Bp. Michael Power
Margaret Power
Mary Prendergest
John Pringle
Edward Purdey
John Purdis
Ann Quinlan
John Raley
Ellen Rawreghan
Catherine Reardon
Sarah Reed
Anne Reel
Jeremiah Regan
David Riley
James Riley
Edward Riley
John Robb
Sarah Robe
James Robey
Matthew Robinson
Catherine Robinson
Ann Robinson
John Roderick
Samuel Rodger
Michael Rodger
Bessy Rorke
Robert Roseman
James Rourke
Catherine Rourke
Harriet Rouse
John Rowe
John Runnigan
Charles Ryan
Catherine Ryan
Stephen Ryan
John Ryan
Mary Ryan
Patrick Ryan
Mary Ryan
James Ryan
John Ryan
Mary Ryan
Mary Ryan
Ann Ryan
Honora Ryan
Mary Ryan
Thomas Ryan
R. Ryan
Pat Ryland
Oliver Sage
Margaret Saple
John Scollard
Martha Scott
Mary Shanaley
Mary Shea
John Sheehan
Honora Sheehan
Michael Sheridan
Larry Sheridan
Edward Sherry
Sarah Jane Sherwood
Mary Shewman
Thomas Sloane
Anne Slocumb
Alice Smith
Eliza Smith
Michael Smith
Robert Smith
Ann Smith
Anne Smith
John Smith
Elizabeth Smith
Eliza Smith
Samuel Smith
Jane Smith
Margaret Smith
Honora Smith
Jane Smith
William Smith
James Smith
James Smith
Nancy Smith
John Smith
Margaret Smith
Rebecca Smith
Samuel Snaith
Sally Stinson
John Stinson
Joseph Stott
Mary Stretch
Mary Stretch
Jane Stroud
Andrew Sullivan
Daniel Sullivan
Steven Sullivan
Mary Sullivan
George Swain
Margaret Sweeny
Martin Tanney
Michael Taughy
Patrick Tehany
Margaret Temple
James Temple
Mary Thomas
John Thompson
Joseph Thompson
Joseph Thompson
John Thompson
Andrew Thompson
Catherine Tobin
John Towney
Marin Townsend
Patrick Tracy
Mary Tracy
Jane Trimble
Eliza Vance
Catherine Vance
Caroline Vance
Ellen Walch
Martin Walker
Thomas Walker
Alexander Walker
Joseph Walker
Mary Wallace
Patrick Wallace
Patrick Wallace
Peggy Wallace
Thomas Wallaron
James Wallis
John Wallis
James Wallis
Ellen Walsh
Mary Walsh
William Walsh
Michael Walsh
John Ward
Elizabeth Ward
William Waugh
Michael White
Mary Jane Whiteside
Arthur Williams
Thomas Williams
John Williamson
John Williamson
Isabella Williamson
James Williamson
Robert Willis
Robert Willis
Robert Willis
John Willis
George Wilson
James Wilson
Mary Wilson
Bejamin Wood
Mary Woods
Mary Woods
Mosgrove
A Child From the Wharf

The Pregnant Woman is sponsored by the Hurley Corporation
Dedicating the sculpture to the generations of Ireland’s immigrant sons and daughters.

For the Irish living under the colonial British crown it was a life of hunger and poverty even at the best of times. The crown terrorist military stole all the land and exported all the food. The potato was all most of the Irish were left with. seed potato to grow as best they could on the rocksoil and hillsides.
When the potato blight came it brought mass starvation to our ancestors. Shown no charity the Irish were forced out of their own homes. When the Irish could not pay the British crown landlords rents, their tiny homes were destroyed, burned and raised to the ground.
Leave Ireland or die.
Mass evictions or "clearances" will forever be associated with the Irish Famine. "It has been estimated that, excluding peaceable surrenders, over a quarter of a million people were evicted between 1849 and 1854. The total number of people who had to leave their holdings in the period is likely to be around half a million and 200,000 small holdings were obliterated"
Under a law imposed in 1847, called the "Gregory Clause", no tenant holding more than a quarter acre of land was eligible for public assistance. To become eligible, the tenant had to surrender his holding to his landlord. Some tenants sent their children to the workhouse as orphans so they could keep their land and still have their children fed.
Other tenants surrendered their land, but tried to remain living in the house, however, landlords would not tolerate it. "In many thousands of cases estate-clearing landlords and agents used physical force or heavy-handed pressure to bring about the destruction of cabins which they sought."
Many others who sought entrance to the workhouses were required to return to their homes and uproot or level them. Others had their houses burned while they were away in the workhouse.
"When tenants were formally evicted, it was usually the practice of the landlord's bailiffs - his specially hired 'crowbar brigade' - to level or burn the affected dwellings there and then, as soon as the tenants effects had been removed, in the presence of a large party of soldiers or police who were likely to quell any thought of serious resistance."
"These helpless creatures are not only unhoused, but often driven off the land, no one remaining on the lands being allowed to lodge or harbor them. Or they, perhaps, linger about the spot, and frame some temporary shelter out of materials of their old homes against a broken wall, or behind a ditch or fence, or in a bog-hole, places unfit for human habitations .... disease, together with the privations of other kinds which they endure, before long carry them off.

As soon as one horde of houseless and all but naked paupers are dead, or provided for in the workhouse, another wholesale eviction doubles the number, who in their turn pass through the same ordeal of wandering from house to house, or burrowing in bogs or behind ditches, till broken down by privation and exposure to the elements, they seek the workhouse, or die by the roadside."

"There were hoards of poor on the roads every day. The Irish who could gave some little they had to these, a saucer of oatmeal, a handful of potatoes, a drink of milk or a little bottle of sweet-milk to carry away with them. It was not unusual to see a woman with two, three or four children half-naked, come in begging for alms, and often several of these groups in one day, men too. If the men got work they worked for little or nothing and when they were no longer needed they took to the road again. These wandering groups had no homes and no shelter for the night. They slept in the barns of those that had barns on an armful of straw with a sack or sack or some such thing to cover them."

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Ireland Park Irish famine memorial, Toronto Canada

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