AOH MASS AT WESTERN CEMETERY

The Ancient Order of Hibernians will host their 14th annual Mass atthe Famine Memorial in the Catholic Ground at the Western Cemetery (Portland)on Sunday, August 12, 2012, at 1 PM. A reception will follow at St. Patrick'sChurch on Congress Street.
The Famine Memorial stone was dedicated in August 1999 by the localAOH to honor the more than 1,200 Irish Catholics buried on the Catholic Ground,most without headstones The service will also remember an Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger, the Irish potato famine in Ireland(1845-51), in which at least 1.2 million Irish perished due to hunger anddisease. This famine was in actuality an "artificial" famine broughton by callous landlords, corrupt and apathetic British bureaucrats, and anextremely inefficient land system.
Most of the Catholics buried in the Catholic Ground were famineemigrants or their children, who died during the "Famine Decade" of1845-1855. They were mostly all communicants of nearby St. Dominic's Church(now the Maine Irish Heritage Center) where more than 500 Irish emigrantsjoined the church in "Black '47," the worse year of the Great Hunger.