A few days ago we were walking along the River Liffey to get to the Samuel Beckett Bridge, and we passed the famine statues there to commemorate the Great Famine in the 19th century from 1845 to 1849. The statues were designed by Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie. The memorial featured a man walking with his too-skinny child draped across his back, a woman with stick legs reaching out for help, and other figures of deathly thin people in motion.

Several of the tour guides have mentioned how poorly the starving Irish people were treated by the government — how so much food was exported when the people in this country were starving to death. The memorial really moved me. There was such a defeated, broken look on the face of the woman in the photo I took. I also loved that someone had placed a bright red flower in her hand. It is such a bright contrast to the darkness of the statues.

The website for the memorial says “No event in history has had a more profound effect on Ireland and the worldwide Irish Community than that of the Great Irish Famine.” More than a million people died and many moved away from Ireland. The population fell from over 20%. We’ve seen a lot of memorials on this trip, especially of figures from the Rising or famous writers. We were only at this one briefly, but it definitely made the biggest impact on me. I can’t imagine feeling like the place you call home and take so much pride in has abandoned you.