21st June 2023
The All Saints Cemetery is known to many local people as ‘The Pauper’s Graveyard.’ It is a national monument and an annual commemoration ceremony is held in the cemetery in September of each year.
Commenting on the event, the Lord Mayor said “I look forward to seeing the plans for maintaining, interpreting and honouring this significant site in our history. Today marks a new opportunity to remember our ancestors who died in An Gorta Mór – The Great Famine.”
All Saints Cemetery was used as a burial ground for victims of the Great Famine and paupers, and was in use as a burial ground up until the 1950s by which time it became the final resting place for around 30,000 souls. Thousands of Cork people who died during The Great Famine are buried at Carr’s Hill. In the months of February to June 1847, 2,260 famine victims from the Workhouse on Douglas Road (now St Finbarr’s Hospital) were laid to rest in these grounds.
The late Jack Sorensen, a taxi driver in Cork, erected a cross to honour the famine dead back in 1958 which is still located on the graveyard site. Jack passed away in 1979 but his legacy lives on through a memorial carrying his name at the foot of the cross. The US Ambassador to Ireland, Mrs. Jean Kennedy Smith, unveiled a memorial to the famine victims here in this cemetery back in 1997. This was to mark the 150th anniversary of the Famine in Ireland.
