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Walk to commemorate Irish migrant trail


The Green Way

The Green Way

A fundraising walk commemorating the historic route taken by many West of Ireland emigrants as they left their homeland and families in search of work, will be undertaken by the charity, the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain (ICB) next month.

The London based charity, which works with come of the most vulnerable Irish emigrants in Britain, assisted more than one thousand Irish emigrants last year alone.

On 23 August 2011, the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain's (ICB) are going to do a sponsored walk in Co Mayo, along the newly opened 'Green Way', from Newport to Mulranny. This route is a disused railway line and it marks the journey that many Irish emigrants were forced to make, especially in the massive depopulation endured particularly by people from the West of Ireland.

The Green Way walking route has particular connotations for emigrants from the Mayo area. Both the first, and last ever, train journeys made on the railway line, involved tragic stories of emigrant's untimely deaths. The first ever journey made on the railway was to carry back the bodies of Achill natives who were enroute to Scotland to pick potatoes when the boat they were on sank in 1894. The last ever journey made on the railway was in 1937, to again bring back the bodies of the ten Achill Islanders who died when the barn in which they were staying during the potato picking season, was engulfed in flames.

Dr Philomena Cullen, Director of the ICB, said: “As a charity which works with some of the most vulnerable of Irish emigrants we thought it would be appropriate to commemorate the journey made by emigrants in the past, but to link that past with the emigrants we currently work with today. We see our walk as an act of solidarity, a symbolically rich way to re-focus public attention on the issue of emigration as it is being played out today, where an estimated 1,000 Irish people are once again having to leave Ireland every week. It's almost as if emigration is hardwired into the Irish psyche so that we respond in the same way, down the decades, to economic failure.

"But throughout the 53 years that the Irish Chaplaincy has been working with Irish emigrants in Britain, we know for sure that emigration is not an easy or pain free remedy. We also know that "people always live in each other’s shelter". So all money raised from our sponsored walk will be going towards maintaining our three essential services for vulnerable Irish emigrants today".

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