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Chicagoans Answer Ireland's Call to Commemorate Famine

The Irish Government had declared Sunday, May 17, 2009, "National Famine Memorial Day." In Chicago, The American Ireland Fund joined with the Galway Committee of the Sister Cities International Program, Old St. Patrick's Church, the Consulate General of Ireland and the Irish Fellowship Club to mark the day beginning with a wreath laying ceremony at the Grainne statue in Heritage Green Park. 

A reception at Old St. Patrick's that included a short presentation in song and story by singer Catherine O'Connell and Mary Pat Kelly, author of Galway Bay followed.

Galway Bay is a historical novel based on the life of Kelly's great-great grandmother Honora Kelly who survived the Great Starvation of 1840’s Ireland, escaped with her young children to Chicago and settled in Bridgeport. Her grandson was Ed Kelly, Mayor of Chicago from 1933 to 1947. Her great-grandson Father Steve O'Donnell was the legendary former pastor of Old St. Pat's.

Roseann Finnegan LeFevour, Regional Director of The American Ireland Fund, reiterated “Galway Bay puts a human face on the central event behind the Irish Diaspora -The Great Famine. There is a direct line between the stories imagined on those pages and what we do at The American Ireland Fund. While one million died in the famine, as Honora Kelly says in the book, two million escaped, one reaching back for the next, rescuing each other. The American Ireland Fund continues to reach across the sea to give back to our ancestral land in this same spirit."

Over 100 people attended this event and gave tribute to the ancestors who gave up everything to save their families.

More info on event >

Photos
1. Event photo
2. Tim Reilly, Vice-Counsul General of Ireland
3. Event photo
4-5. Wreath laying
6. Bill Gainer, Austin Kelly, Father Roger Caplis, Mary Pat Kelly, Alderman Robert Fioretti, Father Tom Hurley, Pastor of Old St. Patrick's
7. Mary Pat Kelly, Grainne Statue
8. Piper