Virtual Famine Walk – Forum, Conversation and Music

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On May 16th at 7pm – the day on which the annual Doolough Famine Walk was due to take place, Afri will host a virtual Famine Walk Forum with distinguished guest speakers, great conversation and live music. Our host will be campaigner and author Ruairí McKiernan. He will be joined by renowned violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire, harpist Emer Lynam and singer-songwriters RoJ Whelan and Paul O’Toole, as well as guest speakers including Emeritus Professor John Maguire, author and Lecturer Dr Clare O’Grady Walshe,  MASI member Donnah Vuma and student climate activist Gráinne Malone.

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Film about Famine Walk 2018

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2018 marked 30 years of the Doolough Famine Walk and was attended by around 300 people. The weather was good and the day was memorable with inspirational words from Richard Moore and Fatin al Tamimi and stunning songs and music from Lisa Lambe and Nigel Linden.  Here is a short film which captures how the walk went.

‘Food for Thought’ in Castlebar and Westport on May 18th

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Two important events are taking place in Co Mayo in May which aim to remember the Irish Famine and to explore its links with some of today’s sustainability challenges in Ireland and globally.  Both events, which are free of charge, will take place on May 18th before Afri’s annual Famine Walk (Saturday 19th May, Doolough Co. Mayo). A daytime event, ‘Conversations on Cultural Resilience – Famine, Food, Energy & Culture’ will take place from 10-5pm in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology Castlebar, Co Mayo. Subsequently, an evening celebration of Cultural Resilience with further conversation, ceol and craic will take place in Blousers public house in Westport from 8-11 pm.

The events have been organised by a number of leading Irish NGOs and groups who have come together including FEASTA (the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability), the human rights NGO Afri, the community resilience NGO Cultivate, a recently formed Irish language group, Teacht Aniar, and Food Sovereignty Ireland.

The open format of the events will be based on conversation through culture, using the Great Famine as a backdrop, reflecting on the policies and politics of famines. The events are being held in solidarity with the global justice movement and will cover issues such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, climate action and food sovereignty.

One of the event organisers, Mark Garavan, FEASTA member and lecturer with GMIT Castlebar says:
“County Mayo was one of the counties which suffered most when the great famine hit between 1845 – 1848. The recent extreme weather events in Ireland, international instability and the refugee crisis have focussed many minds on the fragility of the global economy and the vulnerability of ecosystems worldwide. There is a need to build resilience on a grassroots local level whilst also reinforcing global solidarity and justice. Unfortunately there is often a lack of dialogue on how we should go about this. The upcoming events aim to stimulate such a discussion and Mayo is the place where it can begin.”

‘Food for Thought’ will also explore and celebrate the legacy of the radical economist and founder of Feasta, Richard Douthwaite, who is known internationally for his writing on different aspects of sustainability creative and his work with communities in Ireland and abroad.

All events are open to members of the public to attend.

To register for the free events or see the complete schedule visit: https://foodforthoughtmayo.eventbrite.ie/.

Date for the diary: Famine Walk 2018

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Remembering and Solidarity

Saturday 19th May, Doolough Co. Mayo

Registration from 12.45pm in Louisburgh Town hall

Beginning at 1.30pm

Walk Leaders: Richard Moore, Fatin al Tamimi

Music: Lisa Lambe

Famine Walk 1988-2018

Register online here (alternatively you can raise sponsorship for Afri – just bring this to the registration desk on the day) and see who’s going on Facebook

Download the brochure or the sponsorship form

Saturday 19th May 2018 will see the 30th anniversary of the Doolough Famine Walk. Afri first organised the walk in 1988 to commemorate the Great Hunger of 1845-50. Regions such as Mayo illustrated how a natural setback such as potato blight can mutate to disaster in the context of unchecked market forces, lack of democratic structures and resources, and a pitiless, moralistic ideology. While some £9.5 million was eventually spent on late and poorly-designed ‘Relief’, £14 million went to sustain the military and police forces.

Our walk retraces a journey of horror which occurred on 30th/31st March 1849. Two poor-law commissioners were to assess people in Louisburgh, entitling them as ‘paupers’ to meagre relief rations. The inspection never happened, but the people were instructed to appear at Delphi Lodge at 7 the following morning. They walked the hilly road in wintry, even snowy, conditions. At Delphi Lodge they were refused food, or admission to the workhouse, and so began their weary return journey, on which many, even hundreds, died.

Afri, drawing on the local history of Louisburgh and Doolough, recalls the dead and displaced of the Great Hunger – and all those facing the same grotesque and avoidable cruelties in today’s world, from the so-called ‘War on Terror’ to the indignities of ‘Direct Provision’. We walk the famine road to remember the causes of hunger and poverty in our world – political, military, economic and environmental – and our failure to learn the lessons of our own history. Our Walk Leaders eloquently represent the spirit of resistance and transformation:  

In the twentieth-anniversary year of the Good Friday Agreement we welcome Richard Moore, who was blinded as a 10-year-old child by a rubber bullet fired by a British soldier during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He reacted by founding Children in Crossfire, declaring: “I learned to see life in a different way. I may have lost my sight, but I have my vision”.

2018 is also significant in that it marks the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, and in this context, we are honoured to welcome Fatin Al Tamimi, Chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The extraordinary voice of Lisa Lambe will provide the music for this year’s walk. We are delighted to have Lisa as part of this year’s walk line up.

Register online here (alternatively you can raise sponsorship to help Afri continue our work – just bring this to the registration desk on the day) and see who’s going on Facebook

Read an article about the Famine Walk and BBC Radio 4 Ramblings Show.

Find out about our ‘Music From A Dark Lake’ CD, a compilation of songs from past Famine Walks.

 

Short film about the 2017 Afri Famine Walk in Mayo

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For 30 years Afri has walked the famine road through the Doolough Valley in County Mayo. It is a walk like no other, abounding in memory, music, history, solidarity and spectacular beauty; retracing the steps of the dispossessed of the past and forging solidarity with the banished and oppressed of today.

The 2017 walk linked the experience of Irish people fleeing on coffin ships or being condemned to workhouses during An Gorta Mór in the nineteenth century with those crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy, rickety boats today, some of whom, if they survive, may end up in Direct Provision Centres for asylum seekers in Ireland.

A short film of the walk was made by RoJ (see above)

Reflections from the Food Sovereignty Assembly and Famine Walk

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The 2016 Famine Walk began at Delphi Lodge, led by walk leaders Cathryn O'Reilly and Clare O'Grady Walshe (the other walk leader not present here is Rafeef Ziadah) among others. Photo by Derek Speirs
The 2016 Famine Walk began at Delphi Lodge, led by walk leaders Cathryn O’Reilly and Clare O’Grady Walshe (the other walk leader not present here is Rafeef Ziadah) among others. Photo by Derek Speirs

Around thirty people gathered for Afri’s 3rd annual food sovereignty assembly, which took place in the town hall in Westport on the 20th May this year to examine food sovereignty issues and to explore what practical steps are necessary to implement the ideas of the Food sovereignty Proclamation which was agreed and posted in 2015.  Among the questions discussed at this year’s event were: how can we accelerate the transition to a low carbon, fair and resilient society?; how can we produce both food and energy in ways that reduce greenhouse gases and their negative impact on the planet? Among the many suggestions was to continue to have April 24th – the actual date of the 1916 Rising – as a food sovereignty day in future years as it was this year.

Rafeef Ziadah speaking during the Afri Famine Walk in Mayo. Photo by Derek Speirs
Rafeef Ziadah speaking during the Afri Famine Walk in Mayo. Photo by Derek Speirs

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Date for the diary: Famine Walk 2016

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Famine Walk 2016 poster

Famine Walk 2016: Memory, Solidarity, Sovereignty

Saturday, May 21st, Registration from 12.45pm (€20 per adult participant)

Delphi Lodge to Louisburgh, Co. Mayo

To register go here. See also facebook eventpage here.

Walk Leaders:
Rafeef Ziadah (Palestine)
Francisco Cali-Tzay (Guatemala)
Clare O’Grady Walshe (Ireland)
Cathryn O’Reilly (Dunnes Stores Strike)

 

Music: Máirtín O Connor
(special fundraising gig for Afri with Máirtín & family in the Derrylahan, Louisburgh at 8.30pm on Saturday 21st)

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Famine Walk 2015: Food Sovereignty, Global Warming and Resisting Militarism

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Photo: Kerstin Hellman.
Photo: Kerstin Hellman. Photo shows famine memorial on grounds of Delphi Lodge.

 

Food Sovereignty, Global Warming and Resisting Militarism

Saturday, May 16th 2015

From  Delphi Lodge to Louisburgh, Co. Mayo.

Registration from 12.45pm; Walk beginning at 1.30pm

Walk Leaders: Abjata Khalif (Kenya), Maitet Ledesma (Philippines) and Sharon Staples (Wales)

Music: RoJ Whelan

 

 Please park cars in Louisburgh: no parking available at Delphi Lodge – a shuttle bus will be provided.

 

Many themes have been explored in the Famine Walk over the past 27 years. The Philippines was the focus of the first ever famine walk as Niall O’Brien, recently released from prison, outlined the experience of living under the Marcos military dictatorship. Significantly, the Philippines is again a focus of this year’s walk as Maitet Ledesma updates us on the current situation there, with particular reference to the devastating impacts of  militarism and global warming.

The issue of food and famine has always been a central theme of the walk, as it is this year.  As nations continue to turn to war as a first resort, in many cases, food security is further threatened, global warming is intensified and corporate control of food is extended, despite the fact that small-scale producers remain the mainstay of global food supplies. Food sovereignty is the common ground on which the realities and hopes of many of these small producers meet. Continue reading “Famine Walk 2015: Food Sovereignty, Global Warming and Resisting Militarism” →

Famine Walk 2014: From Famine to Food Sovereignty

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Coni Ledesma (left) and Luis Jalandoni (right) from the Philippines unveil a Famine Memorial on the grounds of Delphi Lodge during the 2014 Famine Walk. Photo: Rob Fairmichael

Where can you start in talking about the Afri Famine Walk? Well, 1849 is the best point because the Famine Walk is the re-enactment or retracing steps of a real tragedy that happened to people who died walking that way 165 years ago. There is a sense in which the ground we walk on is sacred, holy, or marked because we know some of the terrible things happened in that very place.

But the Afri Famine Walk is not some ethereal revisiting of a past, if tragic, time. It very directly links past, present – what is happening in the world today with causes similar to or the same as what caused and exacerbated the Great Famine in Ireland – and future – and asks us to recommit ourselves to ending famine. There was food, there is food, the question is who controls the food and what happens to it. Some walkers carried posters of the names of individuals who died in that and more recent famines. Continue reading “Famine Walk 2014: From Famine to Food Sovereignty” →

Famine Walk 2012: Corporations, Crops and Control – Seeds of Life or Seeds of Strife

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Joe Murray, who was present at the first Famine Walk in Doolough in 1988, reflected, in his opening remarks, on the past twenty five years and how the Famine Walk remains relevant today.

Anita & Tommy Hayes from the Irish Seeds Savers Association planting a variety of potatoes called ‘Butes’, which were unaffected by blight during the 1845-1849 famine, as part of the 25th anniversary Afri Famine Walk. Photo: Derek Speirs

It’s hard to believe that the Doolough-Louisburgh Famine Walk has been on the road for 25 years! When Afri initiated this walk of remembrance and solidarity in 1988 the Great Famine was hardly commemorated at all and, if it was, the link with contemporary famine and hunger throughout the world was rarely made. Afri set out to ensure that the Great Famine would be commemorated because of its singular importance in our history. We also wanted to ensure, however, that it would be commemorated not in a self-indulgent or self-pitying way but rather in a way that links it to contemporary issues of hunger and famine throughout the world. We sought to ensure that the lessons learned from the Great Famine in Ireland would be applied to today’s world.

It is encouraging to see that the Great Famine is now being commemorated in Ireland and that the contemporary dimension is almost always included. However, in the ensuing 25 years the situation for the world’s poor has not improved, in fact things have gotten worse. The numbers now experiencing hunger in our world has increased to a staggering one billion. One billion people who experience hunger in our world of plenty! The Famine Walk focuses on the causes of hunger such as unjust economic structures; unfair trade; the war industry (costing in excess of $1600 billion in 2010); climate change and a relatively new cause of famine – the issue of genetic engineering. This year’s walk is in solidarity with those affected by the genetic engineering of food crops. This is not an academic argument as its impact is felt by millions of people throughout the world. Continue reading “Famine Walk 2012: Corporations, Crops and Control – Seeds of Life or Seeds of Strife” →