Gairdin an Ghorta

Newmarket, County Kilkenny

A National Garden of Remembrance located near Newmarket in County Kilkenny

Gairdin an Ghorta is a National Garden of Remembrance not just those remembering who died in this area or in this country, but all those Irish people who tenaciously held on to their small meagre holdings and passed them down to generation after generation, honouring also those who died of fever, hunger and starvation in their own homes and work houses – very often buried where they fell, or in mass burials in unmarked graves, those who emigrated and the many who died in the “Coffin” ships, buried at sea, those who made it to other countries and in particular to the United States – many rejected by the natives for fear of contagious fever, disease and of course those who successfully made it to other countries, the U.S. in particular, and did us proud. The path through the garden is a metaphor for Irish history. The journey along the path is synonymous with the journey of the Irish people from pre-famine era to the future.