On May 25, 2019, a permanent Irish Famine Memorial was unveiled on Deer Island in Boston Harbor
Speakers included Boston Archdiocese Sean Cardinal O’Malley and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. Gene O’Flaherty was the master of ceremonies, City of Boston’s Chief Archivist John McColgan gave the historical remarks, while Connemara native Máirín Keady sang the American and Irish anthems. Afterwards, the Boston Curragh Rowing Club placed a ceremonial wreath in the water in memory of those who died.
Deer Island currently houses the wastewater facility operated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), but in 1847 the island was converted to a makeshift quarantine station and hospital as thousands of sick and impoverished Irish immigrants flooded into Boston Harbor, fleeing the Irish Famine, a series of potato crop failures that decimated Ireland. In 1847 alone, some 47,000 Irish came to Boston.
The memorial project, whose centerpiece is a Celtic Cross, was spearheaded by Mike Carney of Winthrop, whose parents are from Donegal and Mark Porter, who grew up in Donegal, along with two Galway expatriates, John Flaherty and Peter O’Malley. Flaherty was also instrumental in creating the Cambridge Irish Famine Memorial in summer 1997. This team worked closely with MWRA officials and others to bring the project - which had been in the works for nearly 40 years - to fruition.
The idea for an Irish Memorial on Deer Island first surfaced when the bones of interred Irish at Rest Haven Cemetery were inadvertently uncovered during construction of the wastewater facility in 1990. Boston Mayor Ray Flynn’s press spokesman Francis Costello worked closely with the MWRA officials to protect the gravesite. As the 150th anniversary of the Irish Famine (1845-49) approached, local Irish-American organizations and Boston historians began discussing a fitting memorial to the Famine generation, as well as to American Indians who were buried here during the King Phillips War in 1676.
In June 1997, a public ceremony was held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the opening of the quarantine station, and a temporary Celtic Cross, created by Irish carpenters Larry Reynolds and Jimmy Roach, was placed at the site. The ceremony was attended by 100+ people, including MWRA officials, local elected leaders, and members of greater Boston’s Irish-American community. Bagpiper Tommy Kelly from Newton played a haunting Irish melody as the temporary cross was unveiled.
The late Rita and Bill O’Connell of Duxbury advocated for a permanent Irish Memorial through the 2000s until their death in 2012. Irish organizations, Ireland's Consulate Office and the MWRA kept the discussions going for several more years until Carney and his team came along.
The Celtic Cross was designed and created by Flynn Stone Design and Fabrication, a stone supplier and fabricator in Lakewood PA whose Irish ancestors settled in Pennsylvania in the 1860s.
In his address at the unveiling ceremony, Dr. McColgan said, "The Celtic Cross, an icon of Irish heritage, has signified, since ancient times, a place that is sacred. Victims of Ireland’s Great Hunger share this ground with peaceful Native Americans starved in confinement on the island during King Philip’s War of the 1670s. This Cross marks as sacred the earth of Deer Island holding remains that testify against colonialism, greed, economic exploitation and political repression that have inflicted - upon Ireland, Native Americans, and many another people down to the present - the tragedies of famine, war and forced exile.”
The Deer Island Irish Famine Memorial is a stop along Boston’s Irish Heritage Trail.
See information about visiting Deer Island and public access from MWRA.
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