Please join us!
On Saturday, August 8th, we will gather at the Irish Famine Memorial on South Front Street and Chestnut Street around noon. After a short ceremony, we will walk to the 2nd Story Brewing Company a block away at the corner of 2nd & Chestnut Streets.
The information below is from the Irish Famine Memorial website. Clicking on “read more” will take you to their website.
Directions
The Irish Memorial is located adjacent to the southeast corner of Front and Chestnut Streets in downtown Philadelphia and is part of the Historic District. Since it is located in an open area, there are no specific hours for visits. However, the best time for doing so would be between dawn and dusk. The park is well illuminated.
Accessibility
The park, including access to the Memorial and the Inormation Stations, is wheelchair accessible.
Parking
There is meter parking on both Front & Chestnut Streets (Pay for parking at Kiosks.) There is also a parking garage located on Front Street, one half block south of Chestnut Street.
GPS
If using GPS to locate the site, use the following address:
100 S. Front St., Philadelphia, PA 19109
__________________________________________
An Gorta Mór – The Great Hunger
Ireland’s Past – A Prelude to Disaster
To fully understand The Great Hunger, its impact on the Irish people, and the resulting diaspora of the Irish nation, it is essential to examine both the history of Ireland and events leading up to the catastrophe. The twelfth century marked the beginning of eight hundred years of English rule and Irish resistance. Throughout the centuries, English laws were enacted to strip the Irish not only of their land, but also of their unique cultural heritage, their customs, language, laws,and religion. These unjust laws punished the Irish simply for being who they were.Read more…
The Potato Blight – Its Origin
The fungus that decimated the potato fields of Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century is well named. Phytopthora infestans, literally “infesting plant destroyer,” can, under the right conditions, reduce the foliage of a field of potatoes into a putrid mass in just a few days. A common disease of potatoes wherever they are grown,the devastating fungus is particularly prevalent in areas where the weather is unusually cool and wet, such as it is in Ireland. Remaining localized during the years where weather conditions were warm and dry,the disease became widespread in the wet years of the mid-1840s. Read more…
An Gorta Mór – Ireland’s Great Hunger
To this day,all over Ireland the landscape bears mute testimony to the events that occurred in the horrific period from 1845 – 1850. Starvation graveyards offer silent tribute to the millions of Irish men,women,and children buried in unmarked mass graves. Thriving villages were replaced by heaps of moss-covered stones. Although historians have not agreed on the numbers who perished,most estimates range between one and three million. Read more…
Starvation
The Great Hunger in Ireland led to the greatest loss of life in western Europe in the 100 years between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. Whole families and villages fell to starvation and accompanying diseases. Cholera, deadly fevers, dysentery, scurvy and typhus swept the population. People died in such great numbers that it was impossible to record all the deaths or to make enough coffins for burials.” Trap coffins,” which were made with a trap door in the bottom, were used for the trip to the cemetery. Once there, the coffin was placed over the grave and the trap door opened to drop the body into it, leaving the coffin ready for the next victim. Read more…
