Irish-American History

Lesson 8: Famine Amnesia

Signs all around us

I have watched the tearful departures in many airports around the world and have experienced it myself with members of my own family. I have tried to capture this in ‘The American Wake Scene’ in ‘Lament for the Land’ , where the Mother faces up to the possibility of never seeing her son again:

‘A piece of my life will just walk out the door
And it saddens me deeply it makes me heartsore
For I fear that I never may see him more
May my blessings go with him where’er he may roam
For he’s headstrong and foolish
He’s flesh of my own flesh
Oh God! My most dear wish
Is to see him come home
His spirit seeks freedom to wander at will
And to gaze on the wonders beyond the next hill
He’ll not find what he’s seeking ,though he’ll never be still
Until he returns to his home once again(6)

I have attempted to deal with the same pain of separation from the Emigrant’s perspective , in the song ‘Line of Shore’

For those left there on the quayside, our hearts break a little more
Eyes blinded now by sorrow as we lose the line of shore
I’ve lost friends and companions ,I am alone till death relieves
This pain of separation ,my dear God , how my heart grieves
I would return to sights familiar ,My mind ablaze , soul filled with dread
I do not know which is more painful
My awful loss or the years ahead.None now to keep my memory ,I hear their voices in the winds that roar
The night has come , the light is dying I can no longer see the line of shore.(7)

After the Famine , the face of Ireland was changed for ever. Although Emigration slowed down , figures showed that on average 30,000 people continued to leave the country annually until there were more ‘Irish’ people living overseas than in Ireland. Luke Dodd , the founding curator at Strokestown Famine Museum , said there was a sense of national failure . ‘ If half the population disappears , and there’s apparently no other country in the history of the world that’s ever had that kind of cataclysmic event happen in such a short time …..there’s a great unwillingness to talk about it.’(8)

The flood of Emigrants escaping from the country was responsible for the death of the Irish language as the Emigrants learned to speak and work in a new language which would help them to hide their ‘difference,’ ‘the lilting strains of Gaelicwith its links to days of yorewill be drowned by foreign accents as we lose the line of shore.’(9)

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