National Famine Way Commemorative Walk 2024
The National Famine Way Commemorative Walk took place over six days from Monday 20th to Saturday 25th May 2024 passing through Roscommon, Longford, Westmeath, Meath, Kildare, Fingal, and Dublin and celebrating with local authorities along the way. Led by the Ambassador of Ireland to Canada, Eamonn McKee and representatives of the Liverpool Irish Famine Trail the walk culminated in the launch of the Global Irish Famine Way. The walk began at the National Famine Museum | Strokestown Park in Roscommon, it follows the National Famine Way™ for 165km to EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin’s Docklands. The National Famine Way™ is a collaboration between Waterways Ireland, the Irish Heritage Trust and the county councils along the route.
An exciting element was an evocative scene at the new Dublin/New York Portal with a symbolic passing of bronze shoes from one side of the Atlantic to the other. In a touching silent tableau representatives of the National Famine Way the Liverpool Irish Famine Way held out the bronze shoes towards the portal almost touching the bronze shoes reaching towards them across 3,000 miles. In New York Gareth Hargadon (Vice Consul General at the Irish Consultate) and Elizabeth Stack (Irish Historical Society New York) replicated the pose from the other side.
The National Famine Way Commemorative Walk concluded with the launch of the Global Irish Famine Way and an evocative scene at new Dublin/New York Portal with symbolic passing of bronze shoes from one side of the Atlantic to the other.