Grosse Île: Canada’s Irish Famine Memorial

Grosse Île, a small island down river from Quebec City, is the site of a mass grave of thousands of Irish who fled starvation in their homeland in the mid-1840s and died of typhus at the island quarantine station. It is considered the most important Great Famine site outside of Ireland. The author outlines the events that led up to the famine in Ireland and the Irish exodus, and the vindication of the Irish community's four year-long campaign in the 1990s to prevent Parks Canada from turning Grosse Île into a Canadian Ellis Island.

Labour/Le Travail

Vol. 39

195-214

Spring 1997

en