Grosse Île, Quebec Quarantine Station
Irish Memorial National Historic Site Commemorates 1847 Tragedy
Mar 20, 2009
Increasing numbers of people left the British Isles after Napoleonic Wars that ended in 1815. Most of them were from Ireland and Scotland.
Grosse Île Quarantine Station
During the early 1830s an average 30,000 immigrants arrived annually at Quebec. It was the main port of entry to Canada.
In 1832, officials received reports of the cholera pandemic in England. They made immediate plans to set up the quarantine station at Grosse Île, a St. Lawrence River island located downstream from Quebec City. There were almost 3,300 deaths reported in Quebec City and more than that on Grosse Île that season. The number of ailing immigrants was considerably less during the years 1833 to 1847.
Irish Famine and Poverty
Thousands of people decided to leave Ireland rather than stay and starve or live under the rule of tyranny with its inequitable land system. Great numbers fled the terrible poverty and the potato blight that destroyed their crops. About 100,000 Irish immigrants sailed for Quebec in 1847. Many already weakened by malnutrition and starvation, were crowded into filthy, unsanitary ships unfit for human transport. In that year, 398 ships were inspected at Grosse Île and 441 at Quebec.
The Atlantic Ocean crossing usually took forty-five days, but many of those took more than sixty days. The passengers aboard the “coffin ships” were in a deplorable state, often infected with typhus when they arrived.
Emigrant ships bound for the United States were not welcomed. According to Padraic O Laighin in “The Untold Story: The Irish in Canada”, The U.S. authorities “were appalled at the sudden influx of starving, impoverished emigrants, many of them too ill or weak to work…enforced the Passenger Acts…and refused the destitute emigrants landing privileges. They were turned back to sea. Many of them then headed to Canada, hoping for a second chance.”
1847 Summer of Sorrow
In 1847, four doctors sacrificed their lives while caring for the immigrants. One of them was a Dr. Benson who came from Dublin. Though facilities were enlarged considerably during the season, Grosse Île was barely equipped to meet the demand. Many ships anchored off shore to await inspection and medical care.
During the horrible events of 1847 which was later called the “Summer of Sorrow”, more than five thousand people died at sea. Various reports of the deaths on Grosse Île during that period give widely divergent accounts of the numbers. Of the 7553 people listed as buried on Grosse Île, 1545 are listed as ‘unknown’. The shortage of people willing to work among the victims caused existing staff to be overwhelmed. With mass burials, no real count is known. Padraic O Laighin suggests the unofficial number could be 20,000.
Irish Memorial National Historic Site
On August 15, 1909, a forty-six foot granite Celtic Cross was unveiled by the Ancient Order of Hibernians on Grosse Île in memory of Irish people buried there. Located on the island’s highest point, Telegraph Hill, it has inscriptions on three sides of the pedestal. The Gaelic inscription mentions an artificial famine. Those in French and English do not.
In 1984, the government of Canada declared the island a National Historic Site. A new Irish Memorial was erected on Grosse Île in 1997, the 150th anniversary of the tragedy. The Grosse Île Irish Memorial National Historic Site of Canada was twinned on May 25, 1998 with the National Famine Museum of Strokestown Park in Ireland.
Sources:
The Untold Story: The Irish in Canada
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