I love New York in the Spring time. Or maybe it's just that I love New York during this Spring time. The weather was amazing and the tulips were just too beautiful.
On Saturday we found ourselves over in Battery Park City where we stumbled onto the Irish Hunger Memorial completely by chance. We only ended up going in because it seemed really weird that there was a piece of land shooting out from the pavement that seemed unkempt for the area we were in and really just looked completely out of place. I am very glad we did that though - it was a very nice non-typical New York thing to do.
The Irish Hunger Memorialis is dedicated to raising awareness of the Great Irish Famine - referred to by the Irish as 'The Great Hunger' or An Gorta Mor in Irish Gaelic - which killed up to a million people in Ireland between 1845 and 1852.
There is a path that meanders past the cottage along a winding rugged landscape which makes a person feel like they’ve steps off Manhattan and right into Ireland. It was as though nature wanted to play a game of ‘Ireland, Ireland’ with us and as we meandered our way up the path, the wind picked up and if you listened closely I’m sure we could have heard traditional Irish uilleann pipes in the distance.
Along side the path were fossilised Irish limestone's which bore the names of the Irish counties, including the northern counties. The path ascends to an overlook twenty-five feet above the ground, where we looked out onto the Hudson River and were able to see amazing views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island beyond that.
I found this to be a great reminder of how resources can become scarce and in this fast paced life we live in, seeing something like this memorial made me grateful for the current abundance resources we currently have in first world countries. But it prompts us to contemplate world hunger on a greater scale today and my hope is that people on a more conscious scale start caring for the world we all live in.
If this is something you would like to see – I recommend visiting
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycmg/nyctvod/html/home/impk503b.html or http://www.nyc.com/arts__attractions/irish_hunger_memorial.1379/editorial_review.aspx
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