HERITAGE & HABITAT:THIS YEAR BELATEDLY saw the introduction of a National Famine Commemoration Day in Ireland. For its inaugural year, the event was held in Skibbereen, Co Cork, and incorporated a ceremony at local Abbeystrewery Cemetery, where up to 10,000 Famine victims are buried. In conjunction with this, an overseas commemoration event was held in Canada, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL
Both these events were the first major public deeds undertaken by the newly formed National Famine Commemoration Committee, which was set up by Minister Éamon Ó Cuív in 2008. At the time, he said: “There is nothing else in the history of the Irish people that can be likened to the Great Famine, either for its immediate impact or its legacy. The involvement of this committee will help to ensure that the Famine, its victims and its legacy are not forgotten.” The question is, with close to 160 years to prepare, why did official Ireland take so long to annually commemorate such a national calamity?
There was perhaps a sense that sometime towards the end of the 1990s and into the early noughties, after Ireland marked the 150th anniversary of the Great Hunger, society began to suffer from “Famine fatigue”. An intense period of Famine commemoration over several years marked the 150th anniversary and included dozens of books, services, memorials, plays, TV documentaries, public sculptures, replica ships and a whole raft of new research and study opportunities. As a society, we were making up for lost time. Yet, shortly after, as Ireland entered a new period of economic prosperity, did our past impoverished selves jar with the re-imagining of Ireland Inc as a modern self-sufficient economy? Had we become “Famined-out”?
Outside Ireland, the Famine continues to have resonance and be commemorated in cities and towns from Philadelphia to Perth. Dr Emily Mark-FitzGerald, a lecturer in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy in UCD, is currently writing a book on Famine commemoration, and through her studies catalogued somewhere in the region of 90 public monuments to the Famine worldwide, which have mainly sprung up in the past 12 years. Dr Mark-FitzGerald says it’s difficult to assess whether or not Famine commemoration in Ireland has achieved its objectives. “I’m not sure how you would judge what a ‘success’ in Famine commemoration terms is,” she says. “For some, the objective of the 150th anniversary events was to get an apology from the British government and therefore, in those terms, it can been seen as having a successful outcome. The commemoration itself was widespread and my book looks at surveying public monuments in Ireland, American, Canada, Australia and in the UK.”
One of the more ambitious overseas memorials is situated in New York’s Battery Park, where a 180-year-old cottage from Mayo sits on top of a quarter acre of land. The Irish Hunger Memorial, designed by artist Brian Tolle, cost in the region of $5 million (€3.6 million) and was opened by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002. Since then, Toronto, Sydney and Philadelphia have all added their own memorials.
Yet what took so long? Dr Mark-FitzGerald believes economic circumstance may have had a lot to do with it. “If we look at the Holocaust, in the post-war period there were very few memorials. Most began in the 1970s onwards, when Europe could deal with what had happened, emotionally and economically. It was very much the same with the Famine, in that it took until the 1990s and that decade for events to begin. If we look back, there was little done to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Famine in Ireland. A lot of this was simply due to the economics of the time.”
When Ireland did spend big on Famine era commemorations, it wasn't always so successful. The Jeanie Johnstonwas built as a replica of a ship that travelled between Ireland and the US and Canada from the 1840s onwards. It cost in the region of €14 million, with Kerry Group, Shannon Development and Kerry/Tralee Town Council eventually having to step in and save the project due to financial overspend. Ownership was taken over by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) in 2005 with a view to creating a new visitor attraction on the River Liffey. In 2006, the DDDA appointed River Cruise Ireland to operate the vessel. James Campbell of River Cruise Ireland said at the time: "I took on this project because I felt that there was nothing like it in Ireland offering the same exclusive space, whether for sail-training programmes or for corporate events." And therein lies the problem for many historians and academics, who feel that it is not appropriate for such a project, built to commemorate Irish emigrants forced to leave Ireland due to famine and starvation, to be left in corporate hands.
Emily Mark-FitzGerald says: "I don't find the Jeanie Johnstonas one of the more successful commemoration projects of recent years. I think the objectives of the project from the outset were confusing. These type of living-history projects have a certain life span and very quickly it became apparent that the Jeanie Johnstonwould have to earn its keep. Seeing corporate events on a ship like this – it's difficult to reconcile those events with what it represents historically. Although, even in calling it a Famine ship there are difficulties – the ship it is modelled on is famous for not losing any passengers. The Jeanie Johnston, therefore, is nothing like the coffin ships which many compare it to."
In recent weeks, controversy surrounding the ship has centred on a wages dispute between some of the crew and River Cruise Ireland. Ken Fleming, a union representative who negotiated on behalf of the crew, said in a statement: "The DDDA is a State agency and it would be ironic if a vessel built to commemorate the Famine was itself to be mired in a legal action to secure something as basic as the crew's right to be paid their wages. It would also be embarrassing for the Government and the nation as a whole." A DDDA spokesperson said: "The dispute was with River Cruise Ireland Limited, the company that had operated the Jeanie Johnstonunder contract until October 2008. We were made aware of the claims made by former crew against River Cruise Ireland seeking outstanding payments. We understand from communications received subsequently from River Cruise that the dispute is being resolved and the appropriate amounts owed are being discharged." While the DDDA say the situation has now been resolved, questions arise as to how a wages dispute on a vessel so historically and cultural sensitive as the Jeanie Johnstoncould be allowed to get so public.
PERHAPS THEfuture of Famine commemorations in Ireland lies in more local, community-based affairs, rather than expensive flagship projects with uncertain futures.
When locals in Skibbereen felt in the early 1990s that something needed to be done to remember those who died in their area, they formed a committee, and set about commemorating it for themselves. Volunteers cleaned headstones in local gravestones, cut overgrown grass and hedging, and developed walkways for visitors, while a wrought iron cross was made locally to mark burial spots. An academic was engaged to write the Famine history of the area, and a heritage centre set up to accommodate the numbers of national and overseas visitors travelling to the area to trace their perished ancestry.
“A few of us, mainly the older generation, felt the cemetery wasn’t being kept well,” says Jerry O’Sullivan, secretary of the Skibbereen Famine Commemoration Committee. “The Famine burial ground looked very neglected in appearance. We thought something needed to be done about it.” It was fitting that last month’s inaugural National Famine Commemoration Day was held in the town, where locals have consistently sought to preserve the legacy of the event over the past two decades.
It could serve as template for the rest of the country. “It was tremendous to be selected. We did not look for this event to take place, it came to us,” says Jerry O’Sullivan. “I think the general mood of things in Ireland at the moment is that there is an interest and appreciation in this event again. People feel it should be remembered properly all over the country. Skibbereen isn’t the only place that suffered.”
