The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
MAYOR of Clare, Councillor Joe Arkins was requested to facilitate the refurbishment of a Famine memorial in Ennistymon during a recent visit to Chicago. Concerned about the tarnished state of the memorial, a number of Clare exiles in Chicago approached Councillor Arkins during his recent trip to Wisconsin in the US to represent the county at the Milwaukee Festival. Representations were also made to the mayor when he visited a similar structure in Gaelic Park, New York. An Gorta Mór Memorial was erected in memory of the victims of the Great Hunger and was dedicated in Ennistymon on August 20, 1995 – the 150th anniversary of the tragedy. It is located across from a deserted workhouse, where an estimated 20,000 Irish people died and a mass graveyard for children, who perished and were buried without coffins on the Lahinch Road between Ennistymon and Lahinch. The memorial was erected by a combined effort of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) and …
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