caroline pignat

Telegraph Hill

This hill at the west end of the island has a celtic cross erected now as a memorial to the Irish. In 1847 a T-shaped post stood here to send messages to the mainland by semaphore using coloured flags and canvas balloons.

Dr. McGrath's House

In 1847, this was the Medical Assistant's House. Staff lived on the island from May to November for the quarrantine season.

View from the island

This is taken from the island looking at the St. Lawrence towards the Atlantic. Just imagine what it must have been like for Dr. Douglas, the Medical Superintendant of Grosse Ile, to look out and see over forty ships anchored there, waiting, their holds full of sick, dying, and dead passengers. Anchored for days until space could be found on Grosse Ile, many healthy passengers caught typhus and later died. The island was built to house 200 sick and 800 healthy passengers but that year over 98,000 arrived.

Irish Cemetery

My guide, Israël Gamache, is telling me about the Irish Cemetery. As the inscription on the monument reads: In this secluded spot, lie the mortal remians of 5,424 persons who, flying from pestilence and famine in Ireland, in the year 1847, found in America, but a grave.

Memorial

This memorial was built to comemorate the 5,424 Irish buried in the cemetery. I'm told it was designed in stone, similar to an ancient Irish burial mound, with one stone for every person buried. The large metal sculptures in the middle are like sails from the ships.  As you walk through, smaller sculptures are in tiny alcoves at the centre that commemorate the  lost lives, orphaned children, and the helping hands who gave them hope. It is a powerful memorial.

Memorial Names

A wall of glass circles one half of the memorial. On it are the names of those men, women and children buried in the Irish Cemetery. Those who died unnamed are commemorated by the symbol of a boat. I was surprised to find three Cranny's buried here.  Ann, Mary, and Patrick Cranny from Dublin. My maiden name is Cranny and I was born in Dublin. Perhaps Ann, Mary, and Patrick are my distant relatives.

Celtic Cross Monument

This cross, erected in 1909, stands at the top of Telegraph Hill at the west end of the island. It reads:

Sacred to the memory of thousands of Irish emigrants, who, to preserve the faith, suffered hunger and exile in 1847-48, and stricken with fever, ended their sorrwful pilgrimage. Erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, and dedicated Feast of the Assumption, 1909. Thousands of the children of the Gael were lost on this island while fleeing from foreign tyrannical laws and an artificial famine in the years 1847-48.

Lazaretto

This is the only surviving shelter of the twelve "sheds" built in 1847 on the east end of Grosse Ile. That season, it housed the healthy immigrants who had to wait the quarrantine period (20 days or one week after the last case of illness was reported on their ship) before being allowed to head up the St. Lawrence into Canada. In later years, it housed the sick and the healthy were kept on the west end of the island.

Inside the Lazaretto

Each Lazaretto had four long rooms where bunks were built. At the time, they thought typhus was caused by the miasma (vapours and smells off the sick and dead), but it actually was spread by body lice. Many "healthy" people who passed inspection carried the disease to cities and towns along the St. Lawrence that summer.

Re-enactment

After my tour, Israël Gamache dressed as Fr. Bernard McGauran re-enacting a prayer service for a crew filming on the island. Fr. McGauran (born in Ireland) was the chaplain for the season of 1847. After a month he fell sick but later recovered. Priests, pastors, doctors, nurses, as well as other island employees caught typhus from the people served. Many of them died.