A special event will take place in Carna this weekend to commemorate the Connemara Patch, the area in St. Paul in Minnestota which was home to many emigrants who left Connemara at the end of the 19th Century.
The event will take place at Ionad Cuimhneacháin na nImirceach, The Emigrant Commemorative Centre, in Carna at 7pm on Saturday 20 August and will be broadcast live on the Diaspora na Gaeltachta Facebook page.
Over the years, the Irish community in the Connemara Patch gradually left the area – however some of their descendants remained until the 1950s when many buildings were demolished to make way for the great railroad building project being undertaken in the United States at the time.
Some descendants of the Connemara Patch Irish attended a conference in the Emigrant Centre in Carna in 2019, and it was there that the idea for a commemoration of the Connemara Patch was conceived.
On Saturday evening, the Connemara Patch will be remembered simultaneously in St Paul and in Carna.
Údarás na Gaeltachta are supporting the event which highlights the importance of the Gaeltacht Diaspora and the bond between those who stayed in Ireland and those who left.
