Scotland's Irish community remembered in special Mass
A Mass will be celebrated this weekend in memory of those who died as a result of the Great Hunger, those who fled their native land, and for those of Irish descent who live in Scotland today.
The Mass will be celebrated at 3pm on Sunday, 13 June, at Carfin Grotto in Lanarkshire.
The Mass at Carfin will also constitute a national day for those of Irish descent in Scotland in remembering their roots and heritage and celebrating the positive economic, social, cultural and political contribution their community has made to modern Scotland.
Many Irish people arrived in Scotland as a result of the cataclysmic great Hunger of 1845-51. Starvation was followed by typhus, dysentery and scurvy and mass evictions of people from the land. Losing their simple homes or panic-stricken by the spectre of famine and fever, tens of thousands emigrated, mainly to the USA, England and Scotland. Many were lost along the way or upon arrival. By the 1860s Ireland’s population was halved from its 1845 figure of eight million through starvation, disease and emigration making the Great Irish Hunger one of the most lethal in modern world history.
Source: Archdiocese of Glasgow