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FEBRUARY 2009
Famine Memorial to be Held in Ireland and Canada
Powerful New Drama Reveals a Chapter of the Great Famine
Death or Canada is an Irish Film and Television Award-nominated two-part Canadian-Irish documentary which was broadcast on RTE One in November/December 2008.
It follows the Protestant Willis family of 1847, who escape to Canada during the Great Famine. The dramatic storyline is interspersed with real-life commentaries from historians and other experts.
Death or Canada is co-produced by the Irish television production company Tile Films, the company behind the September 2008 documentary Cromwell in Ireland, and Canadian company Ballinran Productions.
Death or Canada will be airing on History TV on March 16 from 8 to 10 PM. It was recently nominated for an Irish Film and Television Academy award for best documentary series. Awards are presented February 14.
This powerful docudrama reveals a forgotten chapter of the great Irish famine and how the fledgling city of Toronto was brought to its knees by the greatest humanitarian crisis of the Nineteenth Century.
The year was 1847. Ireland was in the grip of a devastating famine that would eventually claim as many as a million lives and force a million more to leave their country for good.
Among those fleeing their homeland are John and Mary Willis and their five children. They gamble everything in the hope of starting new lives in the new world.
In the summer of 1847, when American ports increased the cost of entry, more than a hundred thousand desperate Irish refugees choose to head to Canada, then a colony of the British Fmpire.
They travel in the dank and dark holds of converted cargo ships, nicknamed "coffin ships" because of the conditions on board and the high rate of mortality.
Ship's fever or typhus is rampant and 20,000 people die en route. By the time they reach their destination, John and Mary Willis have lost four of their five children to typhus.
In 1847, Toronto, now Canada's largest city, was a frontier town of 20,000 people. Between May and October of that year, 40,000 sick and dying refugees descended upon the city including the ancestors of Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
In the heart of what is now the
AN OLD WOMAN weeps over the body of her dead grandson in the new two-part Canadian-Irish documentary Death or Canada.
entertainment district, home to the world famous Toronto International Film Festival, archaeologists dig for evidence - searching for signs of the temporary refugee camp where more than 1,000 people died,
More than a century and a half later, the impact of the Irish famine still
reverberates. The crisis transformed a city, a nation and a continent - reshaping North American society forever. Today, more than 75 million people claim Irish heritage.
For more details, www. deathorcanada. com.
visit:
DUBLIN - Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Famon O Cuiv announced at a press conference at Government Buildings that a national commemoration day for the Great Famine will take place this May with separate commemoration ceremonies in County Cork and in Canada.
The first annual memorial will take place at Skibbereen, County Cork, on May 17, with high-level Government representation.
Communities around the Republic are being encouraged to hold commemorations and sporting organizations are being asked to observe a minute's silence on National Famine Memorial Day.
Fach province is to host the event in turn, with the 2010 commemoration having a Connacht setting, in County Mayo, and the 2011 event taking place atalocation, yet to be decided, in Ulster.
O Cuiv said a "parallel international event" would be held in Canada on May 10. The exact location has yet to be decided. The international commemoration will also be held at a different place each year.
Minister of State at the Department of Community Affairs John Curran, who also spoke at the press conference said, "The failure of the potato crop during the 1840s was a transforming event in Ireland and no other event in our history can be likened to it for either its immediate impact or its legacy of emigration, cultural loss and decline of the Irish language," he said.
"That legacy includes a strong appreciation today among Irish people of issues such as food
security and a strong commitment to humanitarian aid and relief.
"The spread of Irish people around the globe during that fateful period in our history is without parallel.The Great Famine resulted in the formation of many diaspora communities, who helped to ensure the prosperous development of the countries to which they travelled," said Curran.
Explaining the choice of this year's location, O Cuiv said, "The Skibbereen area was one of the worst affected by the Great Famine.
"The mass graves of between 8,000 and 10,000 famine victims at Abbeys trewery near Skibbereen are testament to the tragic consequences of the catastrophic failure of the potato crop in the area during the 1840s."
With regard to the Canadian ceremony, he said, "Some 250,000 Irish emigrants arrived in Canada between 1845 and 1855.
"1847 was the high water mark, as close to 110,000 immigrants, most of whom were Irish Famine refugees, made their way to Canada. Four million Canadians (12.5 percent of the population) claim Irish heritage today," said O Cuiv.
The location of the Canadian memorial is yet to be determined. The Celtic Connection contacted the office of Minister O Cuiv for further information regarding the Canadian location prior to our press date.
His private secretary Sorcha De Bruch responded that enquiries are currently being made in relation to this matter and the office will contact us again as soon as they have further information.
'Under The Hawthorn Tree': Based on the Irish Famine
VANCOUVER - The story is one of hope and courage in the face of tragedy. It is the journey of three brave children as they travel through Ireland during the Great Potato Famine, in search of long-lost relatives they knew only from their mother's stories.
The play weaves a tapestry of historical happenings, from infant mortality to export riots and infectious disease, a blight that laid waste to the country and forever shaped its future.
Marita Conlon-McKenna is one of Ireland's most popular children's authors. She has written nine bestselling children's books. Under The Hawthorn Tree, her first novel, became an immediate bestseller and has been described as 'the biggest success story in children's historical fiction'.
It has been reprinted numerous times since its first publication in 1990, and has reached a worldwide market through translations and foreign editions. Its sequels, Wild/lower Girl andFields Of Home,
Under The Hawthorn Tree Marita Conlon-McKenna
which complete the Children Of The Famine trilogy, have also been hugely successful.
Mary Murphy Demers, singer-songwriter and Irish harpist, came across a copy of Under The Hawthorn Tree. Mary read it and passed it on to budding playwright Mary Clark, and together they realized that it had all the workings of a great musical.
After completing a script and a score
of Irish-influenced melodies, Clark and Murphy Demers sent their work to the O'Brien Press in Dublin, publisher of the original novel. Moved by the music, O'Brien Press and Conlon-McKenna, with a special arrangement, gave their blessing to the creation and production of this new musical.
The play will be staged in Vancouver this March 11 to 14 and 17 to 21. The cast consists of 13 local Vancouver actors aged from 11 to 73. Mary Clark directs the production and Mary Murphy Demers is the musical director.
The show will be presented at the Havana Theatre, 1212 Commercial Drive. Shows are at 8 PM with additional matinees at 2 PM on March 14 and 21. Tickets are 020 for adults, 015 for seniors and students. Special two for one preview night on March 11.
For further information, visit the Facebook page: Under The Hawthorn Tree: A New Musical. Tickets can be reserved by calling (778) 837-3645 or e-mailing hawthorntickets @gmail. com.
For more information about Marita Conlon-McKenna's novel Under The Hawthorn Tree and her other children's novels visit: www.obrien.ie.
Mayo Emigrant
Dies Alone in New York
The Irish community in New York was very upset to learn that an elderly Mayo man had died alone in his apartment and his body lay undiscovered for at least a week.
Following the discovery of the body, emigrant support groups are conducting a census to establish where elderly Irish people are living. In this way it is hoped that there will be no more cases of individuals living on their own with no one being aware of their existence.
Anthony Gallagher (72), originally from Belmullet, had been living alone since his wife Josephine, who suffers from Alzheimer's, required full time care. The couple had no children.