London memorial to the Irish Famine (An Gorta Mor)
Sunday 13 May 2018, 1-2pm (outside TUC Congress House)
Sunday 13 May 2017 marked 170 years since the systematic number of deaths became more advanced during “An Gorta Mor” (Great Hunger) in Ireland.
There will be a commemoration outside TUC Congress at 1 pm with guest speakers. This area in the Parish of St. Giles was the first recorded “Little Ireland” in London from the end of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century. It was populated with Irish workers living in poverty and squalor. Many Irish people fled the Famine to this part of London and soon died of starvation as well as typhus. The failure of the potato crop began in 1845 and impacted heavily on the Irish population, as other crops had to be purchased for survival at a very high price or forfeited to their landlords. Hence, the starvation took effect in 1846. During the following year, it was the beginning of more than a million deaths as Britain refused to supply grain to the starving Irish population. By 1848 was the year of revolutions throughout Europe, 170 years ago, the deaths of Irish people were in a very advanced stage and there was an even an attempt at rebellion in Ireland. It is important that we commemorate “An Gorta Mor” (The Great Hunger) in London.
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LESE RRC Irish History Event
Thursday 17 May 2018, 6.30pm, TUC Congress House
Guest Speaker: Mary Doolin, PCS, Senior Full-Time Officer, will be speaking on the history of Irish women in the British Trade Union movement. This year it will be 100 years since our first woman MP following the success of the Suffragettes, who achieved the Votes for Women.
It is also 130 years since the “Match Girls Strike” as teenage girls of Irish heritage achieved all their demands since they withdrew their labour for three weeks in 1888.
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A walking tour in London: History of the Fenians in London
26th May 2018
We meet, roughly at 12 midday outside Russell Square tube station on Saturday 26th May, the date of which Michael Barrett was hanged 150 years ago. The tour will be conducted by Peter Middleton from the Wolfe Tone Society. The tour will include Clerkenwell Close where the prison explosions occurred in December 1867. We will finish at Newgate Prison where the last public hanging took place. Hopefully, the tour will be followed by a social.
Please register: lese@tuc.org.uk / 020 7467 1220
The Together Against Trump national demonstration has now been called for Friday 13th July, the day Trump visits Britain, starting at 2pm at the BBC in Portland Place and marching to Central London.
