Heavenly Father let your blessing come upon this memorial.  Bless and keep those who attended its beginning, who gave birth to its design and raised the funds to make its construction possible.

Let your blessing descend upon each and every one of the men and women who flowed into this country from this harsh event. May this memorial carry love and blessing and even more, companionship to each one that is touched by its power. To future generations may this memorial keep them from forgetting the past and so be deemed to repeat it.

On the day when the memory of the famine deadens on their shoulders and they stumble, may this memorial be the clay that dances beneath their feet to balance them. When their eyes freeze behind the gray window in the ghost of loss may this memorial be a flock of colors indigo, red, green and azure blue that comes to awakening in them a meadow of delight. And so coming to understand this history from the memorial may they be able to journey to that place where there’s great love, warmth, feeling and forgiveness. And may it transform that which is negative or cold in them. And so may our telling of history nourish children, comfort their parents, and sustain the aging.  May this be a place of life to bring life to those who come here and reflect on what has happened to our forbearers..?

And so may a slow wind work these words of blessing around us, this memorial and those we touch, with an invisible cloak to mind our lives. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Leaving Home

by Reverend Nicholas S. Rashford, S.J.
President of Saint Joseph's University
Honorary co-chairman, The Irish Memorial, Inc.

Read at The Irish Memorial public unveiling
held at Penns Landing, November 2, 2002

There are some things better left unsaid
Held in the heart, kept out of my head,
Reflecting on home is one of them
Returning, to Ireland, is only a whim.

Hard is the heart to memories of long ago.
After the work was done, to drop rake and hoe
And begin the long walk across Ireland to Cork
That terrible sea and a dream of New York.

The times had been good, but they were hard.
Ireland had won its freedom, but killed the bard.
Now in twenty five we were hungry and cold.
Four were dead, mom and dad grown old.

No possessions to take, no bag to pack
Soda bread with a rasher in an old paper sack.
Scorched in my heart against the black of night
The vision of a small house and dancing fire light.