ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF HER VISIT TO GROSSE ILE, 11 OCTOBER 1998
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MARY MCALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF HER VISIT TO GROSSE ILE, 11 OCTOBER 1998
The English author, Samuel Butler wrote: “To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead”.
In Ireland we have not forgotten, despite our recent unprecedented economic success, the tragedy of our people's past, at home and abroad.
We are here to honour those who ended their life in fear and loneliness on these shores. We do not in many cases have even a name to remember them by. Our pilgrimage is our attempt to reach across the gap of one hundred and fifty years that separates us from them - to tell them that their final resting place is special to us.
In 1845, the London Spectator reported that “Ireland is threatened with a thing that is read of in history and in distant countries but scarcely in our own land and time - a famine”. Within months, this prediction had become a reality, and by 1849 Ireland had lost over one million people to death and a further million to emigration. The causes of the Famine were many - repeated failure of a staple crop, exceptionally severe winters, and a Government unable and in some cases unwilling to formulate an effective response. In the words of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair: “Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy....That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today..” In the past three years, in Ireland and in the many places where the Irish family is to be found, we have observed the 150th anniversary of those dreadful times.
The scale of the flight from Ireland was unprecedented - approximately one million people left between 1846 and 1850, and more again left between 1850 and 1855. In 1841, our population numbered over 8 million people, our highest ever recorded population. Unlike the emigrants of the years before the Famine, who came mostly from English-speaking, commercialised areas, and tended to be relatively well off, the emigrants of the Famine years were propelled by panic to the ports of Belfast, Sligo, New Ross, Queenstown, as Cobh was then known, and Liverpool. Many of them spoke no English. For those who sailed to Grosse Ile in 1847, hoping to leave behind the horrors of hunger, typhus and cholera, the nightmare was only beginning. Dirty, dark and overcrowded holds of lumber ships proved an ideal breeding ground for “ship fever” - as typhus was known. Thousands died during those journeys. Among them was a four-year-old girl, Mary McAleese, who died on board the Tamarach, which sailed from Liverpool on 26th May 1847 and arrived at Grosse Ile on 11 July. I cannot help wondering if this little girl might not have been a relative of my own children.
We do not know precisely how many succumbed to fever on the way to Grosse Ile during the summer of 1847, but it appears that between the 14th of May and the 1st of November, 5,424 people were buried on Grosse Ile, having died either on board the waiting ships or in the quarantine station. It is heart-rending to read the records of the clergy, Catholic and Anglican, who ministered to the dying on Grosse Ile during that terrible summer, which have been carefully catalogued by Marianna O’Gallagher and Rose Masson Dompierre in their book “Eyewitness Grosse Ile - 1847".
So great was the pressure of numbers and so limited was medical knowledge of infectious diseases, that many who passed through the port of Quebec went on to develop typhus, bringing an epidemic that swept up the St. Lawrence river between 1847 and 1848, killing over three thousand in the fever sheds of Montreal - and hundreds more in Toronto, Peterborough and Kingston.
If the suffering and grief of the arrivals defy description, so too does the bravery and compassion of those who tended to them on their arrival. The records of Grosse Ile show that fifty-nine clergy, Catholic and Anglican, served in rotation throughout that summer. Twenty two of the twenty six doctors caught typhus, four of whom died. Seventy six nurses fell ill and twenty two of them subsequently died. Those who survived their illness returned to their work with unfaltering commitment. In Montreal, a number of the Grey Nuns who nursed the arrivals, contracted typhus and died, as did the Mayor of Montreal, John Mill. In Toronto, the fever claimed the life of Bishop Michael Power who ministered to the dying. The people of Quebec City, though threatened with the epidemic, contributed to collection organised by the Catholic and Anglican clergy. They opened their hearts and their homes to the orphans of Grosse Ile. That a small city, with a population which was not wealthy, could find “kind homes” for 453 orphaned children in the space of a few months is truly remarkable.
This courageous and humanitarian action is an early example of the long tradition of Canadian response to international humanitarian crises. We have seen recently how Canadians reach out to the loved ones of the victims of Swissair Flight One-Eleven. Last winter, we watched Canadian power workers and soldiers brave temperatures of minus thirty and lower to restore power and aid the victims of the ice storm. At international level, your acceptance of refugees, your contribution to United Nations Peacekeeping operations, your initiative on landmines which led to the Ottawa Treaty - all stem from the same impulse to make things better. The actions of those who reached out to our compatriots one hundred and fifty years ago are an inspiration to us: the deeds of present day Canadians are an example to us.
I am delighted that the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, could be here today so that I can acknowledge on behalf of the people of Ireland how much we appreciate her decision to create an Irish Memorial at Grosse Ile, and the tremendous work carried out by the staff of the Department of Canadian Heritage and Parks Canada in implementing Minister Copps’ decision. I would also like to pay tribute to the many so-called “ordinary people” who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that Grosse Ile’s Irish past is never forgotten. I am thinking of people like Marianna O’Gallagher, the foremost authority on the history of Grosse Ile, who organised “l’été Irlandaise” in Quebec City last year to mark the 150th anniversary of “Black ’47", and people like the dedicated members of Action Grosse Ile and the Ancient Order of Hibernians who have tirelessly highlighted the significance of the island to the Irish throughout North America. I am very moved that you travelled here today to join me in honouring those who came “so far in darkness and in pain”.
We cannot change the past - but we must not forget it. Let us ensure that the tragedy of Grosse Ile, the bravery of Grosse Ile and the humanity of Grosse Ile is never forgotten and never denied.