This story was shared by Dave Farrell on Farrell Clan Facebook.
Hi Folks, I thought this might interest the group, given that there’s a Farrell connection. Last weekend, my wife and I visited a little-known memorial in Leadville, CO, created in remembrance of Irish immigrant miners. The Irish government partially funded the monument, which opened to the public in September 2023.
Leadville is high in the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of 10,158 ft. Miners discovered silver there in 1879, and during the peak of the ensuing rush, 3000 Irish emigrants and their families settled in town. Wages were low, and most Irish lived in wretched poverty. When they died, local authorities buried them in unmarked pauper graves in the Catholic section of the local graveyard.
These Irish were largely forgotten until a Denver historian, Jim Walsh, stumbled across them 20 years ago while researching Colorado Irish history. He found a total of 1300 unmarked pauper graves in the Evergreen Cemetery, 80% of which were of Irish immigrants. The average age at death was 22. Most of the dead were women and children. Luckily, the local Catholic parish kept careful records of individual burial locations so Jim could match names to graves after doing extensive ground radar mapping. As a result, we now know there are least six Farrells buried there.
The central sculpture is of a miner on a bent knee facing Ireland. Terry Brennan, an Irish artist, created the sculpture in Ireland and cast it in Colorado. He’s currently working on another dedicated to the Irish women and children in the cemetery.
The Colorado Irish Network plans to add it to the memorial this fall.
Visiting this memorial was a moving experience. It reminded me of how determined the Irish were to find a better life for themselves and their families in a strange, often hostile place. My Farrell ancestors faced similar difficulties living in Boston’s slums during the Famine era and beyond. But they persevered, and that’s why I’m here.
Ní bheidh dearmad déanta oraibh.
