Famine Memorial – Dublin – Lonely Traveler

Ireland has suffered a massive famine during 1845-1852 that is known as ‘Great Famine’ or ‘Great Hunger’. It is the largest famine of all time in the history of Ireland. That mainly happened due to the blight of the Potato. It was a cheap crop in Ireland that time and most of the population relied on that. Due to that famine around a million of people suffered to death, and around a million of people had forced to migrate into other countries (i.e. USA, Australia, Canada, etc).

That death and migration was the 25% of the whole population of the country. Even after so many years after that famine, this country couldn’t recover that massive population fall. In current date the whole island of Ireland has around 6.3 millions of population (whereas only Republic of Ireland has around 4 million). But that famine led to the independence of Ireland in next century. And by this time this country is one of the world’s developed country.

To commemorate the Great Famine lot of monuments and statues have been introduced in several places in several countries. Ireland itself has few, and this Famine Memorial is one of those. It was introduced during 1997. It comprises several small statues in a group that depicts the picture of that time. From my observation it seemed like they are migrating from one place to another. These statues are built by the famous Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie.

This small memorial is located beside the river Liffey. You can have a walk for several minutes from the City Center (O’connel street). From City Center it will be at the left hand side of the river. GPS coordinate of the memorial is (53.348043, -6.250075). There are several park style bench available where you can have a afternoon sitting. If you have an hour of free time in Dublin then don’t hesitate to spend that there!

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Famine Memorial in google map.