The Irish Famine Research blog reported that newly appointed Canadian Ambassador to Ireland Kevin Vickers paid tribute to the Grey Nuns of Montreal and Canadian Famine Irish at the launch of the Digital Irish Famine Archive.
The purpose of the Digital Irish Famine Archive is to make accessible eyewitness accounts of the Irish famine migration to Canada in 1847-1848 that would otherwise be unknown. It also pays tribute to those who cared for Irish famine emigrants.
The archive contains the digitized, transcribed, and translated French language annals of the Grey Nuns of Montreal, or Sisters of Charity, who first tended to Irish famine emigrants, especially widows and orphans, in the city’s fever sheds in 1847 and 1848.
It also includes annals from the Sisters of Providence and correspondence from Father Patrick Dowd, who worked alongside the Grey Nuns in the fever sheds, as well as testimonies from Irish famine orphans, like Patrick and Thomas Quinn, Daniel and Catherine Tighe, and Robert Walsh, who were adopted by French-Canadian families.
In a statement, Ambassador Vickers said, “It gives me great pleasure to launch the Digital Irish Famine Archive and Saving the Famine Irish: The Grey Nuns and the Great Hunger exhibit. Both the digital archive and the exhibit commemorate and pay tribute to the Grey Nuns of Montreal and people of French and English Canada, like Bishop Michael Power in Toronto and Dr. John Vondy in Chatham, now Miramichi, New Brunswick, who gave their lives caring for Irish emigrants during the Famine exodus of 1847.
“It is especially fitting that we launch the digital archive on this day, after Montreal’s Irish community has just made its annual pilgrimage to the Black Stone monument, which marks the site of the city’s fever sheds and mass graves for six thousand Irish dead, and before the Irish Famine Summer School begins at the Irish National Famine Museum in Strokestown, County Roscommon.
“The stories contained within the digital archive attest to the selfless devotion of the Grey Nuns in tending to typhus-stricken emigrants and providing homes for Irish orphans. In an age of increasingly desperate acts of migration, their compassion provides a lesson for us all.”
The Digital Irish Famine Archive was first developed by Dr. Jason King at the University of Limerick in 2012. In 2015, he expanded it in partnership with the Moore Institute at the National University of Ireland, Galway; the Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University; the Irish National Famine Museum; the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation; the Ireland Park Foundation; the iNua Partnership; and the Irish Research Council.
When you visit the Irish Famine Archive, be sure to look at the Eyewitness Accounts.
To see a photo of the launch, visit the Irish Famine Research blog here.
