“You can’t even get to the rock unless you take your life in your hands and run across the highway,” said Fergus Keyes, head of the Montreal Irish Park Foundation. When Hydro-Quebec purchased the land near the stone that had been coveted for the park in 2017 for a new substation, the Irish community panicked, Keyes said. But instead, the utility jumped on board as a partner, offering 3.5 acres of land for a future park that will be designed by the city and the Irish community. Donovan King, a historian and tour guide, said the Irish community “chernobyled” when Hydro-Quebec first bought the land. Montreal, which had a population of about 50,000, received 70,000 Irish refugees in 1847 — the equivalent of some 2.4 million refugees today.

Source: National Post March 17, 2019 16:52 UTC