It was the Thanksgiving bank holiday weekend in Canada yesterday and the President, Mrs McAleese, had the first relaxed day of her 13-day State visit, which ends in Newfoundland tomorrow. She will then spend three nights in Boston, and arrive back in Dublin on Sunday morning.
Yesterday, she called on the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, Ms Lise Thibault, and met a small group from the Quebec Irish community at her hotel, the imposing Chateau Fontenac, which dominates the city and overlooks the St Lawrence River. The Irish group was led by Ms Marianna O'Gallagher, the local historian, who specialises in the history of Grosse Ile.
Mrs McAleese's visit to the old quarantine station, where nearly 5,500 Irish, struck down by famine fever on their Atlantic crossing, were buried in the 1840s, made the front page of Canada's national daily, the Globe and Mail. The President and Dr Martin McAleese were pictured examining the names of the dead Irish emigrants etched on the perspex memorial beside the mass graves. Although the magnificent autumnal colours of the leaves somewhat relieved the bleakness of the small island, it was swept by an icy wind and darkened by threatening clouds on Sunday afternoon when the presidential party alighted from their helicopters.
In a moving ceremony attended by about 100 members of Irish communities who had travelled hundreds of miles, the last leg by boat, Mrs McAleese spoke of those whose lives ended there in fear and loneliness. In many cases there was not even a name to remember them by.
If the suffering and grief of the Irish, she said, defied description, so too did the bravery and compassion of those who tended to them on their arrival. Their courageous and humanitarian action was an early example of the long tradition of Canadian response to international humanitarian crises.