Roscommon man to help lead Irish Famine Way project in US

Plans for the expansion of the Global Irish Famine Way (GIFW) to the United States this year have been announced.

To support and co-ordinate this expansion, the organisation has appointed two well-known individuals from the Irish community as national US co-convenors: Irish historian and author Professor Christine Kinealy and Hilary T. Beirne, from Boyle, chairman Emeritus of the NYC St. Patrick’s Day Foundation and founding director at Irish America 250.

The first phase in the United States will install bronze shoes at key historical sites in Boston and in New York. For subsequent phases, the co-convenors would then invite other community-led efforts across the United States to participate in the expansion of Global Irish Famine Way to other locations.

As with the Irish National Famine Way, the Global Irish Famine Way will be marked by bronze shoe plinths at significant sites, including ports of entry, quarantine stations, and common graves. Each site will include a QR code sharing its local history, and each will be linked to a dedicated page on the fully bespoke National & Global Irish Famine Way website (www.nationalfamineway.ie ). The pair of bronze shoes, cast from originals discovered bound together in the roof of a 19th-century cottage, forms the trail’s iconic symbol.

“Interest in our evocative, powerful, and deeply symbolic little bronze shoe monument grew so fast,” says Caroilín Callery, founder of the National Famine Way.

“They have quickly become symbolic of all famine emigrants worldwide. People seemed to connect with them instantly, often simply touching or saying a little prayer over them.”

The journey of Strokestown’s 1,490 emigrants —and all famine emigrants — did not end on Dublin’s quays, so the expansion of the Global Irish Famine Way continues their story, honouring those who died and celebrates the survival and the resilience of those who built new lives abroad.

The Global Irish Famine Way plans to tell the story of every place around the world where Irish Famine emigrants landed, creating new lives so far from their native land.

“The Famine crossed the Atlantic in the coffin ships, and those who arrived in the new world were deeply scarred as a result of it,” said Hilary Beirne.

“The expansion will ensure acknowledgement of a shared history that is part of the Irish American psyche; it is also very much part of the American story.

“Many of my ancestors died in the Famine and are buried in the same graveyard as my parents in County Roscommon, so I am proud to help facilitate the expansion of the Famine Way into the United States.”

The Global Irish Famine Way aims to create an international network extending as far as Australia, telling — for the first time — the full story of the global impact and legacy of Irish Famine emigrants, and the US plays a key and central part in that story.