Almost 190 unmarked graves on Achill Island in County Mayo were blessed by the Catholic and Church of Ireland Archbishop's of Tuam a ceremony on September 24.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam Most Reverend Dr Michael Neary and the Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, Right Reverend Patrick Rooke presided at the historic joint ceremony at the old Achill Mission's Church yard and graveyard.
Most of those interred in the unmarked graves in Achill died of starvation either immediately before or during the great Irish famine of 1845.
The principal church in the Achill Mission is Saint Thomas's Church of Ireland, which was founded by the Rev Edward Nagle in 1831 as part of a heavy push from the 1800s by English and Irish evangelicals to convert and save the Irish from what were considered Roman Catholic errors, ignorance, and neglect.
This mission provided food for the poor and saved many from starvation.
However Rev Nagle's mission was dubbed by some as ‘souperism', a term coined during the Great Famine for some of the Protestant religions who gave out free soup during the famine in return for recipients converting to Protestantism.
Later the then Archbishop of Tuam, Archbishop John McHale founded a Franciscan Monastery on Achill Island to counter the Rev Nagle's mission.
Speaking to local media in Mayo about the ceremony, local Church of Ireland Rector Val Roger's said, “There was so much jostling for position among the two religions during the Famine and it caused so much hurt because of the people's suffering.”
He added, “The poor were looking for food and the Mission seemed to have food so that the relationship between food and faith became a complication.”
Commenting on those who died he said, “I suppose a fair few of the 190 persons buried in the unmarked graves would have originally been from a Catholic background before converting. We believe it is now time that Catholic prayers were also said over the graves.”
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