Chapter 5 - Community Famine Commemoration in Northern Ireland and the Diaspora

Summary

As with the monuments of the previous chapter, most community commemorations in Northern Ireland and the diaspora represent vernacular counterparts to officially sanctioned and nationally scaled monumental projects, screened through local concerns, histories and places. Though the rallying cry ‘remember the Famine’ unites these memorials, the outcomes of more than three dozen projects in Northern Ireland, Britain, Canada and the United States constructed since 1990 indicate that key questions of what Famine memory actually is and why it should be remembered remain far from consensual. From the outset there were concerns voiced in the Irish media that diasporic, particularly American, influence over commemorations would perpetuate hackneyed clichés of Irishness both at home and abroad. In retrospect, some of these fears were justified: several poorly conceived ‘Famine tourism’ initiatives and a healthy dose of commemorative shamrockery certainly joined more thoughtful, considered efforts. However, the reduction of diasporic commemorative responses to an undifferentiated collective (or dismissed as a superficial ‘Faminism’) overlooks the tensions present within diasporic Irish communities themselves over issues of ethnic identity and public representation, and the distinct contexts of their actual creation.

In the absence of ‘official’ or government–led structures of commemorations, Famine anniversary celebrations in Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia generally fell under the purview of local Irish heritage groups: some in existence since before the Famine (like the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick), others of more recent vintage, and all linked by networks and umbrella committees created across different community groups specifically in response to the anniversary. These groups formed new collectives with an impressive output of activities supported through energetic private fundraising: lecture series, writing of local histories, organized tours to important North American Famine sites and the construction of local memorials. The informal configuration of most groups (and reliance on lengthy funding campaigns) meant that a number of major diasporic Famine commemorations appeared several years after the Irish government's official celebrations had ended: the Philadelphia Irish Memorial was unveiled in 2003, and Toronto's Famine memorial unveiled in summer 2007; in many respects, 1997 marked a beginning, not a culmination of commemorative activity.