Ireland Park, Toronto

Since I’ve mentioned the Rowan Gillespie statues in Toronto in a previous post, I thought it fitting that I should show them here.


The statues in Dublin have been there since, if I’m not mistaken, 1999 or so. Ours are much more recent. They date from 2007. Mary McAleese, the President of Ireland, visited to open Ireland Park at that time, opposite the Island Airport.


It was there, at the foot of Bathurst Street, that 38,000 Irish emigrants arrived in the summer of 1847. At that time, the population of Toronto itself was only 20,000. The present population of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) is just shy of 6 million, so this would be the equivalent of nearly 11 million people arriving here in one year. Imagine the strain on the public purse and resources.

They arrived on “coffin ships”. Remember that Toronto is on the first of the Great Lakes, a long, long way inland... an entire time zone inland from the Atlantic Ocean. That they came this far is astounding. Many, many of them were ill with typhoid, and many of them died here — along with the many brave souls who tended to them, among them Toronto’s first Roman Catholic bishop, Michael Power; like myself, a native Nova Scotian from Halifax.

Stacks of stone, shipped here from (if I recall correctly) County Kerry, were arranged in the shape of a ship. On the sides of the stones have been carved all the known names, so far, of typhoid victims among the Irish immigrants of that summer.


A kiosk of interactive presentations has been created by the City to educate the public.


While I did see people visiting the statues in Dublin, I didn’t see evidence of tribute the way I did at Ireland Park. There, people were laying bouquets, long stemmed roses, pressing coins into the hands of the statues (in particular, that of the expectant mother)...


Most poignant of all, someone had brought four perfect potatoes (in reference to Ireland’s four provinces?) and left them at the head of the famine/typhoid victim.


The only joyful or exhalant of all of Rowan Gillespie’s Famine statues on either side of the Atlantic is this one, a man who seems to behold the future of his people. Beyond him is the city, the province, and the country the Irish Diaspora built, in concert with so many others.


Collectively, these five statues are known as "The Arrival", as I've read those in Dublin are "The Departure".

A fast introduction to Dublin

David waggled his finger at his father and brother in the pub in Santry, admonishing them, in reference to me, “This man pays for nothing while he’s here.”

To a large, and somewhat embarrassing, extent during my stay in Ireland, that was the case. I was supplied with copious amounts of drink and food, my lodgings were free, and my transportation was essentially the gift of friends of friends. Ireland, in the form of a dozen people or so, opened her arms to me, a full-fledged member of her Diaspora, and embraced me.

I crossed the Atlantic with €500 (over $800 Canadian) in various places on my person. I came home with about twenty-five. It vanished in my attempts to stand my share of rounds (I never could keep up), souvenirs for family and friends, and my insistence on paying for some of the meals out. On the whole, there’s no question I came out far, far ahead. And not just financially.

The people I lodged with were not, strictly speaking, family, though I’m not romanticizing or embellishing when I say that I strongly have that sense of them. At every instance, they treated me like blood, and honestly, without guile or pretension. This is all the more overwhelming to me because of the nature of my family here. We, and the people I know, are by and large WASPish, reserved, undemonstrative — regardless of race or religion. Even close friends maintain a certain froideure. It’s not exactly at the level of Germans who work side by side for decades and still address one another as “Herr”, but there’s a noticeable difference between Toronto and Dublin in this regard. I had never met David, or his wife Mary, before… aside from internet exchanges, phone conversations, and a few packages. But I was accorded a welcome like an old friend come home again. And not just by them, but by their extended family and friends as well. Listen to me as I tell you the story of my week in Ireland.

* * * * *

I dozed through the six-hour flight from Toronto to Dublin. I can’t strictly say I slept. My boss, originally from Spain and an adventurous traveler, gave me some non-prescription pills to battle jetlag, and I have to say, they quite did the trick, coming and going. What I do know is, I took a shot of the graphic of the plane leaving Toronto, and I remember it catching the corner of New York on its way to Montreal… and then I remember seeing us flying over Shannon and approaching Limerick. A small mercy for a guy who isn’t enamored of flying.


At some point during the flight, one of the flight attendants came around with declaration forms non-EU passengers had to fill out. It was with no small thrill that I proudly informed her I had an Irish passport. It was with an even bigger thrill that I passed through customs at the airport. People with blue passports and the forms queued up in a long, slow line. Those of us with burgundy passports passed through much more quickly. I handed the man in the booth my Irish passport; he glanced at it for three or four seconds, passed it back to me, and nodded me in. Into Ireland. My country. My other home. That was all the dreaming, all the work of getting the documents and the registration and the passport, made real... come true. I would never presume to call myself an Irishman... but I was Irish. And that was enough.


So suddenly there I was, in another country, on another continent. I’ve been to the United States, but that’s really just more Canada... or vice-versa. But here I was, in Europe, in Ireland. Standing there alone, waiting for my bag to show up on the belt, wondering what was ahead of me. Would I find my friend? Would we get along? Would I be a week-long toothache for him? I certainly hoped not.


And there I was, bag in hand, coming out into the common area. And he spotted me. He, Dave — and his friend… a man who turned out to be, in fact, his brother, Jason, of whom I had heard much over the years. Jason drives; Dave doesn’t. But Jason never showed a moment of resentment for his chore of ferrying his brother’s friend around over several days, or accompanying us on several bus trips. I came to regard Jay as a friend on his own terms… particularly later that day.

Everyone in Ireland drives standard, I guess. Jason does. His VW Rabbit zipped along the road south of the airport to his brother’s home in Ballymun, which for me, will forever be “home” when I think of Ireland and Dublin. There was an alley behind their place where we parked… a longtime fan of British television, I was reminded somehow of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. I have seen places like that in Toronto, but it’s not quite the same.


And I met Mary, and Dave and Mary’s daughter Cara. Mary is expecting, very soon. But she seemed without a care for it, and was so gracious and considerate to me, a virtual stranger, that the sense of blood relation truly washed over me. It was a real revelation for me, come from beyond the wave, as the song goes.

It was a fast couple or hours that saw me in Ballymun, putting my things away in a the room that will soon be Cara’s. After that, it was off to Santry, where Jason and his father and some of their siblings live. This is a story for another installment.