Boston, a city he hailed as the "capital of Irish America" was the setting last weekend for the keynote speech on the Great Hunger delivered by President Michael D. Higgins.
"I cannot think of a more appropriate place to visit given the deep and historical connections between this city and Ireland," said Higgins at the outset of his speech delivered at historical Fanueil Hill
"The inherited narratives can never be fully complete," said Higgins of the Gorta Mór.
"Thus, we must, given the complexity of the event itself, and its preceding and succeeding context, and the enormity, rapidity and devastations of the forces at work, be open to amending what we have taken as the iconic event, the master narrative and add in some missing bits, drawing on the new scholarship, so much of it from scholars in the United States who have admirably stayed with the complexity of the Gorta Mór - the Great Famine of 1845-1847," Higgins told his rapt. audience
The Irish Famine of 1845-50 was the greatest social calamity in terms of mortality and suffering that Ireland has ever experienced," said the president in an address that looked forward to this coming Sunday, May 13, the fifth National Famine Commemoration Day in Ireland.
the day, said Higgins, "will be marked in Drogehda, County Louth, which has great links with this great city here in Boston. Drogheda was the second largest port of departure for over one million people who were forced to emigrate during the Famine.
"Some traveled only as far as Britain while others became known as 'two boaters,' traveling onwards from the UK to North America, including Boston," he said.
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