The great famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1850 caused the deaths by starvation, or related disease of approximately 1.5 million Irish men, women and children and ranks among the worst tragedies in the sweep of human history.

By 1855 more than 2 million more people had fled Ireland to avoid a similar fate. This decimation of her population makes Ireland's Great Hunger (An Gorta Mor) the worst peroid in the country's history, and arguably, the single worst catastrophe in 19th century Europe.

The Sculpture.

Fred Curtis with over two hundred hours of sculpting and cutting from a solid block of crystal, has captured the surffering and pain of this tragedy.

The young women, her hair blowing in the wind, her face expressionless as all feeling's have been crushed, stand's on the deck of a ship bidding farewell to her beloved Ireland, having lost her family to starvation, now seeks a better life in the New World.

The bust sits on a Dolman (an acent Irish buirel chamber) it's legs not of stone, but of fine marble colems cut into the crystal, repesenting those with power who by their inaction caused this catastrophe, underneath the dolmen at the burial site, is a famine ship at sea, also known as coffen ships because of the many tousands who died on board and never made it to their new life.

The sculpture sits on a base of Irish bog oak, that has been preserved in the bogs of Ireland for thousands of years.