Tributes paid to victims of the Famine

The victims of the Great Famine were remembered yesterday during a solemn memorial service in Co Louth.

More than 1m people died from starvation and disease and hundreds of thousands emigrated when the potato crop failed during the 1840s.

A minute’s silence was held and a tree planted as part of the National Famine Commemoration in Drogheda — the second largest port of departure for those forced to flee on coffin ships.