A meeting was held this week to map out new roads around the Black Rock memorial at the base of the Victoria Bridge.
The memorial marks the place where in 1847, 6,000 Irish victims of a typhus epidemic were buried.
The site currently sits in the middle of Bridge St.
In 2020, Hydro-Quebec is set to begin building a substation near the rock but plans on sharing the area with the Irish community.
This week it emerged that the favoured plan appears to be to build a new site near the existing memorial to the east of Bridge. St.
These are the final decisions that need to be made in a 100-year fight to get these victims recognized, said Fergus Keyes of the Montreal Irish Memorial Park.
Keyes explained why the story is so pertinent to some challenges still faced today.
“The other part that makes it such an interesting Montreal, Quebec and Canadian story is the absolutely tremendous humanitarian effort made by Montrealers at the time,” he said. “Everyone from the Grey Nuns to the mayor of Montreal at the time, a gentleman of the name of John Mills in 1847, went to help the Irish. Many of them were not Irish – most of the victims were Irish and Catholic, and most of the people who went to help them were not Catholic. And many, many unfortunately gave up their lives to be caregivers. So you know, today when we talk about immigration, I think it’s really an important story. It’s actually very nice what these caregivers did for these sick and dying Irish.”
Keyes said he hopes an expanded memorial will draw more people to the area.
It will be a space with a museum, and interpretation centre, maybe even a potato patch to teach people about the potato famine the caused so many to emigrate to Canada.
