Day 7

Day 7 Thursday:  Imagine having 8 to 18 children and living with everyone in a small shack with a thatched roof along with any animals like a couple of chickens or a pig you might have managed to obtain.  Today was a day of walking in other’s shoes, recreating and remembering the Great Hunger, what caused it, and what the English response was, and the parallels to many situations today with immigrants and refugees wanting to come to the U.S.

 

We visited the Ballyshannon workhouse and saw the famine pots from which people ate their watery gruel and the coffins used to hold people who were taken off the ships to America, which were called coffin ships as so many died on the trip over.  The Hunger/Famine began in 1845 and lasted for 6 years, though the effects were from 1845-1870.  One million people died from starvation and one million emigrated out of desperation.  Ireland considers itself a first world nation with a 3^rd world sensibility.  They experienced the mind numbing, body crushing poverty and subjugation of being sub-human to the English for hundreds of years.  They are a conquered land regaining their spirit.

 

We also visited the Port where so many left Ireland, especially for America and Australia.  Upon returning to our hotel, we met Maura Logue, who helped each of us create a character for the St. Patrick’s Day parade we will be in tomorrow.  Our “created” person is coming to town for the parade/fair around 1950.  Though we’ve fast forwarded in time from the Famine emigration, emigration is still occurring in 1950’s (and still today).  For our troupe, we have wealthy girls with a governesses traveling on holiday, and farmers coming to “buy” girls to work on farms, and a young woman on a scholarship to study abroad, and so the diaspora continues.  What fun we had creating story lines—with jealousies and loves and betrayals—while trying on clothes and getting crash course in acting to prepare us for the parade tomorrow.  In between our preparation, the hotel swelled with Irish families arriving for the celebrations and children running and hollering through the halls.  Tomorrow will be a party day!