The Irish in Canada have won a major victory over the Canadian Government on how the national historic site at Grosse Ile should be developed. The small island in the St. Lawrence River, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City, once served as a quarantine station, and is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever, and starvation while fleeing from the Great Hunger in 1847.
The Irish in Canada have won a major victory over the Canadian Government on how the national historic site at Grosse Ile should be developed. The small island in the St. Lawrence river, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City, once served as a quarantine station, and is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever and starvation while fleeing from the Great Hunger in 1847.
On St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1996, Shelia Copps, Minister of Canadian Heritage, announced her plans for the national historic site at Grosse Ile, a small island in the St. Lawrence river, 48 kilometers downstream from Quebec City. Grosse Ile is the burial site of thousands of Irish immigrants who died of cholera in 1832, and of typhus, ship fever and starvation while fleeing from the Great Hunger in 1847. From now on, said the Minister, it will be called Grosse Ile and the Irish Memorial.
The focus of the commemoration, the Canadian Minister continued, will be the story of the Irish tragedy in the quarantine station in 1847. The development of the site will concentrate on the mass graves of the Irish famine victims, the tall Celtic Cross, erected in 1909, and the only remaining hospital building from 1847, a long wooden shed called the Lazaretto.
Ms. Copps further iterated that the department of Canadian Heritage will clear away the brush that has overgrown the mass graves to create a “place of tranquillity and reflection.” Equally important, it will “pay homage to the welcome, generosity and devotion of the local population” who comforted the afflicted.
The announcement by the Canadian Minister is the culmination of a four-year long campaign waged by the Irish-Canadian community from coast to coast to prevent the Parks Service from turning the site into a Canadian Ellis Island. In the longer view, it marks the end of a full century of activity by Irish Canadians — going back to 1897, the 50th anniversary of the Great Hunger — to assert the importance of Grosse Ile as a memorial site.
Action Grosse Ile and the General Assembly of Irish Organizations in Montreal — the committees mandated by the Irish community for this campaign — issued a joint statement welcoming the Minister’s initiative. The statement stressed that her decision is “the result of the impressive unity of purpose shown by the Irish community, not only here in Canada, but across the Irish Diaspora and in Ireland. We pay tribute to all those in the Irish community whose solidarity has made this possible.”
In March 1992, the Parks Service announced that Grosse Ile would celebrate 150 years of immigration in general, relegating the Irish to a footnote, under the theme of “Canada: Land of Welcome &Hope.” Since Grosse Ile was always a quarantine station and never an immigration point of entry, this proposal was historically inaccurate and inept. Two aspects of the proposal provoked widespread opposition. First, the plan called the Irish immigrants “British.” Adding insult to injury, the proposal’s marketing strategy said, “the tragic events of 1832 and 1847 have been over-emphasized in the past.”
After months of outcry from the Irish community, the Parks Service agreed to hold public hearings outside Quebec. More than 200 interventions, from across the social and political spectrum of Irish-Canadian organizations, and from every region in Canada, demonstrated an unprecedented consensus of Irish opinion. Allowing for variations in tone and format, every Irish community representative said the same thing: Grosse Ile is the graveyard of our ancestors and it must be respected as sacred to the memory of the Famine victims.
In her statement in Quebec, Shelia Copps urged “the creation of a private foundation to raise funds in support of projects commemorating the history of the quarantine station and its Irish dimension.” Action Grosse Ile will continue the campaign in Canada, with support from the Irish Diaspora elsewhere. We have won the battle to ensure that the true history of Grosse Ile, as one of the most important and evocative places marking the Irish Holocaust of 1845-50, is properly recognized and commemorated by the Canadian government. Now, the nature of the campaign will change. We still need to ensure that the proposed foundation really reflects the grass-roots, community-based democratic power that helped persuade Shelia Copps to arrive at the right decision.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the May/June 1996 issue of Irish America. ⬥
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