Montreal dig finds remains of Irish famine victims

MONTREAL — Archeologists digging at the site of a future light-rail station unearthed a piece of Montreal history last week when they uncovered what is believed to have been a cemetery for Irish immigrants who died after fleeing famine in 1847.

The bone fragments of between 12 and 15 people were discovered in a spot about 2.3 metres in diameter that will eventually hold one of the lightrail system’s pillars, according to Elizabeth Boivin, a spokeswoman for the Réseau express metropolitain, or REM.

She said more remains could be discovered in the next few days, since archeologists don’t yet know how deep the graves lie.

While the bones have been sent to a laboratory for analysis, she said archeologists believe they belong to some of the nearly 6,000 immigrants who came across the ocean on overcrowded ships only to die of typhus in fever sheds erected on the banks of the St. Lawrence.

“It was in the context of an epidemic, so there was a public health problem, and the bodies were stacked up, put into coffins, but it wasn’t an organized cemetery as we know it,” Boivin said in a phone interview.

She said pieces of wood, presumably from coffins, have been found with the bones.

Boivin said the REM was aware of the possibility of a graveyard on the site and hosted a blessing in June prior to beginning the dig.

Because the area is bound by railway tracks, archeologists had to work in a confined, cylindrical hole in the ground, where they were lowered by crane. She said the remains will not affect the work on the train system.

The sombre discovery was nevertheless an exciting one for Montreal’s Irish community, which has been lobbying for a decade for a memorial park to honour the 1847 famine victims.

Victor Boyle, the co-president of the Irish Memorial Park Foundation, said it lends credence to the historians who say the site could be the biggest Irish grave site outside Ireland.

“It’s a vindication, and it brings back to life the story of 1847, when 6,000 people lost their lives,” he said.

He said other digs carried out in other locations near the site in recent years turned up artifacts, but no remains.

The bodies were found near the Black Rock, a three-metre-tall boulder erected by railway workers in 1859 that is believed to be the first-ever memorial to victims of the potato famine.

Fergus Keyes, who co-leads the park effort with Boyle, says an estimated 100,000 people came to Canada in the summer of 1847 aboard overcrowded vessels known as “coffin ships.”

Nearly 70,000 of them — many sick and dying — landed in Montreal, overwhelming a city with a population of 50,000.