There’s an interesting story that comes with this photo. See if you can find out about it, and report back where the photo was taken, and give a glimpse of the interesting tidbit. Send your answer to elliott@brack.net, and list your hometown.
Last week Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill, was one responding to this photo: “This is the Great Hunger Memorial at the Ennistymon Famine Memorial site in County Clare, Ireland. It was the first memorial to An Gorta Mor (the great famine) in Ireland. It was designed by Allan F. Ryan Halls, an artist from Valencia Island, County Kerry. It was built on the grounds of a 19th century workhouse (where an estimated 20,000 Irish people died) and a mass graveyard for children who perished and were buried without coffins.
“One side of the sculpture depicts a child standing before the workhouse door while the other slab shows the head of an anguished mother with two hands clenched in frustration and an 1848 note pleading with work house authorities to let in the 4-year-old orphan boy, Michael Rice, and feed him so he won’t starve. This account is about a note that was pinned to the torn shirt of a barefoot orphan who had been left, in the freezing cold, at the workhouse door on Feb. 25, 1848.
“The note read, “Gentlemen, there is a little boy named Michael Rice of Lahinch aged about four years. He is an orphan, his father having died last year and his mother has expired on last Wednesday night, who is now about being buried without a coffin unless ye make some provision for such. The child in question is now at the workhouse gate expecting to be admitted, if not he will starve.”
“This memorial was dedicated in 1995 to mark the 150th anniversary of the great famine that wiped out about 1 million victims of the island’s great potato crop failure between 1845-1852 which also forced an additional 1 million Irishmen to leave the country. I’m so glad someone sent in this photo because I didn’t know about this memorial and it made me feel like crying.”
Among others commenting on this photo were George Graf, Palmyra, Va.; Stew Ogilvie, Lawrenceville; Stan Burns, Lawrenceville; Allen Peel, San Antonio, Tex.; Lou Camerio, Lilburn; and Sara Rawlins, Lawrenceville. The photo came from John Titus of Peachtree Corners.
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