THE GOVERNMENT has announced that a national commemoration day for the Great Famine will be held on an annual basis.
The decision follows the first commemoration day this year, which was a low-key event held in the Custom House on May 25th.
Eamon Ó Cuív, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, yesterday announced that a special committee had been formed to consider the most appropriate arrangements for future national commemorations of the Famine, which struck in successive years starting in the mid-1840s, and which had a devastating effect on the population.
Mr Ó Cuív and the department's Minister of State, John Curran, are to be members of the committee, which also includes senior public servants, distinguished academics, and senior executives from non-Government agencies. It held its inaugural meeting yesterday in the National Library.
The committee includes historians Prof Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, Dr Eamon Phoenix, Dr Margaret McCurtin, and Tim Pat Coogan.
Justin Kilcullen of Trócaire and Brian Hanratty of Gorta are also members, as is Dr Majda Bne Saad from TCD and Michael Blanch of the Committee for the Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims. Another member is retired diplomat Hugh Swift.
Mr Ó Cuív said he did not want to be prescriptive about the work of the committee, which has been asked to serve for an initial two years. However, he did say that there were three main areas that it would examine.
"We are looking at commemorations each year, one in Ireland but perhaps at different venues. The second issue is to have a commemoration somewhere in the world. We are looking at that possibility. The third idea is some kind of major record [a publication or permanent exhibition]."
The event abroad will be co-ordinated in tandem with the Department of Foreign Affairs in cities or locations that have special significance or connections with the Famine and Irish emigration.
No budget has been earmarked for the commemoration. Mr Ó Cuív said it would not involve a "huge sum" of money.
The Minister accepted that this year's event had been small, but said it has never been envisaged to hold a big commemoration like that for the the Easter Rising, which was revived by the Government in 2006. "I do not visualise anything like the 90th anniversary of 1916. It's a different type of event in our history."