Kingston Irish Famine Commemoration Association

The Kingston Irish Famine Commemoration Association (KIFCA)is made up of a group of local volunteers dedicated to researching Kingston's role in the Irish Famine.

Kingston is well known as a city which is proud of it’s historical past, however prior to the formation of KIFCA, the City’s significant involvement with the Irish famine victims was noticeably absent on local historical plaques and low key in the local history books. Other Ontario cities e.g. Ottawa still have unmarked Irish ‘famine’ victim graves. This raises yet another question – if the Irish do not rectify this situation then who will?

KIFCA successfully petitioned Kingston City Council in 1997 to set aside a small, well-traveled, downtown park on the lakeshore as a Memorial Park to the Kingston Irish Famine Victims (named An Gorta Mor Park-located at Ontario and West Sts). KIFCA erected a Celtic Cross Monument in An Gorta Mor Park in May 1998. Commemorations are held at the site. A general information plaque was erected on the grounds of Kingston General Hospital in May 2000. Kingston Irish Folk Club, Kingston General Hospital & KIFCA, erected a plaque, unveiled on 23rd Sept 2002, to mark the exact location of the mass gravesite. On March 2002 a Celtic Cross monument was erected by Kingston Irish Folk Club, Tir na nOg, Brewing Co. and the City of Kingston in Skeleton (McBurney) Park to the est. 10,000 buried between 1813 and 1865 in what was Kingston’s Upper Cemetery. Many of the est. 300 Kingstonians who died helping the over 1,500 Irish who died on Kingston’s shores in 1847 would have been buried in this park.

Please click on the link to our website for more information on the 'Kingston Connection or click the following links to read more detail about this topic.

A Brief History of Án Gorta Mór

Skeleton Park

Kingston Irish Famine Victims

Irish Labourers and the Rideau Canal


About the Founder & President

Tony O’Loughlin is Belfast born and reared. He worked as a youth and community worker in the lower falls road in Belfast in the early 70's. He then worked as a lay apostolate in the British Columbia interior for a number of years before moving to Kingston Ontario in 1989. Tony felt that the huge Irish history in the heart of Loyalist Canada was being ignored and founded the Kingston Irish Folk Club in 1989 and founded the Kingston Irish Famine Commemoration Association in 1995 with the aim of promoting the visible signs of the Irish and promoting all forms of Irish culture. Tony remains the President of both organizations.