Waterfront tour, part 1: Ireland Park (dial-up warning)

[JeffR]

At the western entrance to Toronto harbor, Ireland Park commemorates the arrival of refugees from the Irish Famine. The population of the city was then a mere 20,000. In six months in 1847, over 38,000 refugees landed here. The park opened in 2007, with a ceremony attended by Irish President Mary McAleese.

Ireland Park sits out on Éireann Quay beneath the derelict silos of the Canada Malting Company:





Looking toward the western gap from the park, with the island airport on the far side:



Five poignant statues by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie are the heart of the park. Gillespie did a similar group in Dublin to commemorate the departure of the Famine refugees.















A wall of limestone from Kilkenny features names of those who succumbed to typhus and cholera after surviving the Atlantic crossing. Over 1,000 eventually perished.



Next stop, the Music Garden and points east.

[BuddhaGirl]

1. these are stunning!

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing :-)

[JeffR]

3. Thanks so much!

:hi:

[Celebration]

2. very moving

And, I can relate, or at least my ancestors can. Gorgeous pictures on a beautiful day. Thanks!

[JeffR]

4. Thank you.

It seems like a humble memorial, but standing among the statues is a powerful experience. It took the city a long time to acknowledge this era and its tragedies, which of course played out in cities up and down the east coast and here on the Great Lakes. I was glad to have some souvenirs of the day to bring back here.

[CC]

5. Toronto owes you .

You make it look beautiful no matter how mundane and then you find something like this and make it all the more poignant.

[JeffR]

6. Thanks, CC!

I owe the city. It rewards me over and over again. Still wish it had palm trees, but catastrophic climate change might well take care of that soon enough.

[HarveyDarkey]

7. Incredible shots

That fifth one is very stunning, my favorite,

[JeffR]

8. Thank you!

I'm pretty fond of that one too.

[maheanuu]

9. You Should Be Proud Of All

Jeff, they're all exceptional and they flat jerk on my emotional strings... Ya Done Really Good

[JeffR]

11. Thank you. The place certainly is emotionally rich and resonant

and I hoped a little of that came through in the photos.

[Callalily]

10. I am all too familiar

with the "smell of malt", although I really like the perspective of your silos.

[JeffR]

12. They're pretty imposing, Callalily, even in their current state.

There was some demolition going on near there that day, and I found out tonight they're actually removing two large buildings attached to them, but the silos will remain.

Long before I lived in Toronto, every time I came to the city by car, the smell of malt was thick across the lakeshore from this place. It's been mothballed since the 80s. Now it just smells of dirty water and dead fish, probably not so different from 1847.:)

[Mira]

13. I kept coming back to these

not knowing what to say.
Still don't.
I'm reacting to the sculpture and its sorrow and the humanity and the pain - and of course it is your photography that brings it near.
Thanks.

[JeffR]

14. Thank you.

It's stayed with me, without even looking back at the photos. This is a city quite poor in good public art, and to have something this good and this powerful and relevant to civic history in a dramatic spot by the harbor seems sort of miraculous to me.