The 2019 archaeological dig at Pointe-Sainte-Charles – where Irish people fleeing the potato famine were quarantined and, if they didn’t survive, buried – revealed 14 bodies, including seven adults, three teenagers and four children. After two years of analysis, the preliminary results were presented to the Irish community, which found them moving and “incredible,” according to Victor Boyle, president of the Montreal Irish Memorial Park Foundation. Fractures, bacterial infections, chronic illnesses and signs of malnutrition provide a window into the lives of Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s, said bio-archaeologist Marine Puech at the Ethnoscop lab in Boucherville, Que. Puech says most were from rural south-west Ireland and the lab was able to pinpoint their time of death between August and September 1847. Ethnoscop has had the bones for two years. After cleaning them and collecting soil samples, they were able to calculate the sex and age of the individuals and identify pathologies. The results showed unspecified stress and nutritional deficiencies such as iron as well as notable levels of lead. Some diseases, such as typhus, do not leave marks on the bones. However, traces of malnutrition were found, which likely weakened the people and made them more susceptible to disease. Victor Boyle, president of the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation, said the results of the lab have made the remains feel more like people, not just bones. (Rowan Kennedy/CBC) Irish immigrants fleeing the Famine faced poor conditions at home, Puech said, and when they boarded the ships, things did not improve. The ships were often so full that it was not unusual for more than 200 migrants to be in close proximity in wet summers – conditions that could easily spread typhus. Many died at sea or shortly after arrival. “It’s incredible. First they found remains of coffins, artifacts, then bones. But even as bones, they were just bones,” Boyle said. “But to be seen in the lab, these bones are assembled as a complete skeleton, hearing what their diet was, what part of Ireland they probably came from, now there’s a person lying on this table.” Since the site was known, just a few steps away from the Black Rock monument that marks a burial place for some 6,000 people, the Réseau express metropolitain (REM) workers knew they would find remains. The bodies were found in coffins arranged to save space, often stacked on top of each other. The railway workers made sure to remain engaged in dialogue with the Irish community while carrying out their excavations, REM deputy director of environment Elizabeth Boivin said. “We have to be very careful,” he said. “It’s a very sensitive issue.” Montreal’s Irish community insisted for years that the bodies had been buried at the site, but REM digs led to the first exhumations, Boivin said. “I’ve never worked like this, so close to the community,” said Puech, who is happy to “give people a voice.” The labs were surprised by a finding: two of the individuals were probably not from Ireland. The remains will soon be sent to a laboratory in Trois-Rivières where the DNA will be sequenced in the hope of finding living descendants.
