The Global Legacy of the Great Famine in Ireland

Healing the Wounds of An Gorta Mór & Exploring What it Means to be Irish

Online | English

What will we be exploring in this Lab?

Our lab will explore the legacy of the Great Famine (1845-52), in which more than 1 million Irish died. More than 1 million emigrated during this time, and there were successive waves of emigration that created an Irish diaspora that today numbers more than 44 million. The lab is not so much about the history but about people’s experience of that history. What did the Irish have to do to survive the Famine? How does the Famine echo into our lives in the present? How is legacy of the famine different for those who left and those who remained?

Who is invited to participate?

The lab is intended for people of Irish descent, whether in Ireland or in the Irish diaspora. Some understanding of trauma is necessary, as is the willingness to look deeply into our individual lives and our ancestry. But most important is the desire to uncover and heal what our Irish ancestors couldn't heal in their own time.

More about the journey of the Lab

The lab will follow Thomas Hübl's Collective Trauma Integration Process (CTIP). We will create a safe container for exploring how the Famine trauma response still lives in us and how it affects our very being. Painful moments will certainly arise in this work but the process will be guided with compassion, care, and respect. And with a deeper understanding of the legacy of the Famine, we can begin individually and collectively to form a new sense of Irishness.

When will we be meeting?

The lab will meet on the Zoom platform. The first meeting will be on Tuesday, Jan. 23. Thereafter, the meetings will be on the second Tuesday of the month: Feb. 13, Mar. 12, Apr. 9, May 14, June 11, July 9, Aug. 13, Sept. 10, Oct. 8, Nov. 12, and Dec. 10. All meetings are for two hours, starting at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern/7pm Ireland.