
Great Famine Emigration Memorial Plaque - Liverpool, UK
Posted by:
dtrebilc
N 53° 24.133 W 002° 59.733
30U E 500295 N 5917015
This plaque about Irish Emigrants who passed through the Port of Liverpool on their way to the United States is on the wall of the old Pilot's Office.
Waymark Code: WMTHJP
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 11/26/2016
Views: 10
The building stands on the edge of Canning Dock next to the River Mersey and was used by pilots employed to steer ships in and out of Liverpool Docks and along the tidal River Mersey.
This dock was not actually used by the emigrants, but those docks have since been filled in.
The plaque was erected to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the event and is in both Irish Gaelic and English.
Coinnigh cuimhne ar an Gorta Mór
Le linn an drochshaoil 1845-52
fhág breis agus milliún
Éireannach an port seo chun éalú ón ocras
agus anás ag lorg saol thar lear
During the Famine years 1845-52 over one million
Irish people left from this shore to escape hunger
and poverty and to seek a new life across the sea.
Remember the Great Famine
"The Great Famine (Irish: an Gorta Mór) or the Great Hunger was a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. It is sometimes referred to, mostly outside Ireland, as the Irish Potato Famine, because about two-fifths of the population was solely reliant on this cheap crop for a number of historical reasons. During the famine, approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
The proximate cause of famine was Phytophthora infestans, a potato disease commonly known as potato blight, which ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s. However, the impact in Ireland was disproportionate, as one third of the population was dependent on the potato for a range of ethnic, religious, political, social, and economic reasons, such as land acquisition, absentee landlords, and the Corn Laws, which all contributed to the disaster to varying degrees and remain the subject of intense historical debate."
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