Anglican Church donates land for future site of Montreal memorial to Irish immigrants

The Anglican Church has donated the parcel of land near the Victoria Bridge to memorialize 6,000 Irish immigrants who died in Montreal more than a century-and-a-half ago.

The site at the Black Rock Monument will eventually be turned into The Montreal Irish Monument Park.

"We can't move The Black Rock; it's basically a headstone for the 6,000 souls that lie beneath it in the cemetery it marks and protects," said Scott Phelan, director and treasurer of The Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation, while holding the contract for the land transfer.

Fergus Keyes, also a foundation board member, said years of planning and partnership went into that document. He added that the land transfer is the first part of the plan to build a proper memorial site.

"At the ground level is to remember the 6,000 Irish that died and are buried beneath our feet where we're standing in 1847," Keyes said, "and the second part is the great humanitarian effort of the people who came to help them, many of whom gave up their lives. And they represented every language and every religion you can think of that was in Montreal in 1847."

The next piece of the puzzle is the road running on either side. The City of Montreal has pledged $15 million to move Bridge Street. Hydro-Quebec is donating land across the street.

"They're donating 3.86 acres of land to The Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation for one dollar and they're giving us five years to build our world-class memorial park," Phelan said.

He said the park would include a museum and visitors' centre.

The Black Rock site is the oldest memorial to the Irish famine in the world, the largest mass grave of Irish people outside of Ireland and the largest mass grave of people in Canada.