The National Famine Way and Canadian Wake

National Famine Way Walkers leaving Strokestown.

It was wonderful to be back in ‘Strokestown Park House’-Ireland’s National Famine Museum to take part in the Canadian Wake, the night before The National Famine Way Walk 2024, which this year was led off by Caroilin Callery and Ireland’s Ambassador to Canada, Eamonn McKee.

The Wake, like in times past, is a gathering to say goodbye to the emigrants and wish them well on their journey with music, story and song and remembrance of times past for most would never see their home or families again. We were gathered to send the group of walkers off on their long journey to Dublin which passes through many villages and towns along the Royal Canal.

The National Famine Way has been spearheaded by the remarkable Caroilin Callery of Strokestown Park House and is a walk along the Royal Canal from Strokestown to Dublin’s City Quay that remembers and commemorates the 1,490 tenants of Major Denis Mahon who in May 1947 at the height of the famine were evicted and offered paid passage on ships to Quebec in Canada.

The tenants included many widows and young children, accompanied by the Bailiff on their long walk from Strokestown along the Royal Canal to Dublin’s quays. Many of the children had no shoes, so shoes had to be made for them. Shoes have now become an emblem of the National Famine Way with pairs of Bronze Children’s Shoe statues placed in different location along the trail.

Arriving in Dublin the Strokestown tenants took steamships to Liverpool, which overrun with starving Irish had become a place of terrible disease and sickness. There the tenants waited until their ships were ready to sail. The ships were overcrowded and lacked adequate food rations for the long Atlantic sea journey and the large number of passengers. Many did not survive the terrible conditions on the crossing and by the time they reached Canada a large number of the passengers had fallen ill with typhus and had been buried at sea or had to be quarantined on Grosse Isle where they died. Those that survived worked hard to make new lives in Quebec and all across Canada and North America.

I was very honoured when Caroilin asked a few years ago to write a story for the walk, which people could read or listen to and use on the app. I wrote about Daniel Tighe, a twelve year old boy who set of with high hopes with his mother, two brothers and two sisters and Uncle William Kelly as they walked all the way to Dublin , sailing first to Liverpool and then on to Canada. Daniel’s hopes would be dashed for by the time they arrived in Quebec for he and his sister Catherine were the only family members to survive the terrible journey on the Naomi. It is called Shoe Story.

However the National Famine Way is now extending as the trail will follow and be marked and recognised in both Liverpool and different parts of Canada. Eamonn McKee, our Irish ambassador in Canada, has played a big part in this exciting new initiative ‘The Global Irish Famine Way’ which will follow the trail of Irish emigrants to Canada and Liverpool and in time America and Australia. Bronze shoes have already arrived in Canada and some will also be located in Liverpool.

So now I have continued Daniel’s Story taking him across the Atlantic to a new home in Canada and read from it for the first time at The Wake on Sunday. It was real honour for me on the night to meet some of Daniel Tighe’s ancestors his young Irish relations. I found it is so poignant to hear them read out the names of all the family groups that left Strokestown and how many children were in their family as they set off for a new life so long ago…

The sun was shining as the National Famine Way walkers group set off from the Gates of Strokestown Park House on Monday 20^th May. They arrived to a warm welcome at The Epic Museum in Dublins Docklands on Saturday afternoon 25^th of May. Thirty bronze sculptures of pairs of childrens shoes mark the route and walkers can download the app telling the story.

The National Famine Way Walk is growing in popularity with walkers and walking groups, schools and tourists alike all enjoying the beauty of the Royal Canal and its town and villages as they commemorate an important part of our history.