The twinning of Canada's Grosse Ile and Co Roscommon's Strokestown's Famine Museum was signed this week by Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr Andrews.
Grosse Ile, near Quebec City, was the first port of entry for the 75,000 destitute Irish entering Canada during 1845-50. It was a quarantine centre for those who had disembarked from the notorious "coffin ships". Five thousand famine Irish died there.
Strokestown Park Famine Museum is the ancestral home of the infamous Co Roscommon landlord, Major Denis Mahon, who was assassinated in 1848. His murder, it was reported locally, resulted when rumours circulated that the Virginius, which Major Mahon chartered, had sunk while carrying hundreds of Strokestown natives to Canada, said Mr Jim Callery, of the Famine Museum. "The tenants of Mahon's estate were to `go to hell or go to Grosse Ile' to paraphrase another wretch in our history," Mr Andrews remarked. Also present at the ceremony was the Canadian ambassador to Ireland, Mr Michael Philips.