Famine Memorial Unveiling

Famine memorial

UNVEILING MAY 16th

A memorial interpretative panel will be unveiled for the Irish Famine Memorial – An Gorta Mór – in Subiaco on May 16, the date for the Annual International Famine Commemoration. The panel will be unveiled by former Subiaco mayors Heather Henderson, and Tony Costa who have both continued to support the memorial, along with the City of Subiaco. The ceremony will include a special dance performance by dancers for the upcoming The Journey Irish dance spectacular which is to be held at the Regal Theatre in Subiaco later this year. Actor Michael Sheehy will perform a piece from his production An Gorta Mór – the great hunger told from the perspective of four central characters of the famine era. Musician Fiona Rea will sing her haunting new song An Gorta Mór dedicated to the young women, their mothers and the memorial. Fred Rea, chairman of the Western Australia Irish Famine Commemoration Inc (WAIFC), said the installation of the interpretative panel represents the completion of the famine memorial. Fred paid tribute to those involved in the project. “The WAIFC would like to thank Denis Burke and Frank Smyth for their continuing support of the memorial, especially the installation of the Interpretive Panel, ‘go raibh míle maith agat a chairde’. Thanks also to Joan and Charlie Smith of Smith Sculptors for their design of the interpretive panel.” The sculptors – originally from Waterford but who now call Gidgegannup home – also designed and created the haunting bronze sculpture that was unveiled in October 2017 by the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins. “This memorial remembers the young Irish women who, from 1853, came to Western Australia from Irish workhouses following the Great Hunger of 1847 – 1850,” added Fred. The interpretive panel states: “The spiral leads to the bronze sculpture of the keening ‘Childless Mother’, which is a personification of “Uaigneas” the eternal expression of loneliness in the Irish language, voicing the enormous sense of inconsolable loss and emptiness of parents left behind”. The first International Famine Commemoration was held in Ireland in 2008, following the Irish Government’s decision to commemorate the Great Famine with an annual Memorial Day. Each year the commemoration represents an opportunity for the modern generation to remember the devastating impact which the Great Famine had on the country. The 2021 An Gorta Mór Famine commemoration – compered by Tom Murphy – will be held at the memorial in Market Square, Subiaco form 2pm to 4.30pm. Community members are invited and to bring flowers to place on the memorial. “Sad, sad is my fate in this weary exile, Dark, dark is the night cloud o’er lone Shanakyle, Where the murdered sleep silently pile upon pile, In the coffinless graves of poor Éireann.”