The Irish Hunger Memorial (Irish: ) is a park at the corner of Vesey Street and North End Avenue in the

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neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

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. The memorial is dedicated to raising awareness of the Great Irish Hunger, referred to as in Irish, in which over one million starved to death between 1845 and 1852. In the decade after 1845, over 900,000 Irish emigrants entered the port of New York so that by 1855 Irish-born New Yorkers comprised almost one third of the city's population. Construction of the memorial began in March 2001, and despite the

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on the nearby World Trade Center, which also affected surrounding areas, the memorial was completed and dedicated on July 16, 2002. The memorial, designed collaboratively by artist Brian Tolle, landscape architect Gail Wittwer-Laird, and architecture firm

1100 Architect 1100 Architect is an architecture firm based in New York City and Frankfurt founded by principals David Piscuskas and Juergen Riehm. It provides architectural design, programming, space analysis, interior design, and master planning services to ...

, is landscaped with stones, soil, and native vegetation transported from the western coast of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

— with stones from every Irish county. An authentic Irish cottage from 19th century Carradoogan, in the parish of Attymass,

County Mayo County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...

, belonged to the Slack family — and was deserted in the 1960s. The Slack family donated the cottage to the memorial in "memory of all the Slack family members of previous generations who emigrated to America and fared well there." In August 2016, the memorial was temporarily closed for waterproofing work and was reopened in August 2017.

Gallery

HungerMemorialNumber3.jpg, North side, showing gradual rise of the structure HungerMemorial9.jpg, West side, showing the high end HungerMemorialNumber5.JPG, Stones placed on the roof with names of the Irish counties NYCIrishFamineMemorialPassageway060709.JPG, Passageway connecting the west side to the ruined stone cottage and the roof Irish Hunger Memorial-NYC-2012.jpg, Interior of cottage ruins

References

External links

*
Architectural Record Magazine
''Between Two Worlds: Remembering the Hungry'' By Roger Shepherd

Hunger for Memorials: Article from ''Landscape Architecture'', March 2003

Photo Tour of Irish Hunger Memorial * Tourist Information Site
Irish Hunger Memorial brochure
{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish Hunger Memorial 2002 sculptures Battery Park City Irish-American culture in New York City Great Famine (Ireland) monuments and memorials Land art Monuments and memorials in Manhattan Tourist attractions in Manhattan 2002 establishments in New York City

Gallery

See also

References

External links