"Coffin Ship" was the term used to describe the ships which left our shores horrendously overcrowded with emigrants fleeing the famine. Since 1998, over 170 people meet annually on the second-last Sunday of November to share a sacred yet secular ceremony to mark the Great Famine with the Australian Irish community & descendants. Crafted in bronze by John Behan, the dramatic sculpture depicts a "Coffin Ship" with skeleton bodies in the rigging. Located directly opposite the carpark at the foot of Croagh Patrick, it commands panoramic views over the drumlin landscape of Clew BayCelia Griffin Memorial Park, Claddagh Galway. ", while her children cling to her. In 2013 Hobsons Bay City Council in consultation with Irish Famine Orphan Heritage & Commemoration Day's Debra Vaughan, erected an Irish Famine Orphans Bay Trail Marker, part of a 23 km trail, to tell the local story of the six Earl Grey Scheme Irish Famine Orphan ships which landed approx 1700 teenagers in Williamstown, via Lady Kennaway, Pemberton, New Liverpool, Diadem, Derwent & Eliza Caroline. A second sculpture shows the figures hopeful as they land in Boston.
The dire and unhygienic conditions on board ensured that many did not reach their destination.The National Famine Monument was unveiled in 1997 by President Mary Robinson. In Gaelic on the Famine Rock plaque: God never meant this to happen, that people should wander hungry in the cold.This stark and striking monument in Murrisk is an appropriate commemoration of the millions who perished in the Great Famine over one hundred and fifty years ago.
• In Boston, Massachusetts, a bronze statue located at the corner of Washington and School Streets on the Freedom Trail depicts a starving woman, looking up to the heavens as if to ask "Why?