Great Hunger Memorial, Unveiled in Westchester, Is a Call to Compassion
By CLAUDIA McDONNELL
The bronze figures of the Great Hunger Memorial of Westchester County are gaunt and haggard, and their expressions convey the anguish of people who must leave their home for an uncertain future in a strange land. Yet they stand straight and tall, a sign of their strength, determination and hope amid poverty and desolation.
That is fitting, because the memorial is meant to inspire both reflection and action, as a reminder of a tragedy and a spur to prevent tragedy today.
Seven years in the planning, it recalls what the Irish refer to as An Gorta Mòr--the Great Hunger--the famine that devastated Ireland from 1845 to 1851. The memorial was unveiled June 26 in V.E. Macy Park in Ardsley. It was created by Eamonn O'Doherty, the Irish artist known for his large-scale sculptures, about 25 in Ireland and England.
James J. Houlihan is the chairman of the Great Hunger Memorial Committee. In an interview, he said that out of 26 designs submitted, the committee chose O'Doherty's because "he was able to convey a sense of triumph through adversity."
He credited Louis A. Mosiello, Westchester County legislator representing District 15 in Yonkers, for getting the project under way after it had been proposed by a group of local Irish-Americans. Mosiello was the committee's honorary chairman and executive director.
The committee raised $600,000 in contributions and $600,000 in donated services such as advertising, legal work and construction. New York state and Westchester County each contributed $50,000. Of the $1.3 million raised, Houlihan said that the committee expects to have a surplus of $100,000 which will be donated to charities that help the hungry, homeless and immigrants.
The Irish famine was caused by a fungus that destroyed the potato crop, the main food source for millions of peasants. About 1.5 million died of starvation and related diseases, and 2 million emigrated, many traveling on vessels so filthy and disease-ridden they were called coffin ships because large numbers perished at sea. Famine victims arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes on their malnourished bodies.
O'Doherty's memorial comprises five figures: husband, wife cradling an infant, two sons and a daughter. All face forward except the older son, who looks back toward their home, represented by two stone walls. Roughly triangular and facing each other, they are a reminder of the Irish cottages that were destroyed by authorities when the impoverished inhabitants could no longer pay rent. Soldiers evicted families, tossed their possessions on the road or burned them, and often smashed in the roof while leaving the side walls standing. Destitute families were left to live on the road or emigrate.
Houlihan remarked that the cottage hearth is the place where families would gather to tell stories or listen as someone played the fiddle. The memorial's stone walls and the empty space between them "signify the loss of a once-vibrant family life," he said.
At the rear of the memorial is a representation of a creel, or basket, with blighted potatoes tumbling out of it and turning into human skulls--a reminder of the horror of 1.5 million people dying of hunger, Houlihan noted.
O'Doherty remarked in an interview that the effect of the famine was not only death but also the disruption of the Irish people's way of life--as life is disrupted today for those who must flee disaster.
"People are dislocated from what they know. They have to emigrate and come to terms with facing a different culture," often facing hostility as well, he said.
Houlihan pointed out that the memorial was conceived as a way to focus attention on immigrants and the poor today. He said that he hopes O'Doherty's somber yet courageous figures, positioned between the ruins of their old life and the challenges of a new one, will "make people more understanding and compassionate to immigrants newly arrived and those who suffer from hunger and homelessness."