In March 2025, I traveled along the western coast of Ireland, tracing the history of the Molly Maguires who emigrated from Donegal before continuing south to Sligo, a port city deeply shaped by the Great Famine and the mass emigration that followed.
On a warm, sunny afternoon, I wandered Sligo’s historic streets and followed the River Garavogue down to the waterfront. After a bowl of seafood chowder and a Guinness at the Harp Tavern, I stepped back outside – and immediately came upon the powerful Sligo Famine Family Memorial.
The monument includes several striking elements, the largest depicting a family huddled together as they wait for passage to America. Between 1847 and 1851, more than 30,000 emigrants departed Sligo’s quays, many ultimately finding their way to Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal fields.
One section features an excerpt from an 1850 letter written by an Irish father, Owen Larkin, to his son in America:
I am now I may say alone in the world all my brothers and sisters are dead and children but yourself… We are all ejected out of Lord Ardllaun’s ground the times was so bad and all Ireland in such a state of poverty that no person could pay rent. My only hope now rests with you, as I am without one shilling and as I said before I must either beg or go to the poorhouse… I remain your affectionate father Owen Larkin be sure answer this by return of post.
The Sligo Famine memorial, erected in 1997 on the 150th anniversary of the worst year of the Great Hunger, stands as a moving tribute to the suffering endured across Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s – an upheaval that drove more than a million people to distant shores and reshaped communities on both sides of the Atlantic.
Read more Irish stories from Jake Wynn – Public Historian
Alexander Campbell | From the shores of Ireland to a gallows in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region
Memorial to victims of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s | Dublin, Ireland
Irish immigration memorial in Philadelphia
“Whiskey has cost me my own life” | An interview with John Lanahan of the 46th Pennsylvania
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