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Grosse-Ile
When Mary Robinson, President of Ireland, paid a state visit to Canada in August, 1994, she
included on her itinerary a small, pretty island in the St. Lawrence River, 30 miles south of
Quebec City. Although the island is only one mile by one and a half miles, it is called
Grosse-Ile, but some Canadians call it "L'Ile des Irlandais."
President Robinson laid a wreath on a mass grave on Grosse-Ile, by doing so calling upon all
of us to remember "the terrible realities of our current world. 11 Today's Somalia and
Rwanda were Ireland 150 years ago. Grosse-Ile is part of that awful tragedy, the Great
Hunger.
The Irish famine hit Grosse-Ile like a tidal wave in 1847. The Canadian government in 1832
had established Grosse-Ile as a quarantine station to cope with the prospect7-of -Cholera
traveling to Canada with European immigrants. Not a very efficient operation, Grosse-Ile
simply existed without too much public attention until it was made a part of the story of the
Irish potato famine.
The timber trade from Canada to Britain had been well established, and it was economical
to take human cargo in the timber holds from the British Isles and Ireland back to Canada.
When the Irish in the mid-1840's were faced with starvation at home, many took the "coffin
ships" to Canada and the United States, most paying their own fares but many given
incentives to emigrate by landlords. The immigration business boomed, with timber ships
joined by old, refitted vessels which transported immigrants in squalid holds. It is in these
ships where the bells tolled for those escaping famine, and it is in these ships where the
need for mass graves on Grosse-Ile was generated.
Suffering from malnutrition, the immigrants were easy victims to the typhus that was
carried by the lice that moved from person to person in crowded holds of ships. Lack of
sanitation, lack of washing facilities, lack of medical attention, lack of ventilation fed the
hunger of the pestilence that afflicted the immigrants. In 1847, of the 98,105 passengers on
British ships to Canada, 5293 died at sea.
"A fairy scene. Exquisite grades, groves, wild flowers and glimpses of the St. Lawrence." An
immigrant saw the beauty of Grosse-Ile as it was, and as it now is, before its five and a half
months journey into Irish history. on May 17, 1847 the first of the Famine ships arrived.
The "Syria" had left Ireland with 241 passengers, had buried nine at sea, and had eightyfour passengers afflicted with typhus. The quarantine station had one hundred hospital beds
available. The wave of sick immigrants had begun. Little Ellen Keane, four years old, was
the first of the immigrant Irish to die. By May 31, forty vessels holding 15,000 immigrants
waited in the St. Lawrence in a two mile long line to dock at Grosse-Ile. By then 1100
patients with fever were housed in the hospital, in sheds, in tents and in the Church of St.
Luke. The dead were off-loaded like so much cargo for burial on Grosse-Ile. Active until the
end of October 1847 when ice closed the St. Lawrence, Grosse-Ile was populated by
"cadaverous," "spectre-like," "emaciated" and "feeble" Irish immigrants. The lowest
estimate of bodies buried on Grosse-Ile is 5300, hut some say 12,000 is a more accurate
figure.
One of the heroes of Grosse-Ile is Dr. George Douglas, chief medical officer on Grosse-Ile.
He exhorted both governmental and private sources for resources to cope with the
devastation of the voyage aboard "coffin ships." He risked his own life in treating the sick,
and even though ill, Dr. Douglas had to be restrained from continuing his work. one priest
assisting the efforts on Grosse-Ile said of Dr. Douglas, "It was a wonder to us all that he
could withstand the horrible fatigues he had to undergo."
Dr. Douglas had a monument erected to commemorate the dead on Grosse-Ile. inscription
reads:
In this secluded spot lie the mortal remains
of 5,294 persons, who,flying from pestilence
and famine in Ireland in the year 1847,
found in America but a grave.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians in 1909 also erected a monument to commemorate those
who ended their hope for a better life in a Grosse-Ile grave. The forty-five foot Celtic cross
set on Telegraph Hill, the highest point on the island, bears this inscription:
Children of the Gael died in their thousands on this island
having fled from the laws of foreign tyrants and an artificial
famine in the years 1847-48. God's blessing on them. Let
this monument be a token to their name and honor from the
Gaels of America. God save Ireland.
Grosse-Ile is now at the center of a controversy. Parks Canada in 1992 announced plans to
make the island a nation park dedicated to 19th and 20th century immigrants without ''too
much emphasis on the tragic aspects of the history of Grosse-Ile." Irish-Canadian groups
were outraged at this wording in the proposal and its assertion that the "events of 1832 and
184711 have been "overemphasized" in the past. Changes have been made in the park plan
to address the concerns of Irish groups, but the Action Grosse-Ile Committee plans to keep
up its pressure. The committee plans to see to it that another part of the inscription of on
the Celtic cross on Telegraph Hill is honored in the park plan:
Sacred to the memory of thousands of Irish emigrants who,
to preserve the faith, suffered hunger and exile in 1847-48
and stricken with fever ended here their sorrowful pilgrimage.
(Written by John Walsh and originally printed in February 1995)
© Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area
http://www.irish-society.org/home/hedgemaster-archives-2/places-artifacts/grosse-iie