Emigrants Commemorative Centre: Mayor Martin Walsh unveiled a stone marker at the site of a planned Emigrant Commemorative Centre in Carna, Co. Galway. Máirtín Ó Catháin, the chairperson of the committee planning the centre, is shown at left. Photo by Bill Forry

Mayor Martin Walsh returned to Carna, Co. Galway on Tuesday at a ceremony to launch a planned Emigrants Commemorative Center in the town of his father's birth. The mayor dedicated a foundation stone at the site and pledged to help support the centre by helping to raise funds and awareness in the Boston Irish community.

The mayor was joined at the ceremony by former Irish Prime Minister (Taoseich) Liam Cosgrave, age 94, who attended primary school on the site of the planned centre. The mayor and his traveling party, including partner Lorrie Higgins and mother Mary Walsh, visited six schools in Rosmuc and Carna, the Irish-speaking villages where his parents grew up. He left the Connemara region on Wednesday for a fast-moving swing to the north, with stops in Donegal, Derry, Belfast and then Dublin.

The emigrant’s centre is to be built overlooking the sea on what is now a dilapidated parish hall and former school near St. Mary’s, a Catholic church where Walsh’s father was baptized. The centre, which is scheduled to be built over the next two years, will feature a visitor’s center, library and meeting rooms for the community. In a ceremony that preceded the unveiling of the foundation stone bearing Mayor Walsh’s name, he and his family were hailed as prime examples of the generations of Connemara people who left this region over the centuries to seek better lives abroad.

“You know the story of people leaving the west of Ireland. You know my parents’ story and as I look out across the room, it’s your story, your family’s story,” Walsh told an overflow crowd of several hundred who packed into a tent next to the ruined building, which dates to the late 19th century.

“The people left the west of Ireland, not to get away from the land, as people thought it was but they actually left the west of Ireland to strengthen their own land here in their native areas,” he said.

Then, to great applause, he pledged: “I’m here today to tell everyone that I’m here to commit to you that we will build this center and we will open this center.”

Also on hand for the ceremony was 94 year old Liam Cosgrave, who served as Prime Minister of Ireland and who attended primary school in the old building next door in the 1930s.

“It’s a great pleasure to meet Mayor Walsh because I knew the family,” said Cosgrave. “He deserves the height of praise for the success he made of himself and his family contributed as well.

“Mayor Walsh is typical of people from this area who when they went abroad, they left their mark. And he’s left his mark. What’s important is that it’s the right mark.”

Máirtín Ó Catháin, the chairperson of the committee planning the centre, said that Walsh’s engagement in the project goes back to 2008, when he was asked to assist efforts at fundraising for the estimated $1.5 million effort.

Like many people in the audience, Ó Catháin traveled to Boston last fall to assist in the final push for Walsh’s mayoral campaign. In his remarks, Ó Catháin told the crowd that he was impressed with the multicultural coalition that Walsh built.

He’s a man who is above parochialism,” said Ó Catháin. “He put together a great coalition in the campaign. There were people from Central America, people from Asia, people from the black community. Martin had them all together behind him.”
Speakers — including Ó Catháin— also heaped praised on Walsh’s mother Mary, who was in attendance.

“If ever there was a great ambassador for Ireland in the United States, it’s Mary Walsh,” said Ó Catháin.

“In the end the people in this area are humble people. We’re humble people and on this day and with you, Mayor Walsh of Boston beside us, we are proud,” said Ó Catháin.

Walsh added: “As an elected official— it’s our responsibility whether its Carna, or Boston or Dorchester to help keep that history and tradition alive— and that we tell that story, because what makes our city so great isn’t what’s happening today, it’s what happened yesterday,” said Walsh. “In Boston we talk about the history of freedom and democracy and how we stood up and did it. In Ireland we have a story to tell as well about democracy and standing up for it. You have a story to tell about an area hitting a hard time during the famine.”

“You can never forget where you came from. That’s why I’m here today.”