30/11/2024

Today’s ramble will perhaps add a poignant reminder to those who celebrate Thanksgiving, that for all those who made it to the USA back in the eighteenth & nineteenth century, many did not. The Pauper’s Graveyard is over the wall from St. Anne’s Church in Ballyshannon, and it is the final resting place of hundreds of unknown souls who died in the town’s workhouse. Initially, the field was donated by a local landlord for the burial of cholera victims, but during the famine, the number of deaths of poor Irish required a place of burial, and the same field was given to the workhouse. There are no grave stones or names here - the poor are unnamed and unknown. There is one memorial plaque, erected in 1995 by the Donegal Historical Association and the Donegal Association of New York. If you stand at the plaque, you can see the workhouse across the river. It’s a reminder to all that the ones who got away were lucky ones- lucky to get on a boat, and lucky that they were not turned away. At dheis Dé go raibh siad.
#rambles #ireland #donegal #studyabroadireland