Dublin Famine Memorial
Dublin Famine Memorial
The suffering the Irish endured during the famine was profound. In those years of misery, disease and despondency there were not many options left for the starving population – people could “take the soup”, immigrate or die.
“Taking the soup” meant accepting food from the English landlords. However, this came with a price – to “get the soup” required rejecting their Catholic faith. Even today the slang phrase “they took the soup” is intended as a slur against a family.
For those who did make the desperate decision to leave, they still faced terrible hardships – hardship and danger in the voyage itself with uncertainty of work and survival upon arrival.
Immigration tore families apart. Both those who left and those who stayed knew they would likely never see each other again. Thus began the practice of holding an “American wake”.
A “wake” is traditionally for saying a final good-bye to a person recently deceased. Now they were being held for the living – a means of saying a final good-bye to a person before they embarked upon their journey to America.
The suffering the Irish endured during the famine was profound. In those years of misery, disease and despondency there were not many options left for the starving population – people could “take the soup”, immigrate or die.
“Taking the soup” meant accepting food from the English landlords. However, this came with a price – to “get the soup” required rejecting their Catholic faith. Even today the slang phrase “they took the soup” is intended as a slur against a family.
For those who did make the desperate decision to leave, they still faced terrible hardships – hardship and danger in the voyage itself with uncertainty of work and survival upon arrival.
Immigration tore families apart. Both those who left and those who stayed knew they would likely never see each other again. Thus began the practice of holding an “American wake”.
A “wake” is traditionally for saying a final good-bye to a person recently deceased. Now they were being held for the living – a means of saying a final good-bye to a person before they embarked upon their journey to America.