irelandparkwall.jpgLast week­end Toronto ded­ic­ated a starkly breath­tak­ing park/memorial to the Irish Fam­ine immig­rants of 1847. Ire­land Park was opened by Mary McAleese, Pres­id­ent of Ire­land and fea­tures a rather strik­ing memorial wall made up of glass bricks com­mem­or­at­ing those who died dur­ing the exodus and also those who died try­ing to help them. The aim of this park is to com­mem­or­ate this his­toric tragedy and also to remind us of sim­ilar events occur today. As the Ire­land Park Found­a­tion states “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.” A good reminder indeed.
mcgowanbook.jpgThere is a wealth of inform­a­tion at the Ire­land Park Foundation’s web­site and I found their his­tory of the fam­ine immig­ra­tion to Toronto to be par­tic­u­larly well writ­ten. One of the authors behind this his­tory Mark McGowan, whose Wan­ing of the Green is recom­men­ded exam­in­a­tion of the Irish Cath­olic exper­i­ence in nine­teenth cen­tury Toronto. He demon­strates rapid and vol­un­tary assim­il­a­tion into a nas­cent Cana­dian cul­ture of Irish immig­rants driven to suc­ceed and prosper in a new land.
This is a very mean­ing­ful addi­tion to Toronto’s park­s­cape and one that con­veys an import­ant mes­sage about the past that is espe­cially applic­able today. This really affirms why we study his­tory.