At Home and Abroad

MONTREAL IRISH MONUMENT PARK FOUNDATION A project to build a beautiful world-class memorial park and cultural green space at the Montreal side of Victoria Bridge, around the Black Rock. This space would remember the 6000+ Irish immigrants, fleeing the Great Hunger in Ireland, that died and were buried in the area in 1847. The REM organization while doing an excavation for their new Montreal Light Transit system, in the area of the Back Rock hired archeologists for a particular area where the Famine Cemetery was located. These archeologists using a great deal of care and respect located the remains of 14 individual victims from Black 47. These remains were then transported to a laboratory where testing was preformed. Due to Covid there was some delay in getting the results but on June 9, 2022, the Board members of the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation were invited to the actual lab to hear what they have discovered so far. Michael McBane: Macdonald Gardens Ottawa Fifteen to twenty refugees from the Great Irish Famine died every day in Bytown that terrible summer of 1847. Every day their remains were brought to a burial place, which is now known as Macdonald Gardens, a short distance from the Temporary Emigrant Hospital, or the tents on Barracks Hill, or the fever sheds on the Rideau Canal or even the streets of Lower Town. Three hundred in all were buried here where we stand in Macdonald Park. Most lie there still. A team has been set up to generate funds and awareness to have a monument erected to honour those that died and mark the spot.