Ceremony at Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff at 11.00 a.m. on Wednesday 17 March, 1999, St. Patrick’s
Day, 1999
The event was blessed with fine weather. About 400 people were present including children from the following schools:
St. Patrick’s R.C. Primary School, Grangetown.
Gladstone Primary School, Cathays.
St. Joseph’s R.C. Primary School, Cathays.
Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Mynydd Bychan (Welsh language primary school), Cathays.
Music was provided by a party of teenagers from the Corpus Christi R.C. High School, Lisvane, Cardiff.
The Programme was as follows :
1. Address of Welcome: John Sweeney, Chairman, Wales Famine Forum.
2. Reading in Irish: Conor O’Riordan, Consul General of Ireland in Wales, read
a shortened version of the famine poem:
Amhrán na bPrátaí Dubha
3. Hymn in Irish: Eithne O’Brien, who attends St. Peter’s R.CF. Church in Roath, sang, unaccompanied:
Ag Críost an Síol
4. Reading in Welsh: Mary Sullivan, Chair of the
Newtown Association, Cardiff, read the poem:
Biaffra by Dafydd
Rowlands.
5. Hymn in Welsh: Mared Whelan, whose great‑grandfather came to Wales from County Waterford and
whose mother is a native speaker of Welsh, sung, unaccompanied, the classic Welsh hymn:
Myn Mair
6. Reading in English: Tom McGarry, President, Irish Society, Cardiff University Students’ Union, read the closing paragraphs of The Dead the story included in Dubliners, the classic collection of short stories by James Joyce.
7. Joint Unveiling of the Great Famine Memorial: Jon Owen Jones MP, Minister of State at the Welsh Office, and Conor O’Riordan, Irish Consul General in Wales, together pulled away the green cloth which had covered the inscriptions in English, Irish, Welsh and Latin which are as follows :
1) On four plaques of Welsh slate :
In English:
In memory of the victims of the Great Famine in Ireland, 1845 – 1849, and of all Irish people and their descendants who have died in Wales.
May they rest in peace.
In Welsh:
Er cof am y rhai a ddioddefodd yn Newyn Mawr Iwerddon, 1845 – 1849, a’r holl Wyddelod a’u disgynyddion a fu farw yng Nghymru.
Heddwch i’w llwch.
In Irish:
I gcuimhne orthu siúd a d’fhulaing le linn Ghorta Moacute;r na hÉireann, 1845 – 1849, agus ar na hÉireannaigh go léir is a sliocht a fuair bás sa Bhreatain Bheag.
Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a n–anamacha is anamacha na marbh.
In Latin:
In memoriam victimarum Famis Magnae in Hibernia A.D. MDCCCXLV – MDCCCXLIX atque Hiberniensium
omnium cum prole sua in Cambria sunt mortui.
Requiescant in Pace.
2) Side by side on the flat base at the front of the Celtic Cross:
In English:
During the years 1845 – 1849 the potato crop in Ireland failed, a million people perished and almost twice as many fled their homeland. Thousands of refugees arrived in Wales. This memorial, erected by their descendants with the support of generous friends, is for them.
In Welsh:
Yn y blynyddoedd 1845 – 49 pallodd y cnwd tatws yn Iwerddon, trengodd miliwn o bobl a ffôdd bron i ddwyfaint mwy oddi cartref. Daeth miloedd o ffoaduriaid i Gymru. Trostynt hwy y cododd eu disgynyddion y gofeb hon gyda chymorth cyfeillion hael.
8. Blessing and Dedication. This was an ecumenical service conducted in the following manner:
a)Opening Prayers: The Most Reverend Edwin Regan, the R.C. Bishop of Wrexham in north Wales prayed for those who had died during the Great Famine in Ireland and for those survivors who had settled in Wales and for all the Irish who have lived and died here.
b) A Reading from the Book of Isaiah (58:9‑12):
The Reverend Denzil John, Minister, Tabernacl Caerdydd (the Welsh Baptists’ Church since 1825), The Hayes,
Cardiff, and an Honorary Member of the Wales Famine Forum, read as follows:
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil; if you offer
food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and
your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones
strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be
called Repairer of broken walls, Restorer of streets to live in.
b) A Reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 8 , Verses 31‑39 :
Canon Jack Buttimore, retired Vicar of St. David’s Church in Wales, Ely, Cardiff, a Corkman who was once
an employee of the Beamish and Crawford Brewery in that city and is now an honorary Member of the Wales
Famine Forum, read as follows:
What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the
dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written,
“For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
c) A Reading from the Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 25, Verses 31 to 46:
The Reverend Anthony Crockett, representing the (Church in Wales) Archbishop of Wales, read as follows:
When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly
glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right:
“Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did
we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or
in prison, and go to visit you?”
The King will reply:
Then he will say to those on his left:
They also will answer:
He will reply:
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the glorious to eternal life.
d) Homily:
e) Interdenominational Blessing and Dedication of the Memorial. The clergy listed above were joined by Fr.
S.F.Marriott, I.C., the Parish Priest of St. Joseph’s, Cathays, whose area includes the Cathays Cemetery in
which the Memorial now stands.
f) The Sign of Peace: The Clergy extended the handshake of peace to each other and called on everyone
present to greet his or her neighbour in the same expression of Christian peace and goodwill.
9. Joint placing of a wreath at the base of the Memorial: Councillor Marion Drake, the Lord Mayor of Cardiff
and Captain Norman Lloyd‑Edwards, the Lord Lieutenant for South Glamorgan (the Queen’s official representative
in Cardiff and surrounding areas) carried a large wreath (which included a huge mass of shamrock) and
placed it against the Memorial. The card on the wreath had the simple dedication (in English, Welsh, Irish
and Latin):
10. Closing Remarks: Tyrone O’Sullivan, Chairman, Tower Colliery, Hirwaun. His grandfather came from County
Cork and he himself had to go down to the coalface where a rock fall had killed his father.
His words at the Great Famine Memorial were gentle, humorous, and endearing (the immediate impression
one forms on meeting this ‘local hero’ is of an amazingly unassuming gentleness, kindliness and calm).
11.There was then a period of one minute’s silence in memory of all those who had died as a result of
the famine.
12.The ceremony ended with the hymn, Hail Glorious St. Patrick, after Seán
Mac Réamoinn, a veteran broadcaster and writer who had come from Dublin with his wife in order to take
part, had brought the proceedings to a fitting in English, Irish and Welsh.
The Master of Ceremonies throughout was Chris Daly, who normally carries out this function at the principal
Mass each Sunday in the city’s R.C. St. David’s Cathedral.
At the end of the ceremony the Wales Famine Forum Chairman John Sweeney
invited everyone to join him at a ‘wake’ in Dempsey’s Bar in the city centre where the Landlord, Donegalman Mike Farrell and his wife Margaret, had set up a special ‘soup kitchen’ serving a very nourishing Irish stew.
Fortunately only about 70 or 80 of the 400 people in Cathays Cemetery accepted John Sweeney’s invitation or there would have been ‘wild scenes’!
That evening several hundred people, including some who had been unable to be present at the unveiling of the Famine Memorial, were guests of Conor O’Riordan, Ireland’s Consul General in Wales, at a reception in the City Hall.
Finally, a few members of the Wales Famine Forum managed to attend an Irish ‘Céilí’ arranged by the Cardiff University Students’ Union, the proceeds of which were shared between the Omagh Disaster Fund and the Wales Famine Forum’s Great Famine Memorial Fund, set up to raise the £3995 needed to meet the construction costs.
Chairman: John Sweeney:00 44 29 / 20482193
All translations, ©: Wales Famine Forum.
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The Great Famine Remembered in Cardiff, Wales
From The Catholic People, Cardiff’s RC monthly
(masseytown@yahoo.ie).
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you fed me;
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink;
I was a stranger and you invited me in;
I needed clothes and you clothed me;
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me!”
“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was
hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger
and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick sick and in prison and
you did not look after me me.”
“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did
not help you?”
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
The Right Reverend Daniel Mullins, Bishop of Menevia, a native of Limerick and a speaker of both Irish
and Welsh, spoke in three languages.
“In memory of Ireland’s Famine dead”.
Later he was a shop steward in the National Union of Mineworkers when the National Coal Board announced
the closure of the Tower Colliery, about 30 miles north of Cardiff. Like Lech Walensa in the Gdansk shipyard
about ten years earlier, Tyrone O’Sullivan rallied the miners and persuaded them to form a cooperative
and buy the doomed pit. They followed his advice and the colliery is still there.
His main point was that if we do not love and respect ourselves, our history, our traditions and our small
country how can we love and be in peace with our neighbours.
Secretary: Barry Tobin:00 44 29 / 20916146
Treasurer: Joe Moore:00 44 29 / 2055355
Press / PRO : John O’Sullivan: 00 44 29 / 20615147
A Registered Charity, Number: 1057587
An account by the late John O’Sullivan, journalist and historian.
Links
A selection of related articles which may bring tears,
smiles and some legitimate pride.