Remembering the Great Hunger

The Committee for the Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims has asked that Irish people at home and abroad observe a minute's silence at 2:00pm on May 28 for victims of the Great Famine. The group believes the 19th-century disaster, in which roughly one million died and more were forced to flee the country, as equally important in Ireland's history as the 1916 Easter Rising. On the designated day the Dublin-based commemoration committee will lead a small procession from the city's Garden of Remembrance to the Famine Sculptures at the docklands. The committee is also lobbying the Government to designate an annual all-Ireland memorial day to the victims of the Famine.

Committee chairman Michael Blanch argues, "Every country remembers disasters in its history, whether it is the Holocaust or America's 9/11 atrocity, and we cannot understand why Ireland doesn't have an annual event".

How about it, can you give up a minute of your time?

Yours in our motto of Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity,
Kathy Sullivan Llera