Today was absolutely gorgeous! Not a single drop of rain. Our schedule today was pretty busy. After our James Joyce tour, we walked along the river and of course I snapped some cute pictures. Upon walking, we came across this monument. It was in remembrance of the Great Famine. This statues really struck a cord in me; seeing their hollow, sunken in faces, skinny limbs and bare feet made me realize just how bad Ireland had gotten during that particular year. It never fully clicked with me, I had always know it had happened, and that it was a terrible, terrible thing but I didn’t really acknowledge  just how severe it actually was. Families were starving and hearing today Frederick Douglass’s letters about this awful situation made it extremely clear to me that this was just as bad, if not worse to an extent, to the enslavement of the Africans during the same time period.

I never understood the lack of human compassion especially during the 1800’s, because at the same time that African’s were being shipped away in chains, not to far afterwards the Irish were starving to death. It really upsets me, but I was very glad to be able to see this monument and read the plagues about the Great Famine. My heart aches for the past, but now I have a new found appreciation about this depressing bump in Irish history. I am forever grateful that I now know the severity of the famine, and am able to pass the information I’ve learned today to other people who have little knowledge about this particular event in Irish History.