An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger)

As Father Cuddihy was building and growing Saint Mary's Parish, there were new arrivals from his homeland on a regular basis.  Many were leaving Ireland in fear of their very lives.  A terrible hunger had come across the land as a fungus began to attack and destroy the potato plants on the Emerald Isle.  While there was an abundance of other produce that grew with great success, this was either consumed by the Irish aristocrats or shipped to nearby Great Britian for their enjoyment.  The greater and poorer population of Ireland subsisted on the potato crop, and its failure meant that tens of thousands, in fact, hundreds of thousands, were suffering from the ravages of this hunger - they were malnourished, susceptible to disease and unable to work because they were weak and their immune systems compromised.  Those who could fled the green and rotting fields of Ireland for distant shores.

Many of those who left Ireland were already too weak and sick and never saw the shores of America when they died before the end of their sea voyage.  Others who came from Ireland to the United States found a home in Milford.  Some of these were unfortunately too sick, malnourished or weak to make a living here and died after their arrival.  There is a section in the original Saint Mary's Cemetery that became their common grave.  Unmarked and for the most part unknown, it is estimated that there are 8,000 of these souls who are buried in Saint Mary's Cemetery in Milford.  They are gone, but not forgotten. 
At the end of the 20th century, many local people took up the challenge to improve this ancient gravesite and to restore dignity and honor to the memory and final resting place of these poor souls.   Requesting funds from any who had a tie to Saint Mary's Parish and her beautiful cemetery, their plea found receptive and generous hearts from all around the USA and rised $68,000 to restore this section of the cemetery which was designated an historic site.  With these funds and their back breaking efforts over the next nine years, they cleared the old graveyard and restored the gravel paths, righted and secured toppled or leaning markers, and then repaired and improved the quality of the roads in the newer section of the cemetery that Fr. Cuddihy had created. With the funds remaining coupled with a grant secured by State Senator Richard Moore, State Representative Marie Parente and Judge Francis Larkin, they commissioned and erected a beautiful and dignified memorial to all those in an unmarked grave who were the victims of this genocide by the oppressors of the Irish people, those who feasted while the Irish languished in hunger and died by the millions.
On Memorial Day in 2011, they gathered with Fr. Daniel Mulcahey, Pastor of Saint Mary's Parish to give thanks for the generosity of so many and to remember the lives that have been lost but are now immortalized to the memory of the Catholics of Saint Mary's Parish.  Following the annual Memorial Day Mass, led by a bagpiper, they walked to this site to ask God's blessing.  They placed a wreath as 'Amazing Grace' on the bagpipes resounded across the fields followed by a rendition of 'Golden Rose' the song of Our Lady of Knock.   As they prayed, a 'soft rain' fall on the gathering, reminiscent of the familiar climate of Erin.  Following the prayer, they feasted on tea, scones and soda bread as they remembered their ancestors and the effort they made to escape the  Great Hunger, a genocide of unparalleled distinction in history. 
This memorial, standing on the common grave of so many who reached these shores too sick to begin a new life and instead ended it here, now await the promise of resurrection.  As they do so, they remind us of our own sinfulness, the greed, prejudice and indifference of so many not only of the 19th century but of each intervening generation until our own, so that we may always be mindful to turn our hearts to welcome the newcomer and offer them a share in the bounty of the good life that so many have found and enjoyed here in America.
To visit the memorial, it is located in the cemetery facing Hamilton Avenue, adjacent to Route 85, Cedar Street in Milford.