Braendan Ó Caollaí the Irish Ambassador

Ireland and Poland have much in common. Our shared history is enrichened by deep economic, cultural and personal ties, as well as our shared membership of the European Union. Contemporary Irish-Polish relations are dynamic and growing, bolstered in no small part by the vibrant and growing Polish community in Ireland, women and men who have chosen to make Ireland their home and who are making such a vital contribution to Irish society.

In this exhibition we are recognising a special Polish friend of the starving Irish, Pawel Edmund Strezelecki, one of the truly great humanitarians of the nineteenth century. This exhibition tells the intriguing story of Strezelecki, an explorer and geologist by profession, thanks to whose efforts up to 200,000 children were saved from starvation during the great famine of 1840s Ireland.

The speech by the Irish Ambassador. Photo K. Malek

In the Irish language, which was the majority language of many of the regions most impacted, the famine is called an gorta mór – or the great hunger. At the time of an gorta mór Ireland was still an unwilling part of the united kingdom. Many commentators believe that if the British government had reacted earlier and more decisively to avert the worst ravages of the famine, the death toll could have been significantly less than the one million who did die. It would also averted the departure of over 2.i million who were forced to emigrate to the UK, Canada or the United States on what were called the coffin ships.

I would like to quote from the speech of the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins when he opened this exhibition in May 2019 in Dublin, i quote the president: on an occasion like today, at which we discover the detail of his heroic work and formally mark Polish links to the great famine in Ireland, it is important to recall all those who suffered and perished during this most defining event in the making of the contemporary Ireland. That catastrophe in terms of human impact was, as we now recognise is true in all famines, ultimately politicial and economic in its origins. We are morally challenged to reject any suggestion that its human toll was unavoidable, inevitable, or indeed, as some sources put it, an act of God.

Irish Ambassador & Polish Ambassador cutting the ribbon. Photo Kris Malek

But let me revert to the magnificent role of Pawel Strezelecki in helping to mitigate and avert an even greater loss of life than the horrendous death toll actually suffered. Strezelecki was the main agent of the British relief association, the largest private provider of hunger relief during an gorta mór.

Strezelecki developed a visionary and effective mode of assistance; feeding starving Irish children through the schools. He extended daily food rations to schoolchildren across the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland, while also distributing clothing and promoting basic hygiene. At its peak in 1848, around 200,000 children from all religious denominations were being fed, many of whom would otherwise have died from hunger and disease.

Strezelecki remained in Ireland, assisting poor families until 1849, even though he himself was suffering from the effects of typhpoid fever he contracted in Ireland. Strezelecki also helped impoverished Irish families to seek new lives here in Australia where as we know from the earlier unveiling by ambassador he had been an explorer in the years prior to arriving in Ireland. During his three years in Ireland he never sought any remuneration for his work.

Exhibition just opened. Photo Kris Malek

His commitment was widely recognised and praised by his contemporaries, and it was very appropriate that, in may 2015, a plaque honouring Strezelecki’s fantastic contribution was unveiled by the lord mayor of Dublin and the mayor of Poznán City on Sackiville Place in the heart of Dublin city and just across the street from the General Post Office – the scene of the heroic 1916 easter rising which led to an independent Irish state.

On behalf of the people of Ireland and the Irish community in Australia, i wish to thank the ambassador and through the Polish people for Pawel Stezelecki’s service to the Irish nation, and i wish the exhibition every success.

Braendan Ó Caollaí
Ambassador
of the Republic of Ireland in Australia

After the plaque unveiling. From left: Hon. Mark Banasiak, Ambassador O'Caollai, Ambassador Ko³odziejski & Hon. Justin Clancy. Photo KHI

Chatting during rehearsal: ambassador O'Caollai & KHI President Ernestyna Skurjat-Kozek. Photo K. Malek