Oregon Irish Famine Memorial Cross

Richard and I recently took a trip to Portland Oregon, we happened to be driving to an afternoon hike we had planned when I saw the incredible stone Celtic Cross rising out of the hillside, I was literally speechless simply saying oh oh oh over and over.  As we drove closer, I realized that the cross was located at a cemetery; I believe at that point I found my voice to say, “It’s an old cemetery” to which my darling husband replied, “I know where we will be spending tomorrow afternoon”.  I am blessed to have a husband who encourages me to embrace my love of old cemeteries.

***This post started out about our afternoon at that cemetery, but I quickly realized that the Irish immigrants buried at the memorial sight wanted to be recognized, so the post took on new life, a later post will cover the rest of the beautiful cemetery****

The Cemetery

The next day as promised we loaded up the rental car, made a coffee stop and headed back to wander around Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery.  It turns out the incredible cross I had seen is a memorial erected in honor of the more than a million Irish people who starved and over a million more that fled, primarily to the United States during An Gorta Mor, the great hunger.  Ireland’s potato famine which lasted from 1845 to 1851. In 1845 an airborne fungus phytopthora infestans made its way to Ireland by way of cargo ships arriving from the Americas, the fungus turned the once lush green potato fields to black mush, destroying the food the rural Irish pheasants depended on for their very survival.

The Potato Famine

The potato famine began in Ireland in September 1845, the leaves on the potato plants began to turn black and rot. Winds carried the fungus infecting the plants all along the countryside of Dublin spreading the spores to healthy plants.  The plants fermented which in turn provided nourishment for the fungus to thrive; potatoes dug out of the ground were rotten.  The Irish peasants relied on potatoes for their survival, without their food staple these people could not survive.  Over the next few years an estimated 1 million people had died from starvation and disease. The death toll was so great and those surviving had little strength left themselves so often important burial practices had to be suspended, normal wakes and religious ceremonies had to be put aside. Many of the dead were simply covered in a shroud and buried in mass graves. Some families were able to “borrow” a  “ trap” coffin for a small ceremony, this was a coffin with a trap door at the bottom, the body was wrapped inside and the coffin placed over the grave, a lever was then pulled and the bottom opened up dropping the body into the grave, the coffin could then be used again and again.

Irish Immigrants to America

Many Irish left Ireland coming to the United States in search of a better life during this time. Prior to 1846 the majority of Irish who had immigrated to America were Protestant or Presbyterian many whose first language was English, they came with skills and small amount of money saved to help them as they began their new life.  The Irish immigrants during An Gorta Mor were predominantly Catholic who spoke mainly Irish, and little if any English,  they gathered every cent they could to pay for passage and arrived with minimal skills and no money. These desperate people boarded “coffin ships” a ship in such poor conditions many were barely seaworthy. The ships were overcrowded and disease ridden with minimal access to food and clean water and only inches allotted to each person as sleeping space. Thousands would die at sea during the voyage; those that arrived had to take whatever jobs they could find, usually low paying unskilled jobs.  These immigrants were often met by signs saying “ No Irish Need Apply”.  Life for many was barely better than what they had left behind.  However, these were strong willed people who had already endured centuries of oppression in their homeland; they came together and built new communities.

Irish Immigrants in Oregon

While most immegrants who made the trip to the United Stated settled in bigger cities such as New York or Boston Some of the immigrants came directly to Oregon from Ireland and others were able to work and save enough to make the trip west across the Oregon Trail.  Having spent time in both Ireland and Portland, it is easy to see how the Irish immigrants would have felt at home in the Portland area. In 1850 when the first census was taken in Portland Oregon, there were only 12 Irish born listed out of a population of 821, 10 years later in 1860 10% of the city’s population was Irish born and that number continued to grow over the next several years.

Today the majority of Irish  Catholic men, women, and children who have died in Portland are buried at the Mount Calvary Cemetery. Immigrants who came to Oregon to escape the famine along with their dependents are buried in this cemetery so it is fitting that when a memorial was proposed to honor those who lost their lives and those who fled it was decided that it would stand in this beautiful cemetery.

Oregon Irish Famine Memorial Cross

Irish sculptor Brendan McGloin spent 2 ½ years carving this 14-foot tall Celtic cross modeled after the iconic High Cross "sermon in stone" which was erected at Clonmacnois, Co Offaly, around 912 AD for High King Flann The new cross was then transported from Donegal to Portland where it was unveiled on 13 December 2008. Irelands President Mary McAlesse unveiled the cross having made the trip from Ireland to Portland for the ceremony.

The  foundation of the cross holds a stone from the Hill of Tara, seat of the historic High Kings of Ireland, to commemorate the past; a euro for the present; and a stone from County Mayo on April 10, the day the Good Friday Peace Agreement was signed in 1998, represents Ireland's future.

Originally the memorial was to placed downtown, but it is said the ghosts of Mt. Calvary would not have it. In an interview David O’Longaigh the Portland engineer who instigated the original project along with the Ancient order of Hibernians said “ The Famine Irish are all buried here, we did not find Mt. Calvary, the Irish resting here found us”.

As I stood next to this incredible memorial reading the names I could I could almost hear the voices of the people being remembered here.
If you find yourself in Portland take a drive over and visit the memorial and if you listen closely you might hear a little Irish tune being sung on the Breeze.