Gorta volunteers honoured as part of National Famine Commemoration

"Skibbereen has done Ireland and the diaspora proud" – Brian Hanratty, Gorta CEO

Speaking after victims of the Famine of 1845-1849 were remembered on Sunday last with a State Commemoration in O’Donovan Rossa Park in Skibbereen and a moving ceremony in Abbeystrewery Cemetery, Gorta CEO Brian Hanratty praised the people of Skibbereen and West Cork for the dignified manner in which the Famine dead were honoured.

Coinciding with the commemoration, Programmes Manager, Richard Flockhart, delivered a talk on Saturday entitled “Reflections on Famine”. Additionally, Gorta launched a new website: MakeHungerHistory.org and Gorta staff conducted Vox Pop interviews on the streets of Skibbereen. Posters linking An Gorta Mór to modern-day famine were also distributed throughout West Cork over the course of the weekend.

“The fulsome co-operation of local community, heritage and drama groups with Minister O Cuiv and his officials, as well as the National Famine Commemoration Committee contributed to the day, and the events leading up to it being such a wonderful success,” said Hanratty, adding “Skibbereen has done Ireland and the diaspora proud and set a very high standard for next year’s venue to follow.”

Following the ceremony in Abbeystrewery Cemetery where politicians, ambassadors and diplomats from 20 countries participated in a formal wreath-laying ceremony, Minister Ó’Cuív then met with over fifty local volunteers who manage the Gorta charity shop in Skibbereen.

Recognising the outstanding record of active citizenship in the town of Skibbereen, Minister Ó’Cuív, together with Gorta Chairman Deirdre Fox and Chair of the local Gorta shop committee, Pauline O’Sullivan, presented a special certificate and medallion (struck by the local Skibbereen Famine Commemoration Committee) to each volunteer at a special ceremony held in the West Cork Hotel.

Deirdre Fox paid tribute to the ceremony in O’Donovan Rossa Park and to the warm welcome she had received over the course of her weekend in Skibbereen. Fox noted how “Gorta volunteers in Skibbereen have created the organisation’s flagship local committee and flagship Gorta charity shop... which has raised hundreds of thousands of euro since the shop opened in November 1992.”

Fox provided details of specific projects in the developing world which had been funded by the proceeds of the Gorta shop on Market Street in Skibbereen. These included a medical dispensary in Tanzania and a women’s empowerment project in India.

Fox also noted how “No-one in Ireland understands better the human cost of famine than the people of West Cork and no one in West Cork is more committed to responding to hunger in the modern world than our volunteers.”

Minister O’Cuív explained how a lot of people had asked him what the reasoning was behind having a National Famine Commemoration Day. O’Cuív said there were two primary reasons: the first was to remember the victims of the Great Irish Famine, “but also, very importantly, the second reason is to remember those today, who suffer from hunger throughout the world.” He added “I would like to pay tribute to all of those who work for that cause, because that’s today’s cause, and it’s a cause which, I think, we in Ireland are particularly conscious of.”

Chair of the local Gorta shop committee, Pauline O’Sullivan, thanked the Minister for his public recognition of Gorta’s volunteers but relayed the disappointment of many within Gorta’s volunteer base at the Government’s recent cuts in the Irish Aid budget. O’Sullivan noted how she hoped that “as soon as the recession lifts, the Government will reprioritise the very important issue of hunger in the world.”