Ancient Order of Hibernians and Irish Community

Montreal Irish: On Sunday, about 100 members of the Irish community took part in an annual walk to the site, according to Metro News. The ceremony, led by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, has taken place in some form or other since 1865 -- six years after the stone was erected by mostly-Irish Victoria bridge construction workers who stumbled across the graves. The stone, stained black from exhaust fumes, sits in a little-visited industrial zone near the foot of the bridge, and some members of the Montreal Irish community say the city needs to do a better job of honouring the chapter of Canadian history it represents."This is the largest single burial site of the Great Hunger in the world outside of Ireland itself," said Victor Boyle, one of the directors of the Montreal Irish Memorial Park Foundation."It also the first memorial to that event outside of Ireland."But he says that while cities such as Toronto have prominent memorials to their Irish ship fever victims, Montreal much-larger number of dead are going unrecognized. Now, Boyle foundation is trying to get permission to transform a parking lot adjacent to the site into a memorial park in time for Montreal 375th anniversary in 2017. He also wants to salute the many Quebecois families who adopted Irish orphans into their families. Boyle says the park would honour not only the Irish victims but also the Montrealers who risked their health and safety to help them, ranging from clergy members to British soldiers to Montreal mayor, John Easton Mills, who contracted typhus and died in 1847 after visiting the fever sheds. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.